A/HRC/36/37 III. Thematic issues 45. During the reporting period, the Working Group continued to receive communications involving the deprivation of liberty on discriminatory grounds and communications concerning new regimes of deprivation of liberty that arise in different situations and contexts around the world. The Working Group will examine both thematic issues in the following sections. A. Deprivation of liberty on discriminatory grounds 46. As the Working Group has recently clarified in the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on Remedies and Procedures on the Right of Anyone Deprived of Their Liberty to Bring Proceedings Before Court, discrimination in the context of the deprivation of liberty may occur on a variety of grounds that aim at or may result in undermining the equality of human beings. The deprivation of liberty on discriminatory grounds may also occur in relation to a broad range of people, including but not limited to: women and children; persons with disabilities, including psychosocial and intellectual disabilities; human rights defenders and activists; persons engaged in social protest; older persons; indigenous peoples; minorities based on national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons; non-nationals, including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, stateless persons, trafficked persons and those at risk of being trafficked; persons living with HIV/AIDS and other serious communicable or chronic diseases; sex workers; and drug users. 47. During the reporting period, the Working Group continued to receive communications on the deprivation of liberty on discriminatory grounds. It adopted several opinions in which it found that the deprivation of liberty had been arbitrary because it had resulted from the violation of the right to equal protection of the law and freedom from discrimination under article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 26 of the Covenant (category II), and/or it had constituted a violation of international law on prohibited grounds of discrimination (category V). 48. The Working Group has consistently found such discrimination when it is apparent that persons have been deprived of their liberty specifically on the basis of their own or perceived distinguishing characteristics or because of their real or suspected membership of a distinct (and often minority) group. In considering whether the source of a communication has demonstrated a prima facie case of deprivation of liberty on discriminatory grounds, the Working Group takes into account a number of factors, including whether: (a) The deprivation of liberty was part of a pattern of persecution against the detained person (e.g. a person was targeted on multiple occasions through previous detention, acts of violence or threats); (b) Other persons with similarly distinguishing characteristics have also been persecuted (e.g. several members of a particular ethnic group are detained for no apparent reason, other than their ethnicity); (c) The authorities have made statements to, or conducted themselves toward, the detained person in a manner that indicates a discriminatory attitude (e.g. female detainees threatened with rape or forced to undergo virginity testing, or a detainee is held in worse conditions or for a longer period than other detainees in similar circumstances); (d) The context suggests that the authorities have detained a person on discriminatory grounds or to prevent them from exercising their human rights (e.g. political 18