A/HRC/16/7 Members of Their Families, although the Government was working to complete all the national formalities for accession. 27. Maldives stated that it did not have any current plans to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the death penalty, while noting that it had a long-standing moratorium on that penalty. 28. Maldives was committed to ratifying the eight core conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as soon as possible. Since joining ILO in May last year, it had worked closely with the ILO secretariat to strengthen social protection and to prepare the ground for ratification. 29. Maldivian law did not provide for freedom of religion, although in practice foreigners were allowed to practice religions other than Islam in private. 30. Maldives maintained a reservation to article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and there were no plans to withdraw it. There was strong public support for Maldives being, and remaining, a 100 per cent Muslim country. Indeed, the advent of democracy, with greater freedom of expression and the diluting of central control over cultural matters, had intensified moves away from freedom of religion. This was evident in the new draft regulations on religious unity and a private member’s bill in Parliament on banning non-Muslim places of worship. 31. Maldives, a country with a long and tragic history of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was one of the original 20 States parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture; the first country in Asia to ratify, and one of the first countries to establish, a national preventive mechanism; and one of the first countries to receive the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture. 32. Those international efforts had been translated into real on-the-ground progress. Maldives’ national preventive mechanism was one of the most active in the world, and a new prison and parole bill, which was expected to be submitted shortly, would completely modernize and rationalize Maldives’ detention system, placing a much higher emphasis on rehabilitation and providing for the implementation of a large number of the recommendations made by the Subcommittee after its visit late in 2007. 33. While there were no plans to abolish flogging, the Government was concerned that the punishment was applied in a discriminatory manner, with women far more likely to be flogged than men. The Government was willing to consider ways to address the issue, including the possibility of a moratorium, and intended to consult with Parliament on it. 34. There were no plans in Maldives to promote gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. 35. Nearly all the recommendations issued by the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers had been implemented. One area identified by the Special Rapporteur that remained a serious concern was the level of training and qualification of judges. This was difficult for the Government to address without encroaching on the independence of the Bar. B. Interactive dialogue and responses by the State under review 36. Algeria indicated that it had closely followed Maldives’ transition to democracy and its progress in that regard. It welcomed recent cooperation between Maldives and human rights mechanisms, and expressed appreciation for the country’s efforts to achieve Millennium Development Goals, as well as the improvement in social indicators, notably in public health. Algeria noted that Maldives had continued to intensify efforts to lessen the 6