A/HRC/4/20 page 5 of those appeals shows that they involved 336 males, 55 females, more than 1,087 persons whose sex was unknown, 53 minors, 58 members of religious, ethnic or indigenous minorities, 22 human rights defenders, 36 migrants and 16 journalists. More than 145 persons were killed for exercising their freedom of opinion and expression, 4 were killed in the name of honour, 4 were killed for their sexual orientation and 19 of those killed were suspected terrorists. 9. Overall, the proportion of government replies received to communications sent during the period under review remains low: an average of 47.9 per cent. (However, if government replies received during the period under review but relating to communications sent during the previous period are included, the proportion of communications to which replies were received rises to 55.3 per cent.) This means that, as during the previous year, roughly half of the communications sent drew no response from the Government concerned within a reasonable time period. As indicated in my previous report, this response rate must be considered problematic, particularly in the case of a long-established procedure that addresses an issue as grave as the alleged violations of the right to life. B. Visits 1. Visits undertaken in 2006 10. During the course of 2006, I undertook two visits: (a) Guatemala. I visited Guatemala from 21 to 25 August 2006 at the invitation of its Government and met with government officials and members of civil society. In Guatemala, over 5,000 people die violently each year. A degree of State responsibility derives from the involvement of its agents in some forms of violence and its ineffectual response to others. During my visit, I gathered evidence on the prevalence and causes of phenomena such as social cleansing, “femicide”, lynching, killings motivated by sexual orientation or identity, the killing of human rights defenders and prison violence. Guatemala’s choice is between a human rights-consistent approach based on a working system of criminal justice (and in line with the vision of the Peace Accords) or a brutal and repressive response, often advocated under the rubric of a mano dura (iron fist), to crack down on “undesirable” elements. My report is in document A/HRC/4/20/Add.2. (b) Lebanon and Israel. I undertook a joint visit with the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, the Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights of internally displaced persons and the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. We visited Lebanon from 7 to 10 September and Israel from 10 to 14 September 2006. Our report (A/HRC/2/7) found that, in many instances, Israel had violated human rights and humanitarian law by failing to fully distinguish between military and civilian objectives, to fully apply the principle of proportionality, and to take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian injury and damage. With respect to Hezbollah, our report found that it had violated humanitarian law by targeting civilian populations and by disregarding the principle of distinction.4