Recommendations of SOVA Center for EU-Russia consultations in Vienna

*SOVA Center attended a meeting with EC representatives in Vienna on 2 March; the meeting was associated with the third round of the EU-Russia consultations on human rights. Unfortunately, Russian diplomats did not attend the meeting (details of the meeting can be found on Demos Centre website in Russian only).

We handed over to the EU representatives a short version of SOVA's most recent annual report on hate crime and state measures to combat xenophobia.

The report includes SOVA's recommendations addressed to Russian authorities and prepared specifically for this meeting.

These recommendations are published here:*

1. There is a need for effective monitoring of xenophobic manifestations, using a methodology agreed by all stakeholders - the authorities concerned, including prosecutors, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Culture and mass communications, and NGOs. The monitoring should include the collection of good quality statistics on application of laws in this sphere.

A methodology can be promptly developed at working meetings of government department concerned, NGOs, the ombudsman, and The Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President (CSIHRC). Then a plan of actions can be agreed, including:

• the appointment of a governmental institution responsible for monitoring this sphere;

• mutual commitment of information sharing between government departments and NGOs;

• the drafting of an annual report by the authorized governmental institution in collaboration with the NGOs involved in the monitoring effort; the report should follow certain standards, ideally to be agreed with the OSCE or the Council of Europe.

• There is a need for developing additional guidelines for the Ministry of Interior agencies, prosecutors and courts concerning the application of effective laws with regard to hate crimes. Such guidelines could be drafted by the Ministry of Interior, the Prosecutor General's Office, and the Supreme Court based on the first findings of the mentioned monitoring, in collaboration with NGOs concerned, the ombudsman, and CSIHRC.

Public consultations would contribute to such recommendations and help improve them. Due to obvious difficulty of applying the law, it would be helpful to set up a database of judgments, including both convictions and acquittals, on racist crimes and hate speech offences, with a detailed description of the incidents (and the offensive texts in case of hate speech).

Existing instruments should be used to a full extent, such as the OSCE law enforcement officer training program on combating hate crimes.

1. Unjustified and unreasonable toughening of legislation should be avoided. An example is the recent amendment package prepared in the Duma. Tougher laws do not help solve the problems, but are likely to cause new ones if excessively applied.

On the contrary, it makes sense to review the current legislation, in particular the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity, and define the forbidden activities in a more narrow and concrete manner. This improvement would ultimately make the law work and avoid its excessively broad and selective application.

Amending the current legislation requires serious and open discussion involving, in addition to law enforcement authorities, NGOs concerned, the ombudsman, and CSIHRC.