Much of the division’s U.N. advocacy included consultation and coordination with local and international human rights NGOs on submissions to U.N. committees, working groups, and special rapporteurs. In March we submitted to the Commission on Human Rights a memorandum detailing Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations against migrant workers, and recommending a joint investigation by the U.N. special rapporteurs on racism and violence against women. In a separate submission to the commission, we urged the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression to investigate the situation in Bahrain. In May we submitted to the U.N. Committee against Torture a memorandum urging the committee to review Israel’s practice of administrative detention and hostage-taking—holding individuals as “bargaining chips,” in the words of the Israeli Supreme Court ruling—as a violation of the Convention Against Torture. At the July session of the U.N. Human Rights Committee, we submitted a memorandum rebutting the reports submitted to the committee by the Algerian and Israeli governments, and in August we published reports analyzing the committee’s conclusions and recommendations on both countries. When U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Iran for the November 1997 Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting, we presented him with a summary of human rights concerns to raise with the authorities, including freedom of expression and the situation of religious and ethnic minorities. In February the Iranian government denied Human Rights Watch permission to participate in a U.N. workshop on human rights held in Tehran.