The Russian Federation’s report on the situation with discrimination and an alternative report by Russian NGOs were presented at the UN

On July 31 and August 4, 2008, at the 73rd session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the combined 18th and 19th periodic reports of Russia on the implementation of the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), covering period from February 2002 to July 2006 - the text of the official report is posted on the CERD website (see link above, see next to the flag and country name, PDF format).

The Russian delegation, headed by Deputy Minister of Regional Development Maxim Travnikov, included 19 people representing the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Rossvyazokhrankultura and the Prosecutor General's Office.

In accordance with the UN procedure, an alternative report was also submitted to CERD, prepared by the Memorial Human Rights Center and the SOVA Information and Analytical Center with the participation of the Civic Assistance Committee (Moscow), the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Moscow), the Association of Indigenous Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation, the Foundation "For Civil Society" (Moscow), the Foundation "Tajikistan" (Moscow), the Anti-Discrimination Center "Memorial" (St. Petersburg). In total, more than 30 Russian NGOs supported the alternative report.

Unfortunately, due to inconsistencies in schedules, the representatives of the HRC "Memorial" and the "Sova" Center were unable to take part in the preliminary meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Regional Development, organized on July 21 by the Center for Interethnic Cooperation.

The alternative report was circulated to the members of the Committee and presented at a briefing held at the Palais Wilson on 31 July 2008 prior to the consideration of Russia's official report. The briefing was attended by Alexander Osipov (HRC "Memorial"), Galina Kozhevnikova (Center "SOVA"), Yuri Dzhibladze and Anna Sevortyan (Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights), Elena Ryabinina (Committee "Civic Assistance"), Olga Abramenko and Marina Arefieva (Anti-Discrimination Center "Memorial", St. Petersburg), Pavel Sulyandziga (Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of Russia) and Gulvaira Shermatova (Information and Educational Network of Indigenous Peoples "Lyoravetlian" ). The briefing was attended by several members of the Committee, including Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos, rapporteur on Russia, who asked a number of questions clarifying the position of Russian NGOs and clarifying the fundamental differences between the official and alternative report.

The official report of the Russian Federation, with clarifications and additions as of mid-2008, was presented at the CERD afternoon meeting on 31 July. The main attention of the speaker, head of the Russian delegation M. Travnikov, was given to answers to the committee's preliminary questions related to the application of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the growth of racist violence, and the use of hate speech in Russian public and political space.

Representatives of Russia noted that international conventions for Russian law enforcement are documents of direct effect and are directly applied in courts, that the state sees the education of tolerance (in the form of holding interethnic festivals, etc.) as one of the methods of counteracting xenophobia, that the prosecution of racist violence it was practically impossible before serious amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation were introduced in August 2007 (which is at least inaccurate in essence and contradicts the theses of the official report itself), etc.

After the speech of the head of the Russian delegation, the official rapporteur for Russia Mr. Sicilianos and members of the Committee asked the Russian delegation a number of questions. In particular, they were interested in specific examples of the application of the relevant Convention (ICERD) in Russian courts, statistics of court sentences for racist violence and official statistics of victims of such violence, problems associated with xenophobic manifestations by the Cossacks, and ethnic discrimination against the Meskhetian Turks, the problem destruction of Roma settlements and segregation of Roma children in schools, as well as a complex of problems related to the protection of small indigenous peoples.

During the discussion, the members of the Committee demonstrated a high level of awareness and keen emotional interest in the problems of racism and ethnic discrimination in the Russian Federation. We would like to note the extremely emotional speech of one of the members of the Committee, who asked how a foreign student coming to Russia can feel safe if he is given a brochure "Protect Yourself" upon arrival - an example cited by the Russian delegation as a positive experience in the fight against racism .

On August 4, 2008, the second meeting of the Russian Report Review Committee was held, and the Russian delegation answered the questions posed on the first day of the report's consideration. It should be noted the non-confrontational approach of the Russian delegation to the opinion of Russian NGOs, which was quoted by the members of the Committee.

Members of the Committee could not receive satisfactory answers to some of the questions asked. For example, the 1992 episode was named as the only example of the direct effect of the relevant Convention, with a further explanation that such statistics are not kept in Russia even at the level of decisions of the Supreme Court (but even without statistics it is known that direct references to conventions and even to the Constitution are rare in judicial practice). The Russian delegation was also unable to answer questions about the scope of racist violence and the number of convictions in such cases, since the current record-keeping system does not allow one to single out such convictions from the total number of "anti-extremist" cases, which include a wide variety of manifestations, including those that are not illegal at all. essence.

