Anti-migrant hate speech was discussed in Cheboksary

On June 8, 2007, a round table was held in Cheboksary to discuss anti-migrant hate speech.

The round table was organized by the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, with the assistance of the Cheboksary Club of Civic Education (headed by Sergey Chekushkin). Arkady Leibovsky (CRHDHR) and Galina Kozhevnikova (SOVA Center) took part in the workshop as experts. The round table was attended by journalists, representatives of state bodies, leaders of national communities and communities - more than 20 people in total.

Arkady Leibovsky drew the attention of those present to the fact that the coverage of migration in the media is reduced to comparing it with a natural disaster: "Reading that" waves of migration flooded ..." "migrants are eroding foundations" and similar passages, you begin to wonder why migrants the FMS is in charge, not the Ministry of Emergency Situations ," he said.

Such coverage of migration processes not only replaces the necessary serious discussion in the media of the problems of the socialization of migrants, their adaptation to local conditions - i.e. problems, on the solution of which the comfort of not only the migrants themselves, but also the inhabitants of the receiving region depends, but also whips up mass hysteria in society. In fact, migrants are made responsible for all the negative phenomena taking place in Russia - from a high crime rate to a non-functioning housing and communal services.

Galina Kozhevnikova's report noted the latest tendencies related to the ethnicization of the concept of "migrant", with the denial of citizenship on ethnic grounds becoming more and more frequent.

One of the leading Chuvash journalists, Alexander Belov (Sovetskaya Chuvashiya newspaper), noted that journalists should not be held responsible for mass xenophobic sentiments, since the latter are only a mirror reflecting the mood of society, and not an instrument that shapes them.

Further, there was a discussion of the situation related to the coverage of the problems of migration and interethnic relations in the Republic of Chuvashia, during which, in particular, it turned out that even with an extremely low level of hate speech in the regional media, it still occurs, moreover, as in the federal media is the result, rather, not of malicious intent and a deliberate desire to discredit any of the ethnic groups, but of the negligence of journalists, which they sometimes simply do not notice. And most often hate speech appears in the criminal chronicle.

An active discussion was aroused by the question of the need to develop mechanisms for the formation of civic consciousness of Russians, which, unfortunately, practically do not exist now. At the same time, the participants in the discussion came to the conclusion that the rejection of unjustified attention to ethnicity, as a rule, allows more substantive coverage of the essence of a significant range of problems. For example, representatives of all ethnic groups are equally faced with the difficulties of obtaining Russian citizenship - after all, this does not depend on ethnicity, but on the imperfection of the legislation.