The Russian delegation provided more detailed answers to CERD questions in writing. In writing, the conclusion of CERD is also expected this month.

Following the consideration of the report, representatives of Russian NGOs held a press conference in Geneva, at which they outlined the main sore points associated with manifestations of racism and discrimination, as well as with the position of Russian NGOs in modern Russia. We also managed to organize several working meetings with representatives of various UN structures.

The text of the alternative report will be published on our website in the coming days in Russian and English.

Below we provide only a very brief summary of this report.

The joint report of non-governmental organizations is devoted to the situation in 2003-2008. The situation in the country changed dynamically during these years, and the general trends were to strengthen the factors that promote discrimination and reduce the conditions for counteracting it.

The scale and severity of the problems of racial violence, all forms of discrimination and hate speech have increased dramatically. Racial discrimination in various forms and manifestations increasingly received public approval, including from representatives of the state, and hate speech, which was previously the lot of marginal authors and organizations, began to be perceived as something acceptable.

In the Russian legal system, as before, there are a number of mechanisms to counteract racial discrimination and incitement to ethnic hatred. The Constitution guarantees equality of rights and freedoms, and these provisions are reproduced in the current legislation. The Constitution and legislation generally guarantee the possibility of judicial protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen. In 2003, a definition of discrimination formally appeared in federal legislation, although it does not comply with the requirements of the Convention.

In practice, the activity of the state in counteracting racial violence and hate speech has noticeably increased. Senior officials made a number of statements acknowledging and condemning the problem of mass ethnically motivated violence and incitement of hatred. Significantly increased the number of criminal cases on charges of inciting racial, ethnic and religious hatred and violent crimes motivated by such hatred. State bodies are increasingly using the possibility of suspending or terminating the activities of the media or non-profit organizations for using hate speech.

True, the concept of this activity of the state has changed significantly. It is defined as "countering extremist activity" and developed solely as a fight against "extremism", which politicizes the problem, leads to selective and arbitrary application of legislation and shifts the focus of prevention and elimination of discrimination from protecting the rights and dignity of individuals to combating those who the state considers its enemy.

This undermines the effectiveness of potentially strong mechanisms to counter racial violence and hate speech. An even greater negative role is played by the ambiguous position of the state, which encourages many manifestations of radical nationalism and racial discrimination.

A number of positive changes should be noted. The situation in the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict has significantly improved; the problem of Ingush displaced persons came close to being solved. The scale of fabrication of criminal cases by planting drugs or ammunition against representatives of certain minorities has been significantly reduced. As a positive phenomenon, one can hardly assess the disappearance of discrimination in the granting of refugee and forced migrant statuses, since the state has practically stopped granting such statuses. Also a dubious achievement is the reduction of the scale of the problem of Meskhetian Turks in the Krasnodar Territory, since this happened due to the departure of the majority of the region's Turks to the United States.

However, most of the problems that existed in the previous period remained unresolved. As before, for the most part, in reality, the legal mechanisms for combating discrimination are weak and ineffective. The possibility of their use exists more in theory than in established practice. This is due to a number of circumstances, including an imbalance of substantive and procedural legal norms, shortcomings in the current regulatory legal acts, and a lack of relevant law enforcement experience, including judicial practice.

A significant factor is the lack of official and public interest in the problems of combating discrimination and the general lack of demand for the relevant legal mechanisms. The state and society are interested only in attacks on public order and the stability of the political system, but not on the rights and dignity of individuals. The state prefers to formulate problems, if not in the categories of "countering extremism", then in the categories of "interethnic conflict" and "regulation of migration", thereby ignoring and closing the topic of discrimination.

In general, it can be noted that the state does not make sufficient efforts to effectively combat discrimination and to create appropriate mechanisms for this. On the contrary, state authorities systematically discriminate against certain categories of the population on ethnic grounds or encourage discrimination. Outside of Chechnya, Chechens are subjected to systematic discrimination, persecution and restrictions on their rights. Of particular concern is the nationwide campaign of persecution of Georgian citizens and ethnic Georgians. A serious problem is the discriminatory treatment of ethnic minorities, mainly people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as Roma, by law enforcement agencies. In fact, a state-initiated anti-migrant campaign is being conducted in the country, which results in arbitrary administrative restrictions on the rights of foreigners or even Russian citizens and makes a great contribution to the overall growth of xenophobia. Since 2005, a wave of liquidation of Roma settlements and evictions of Roma has passed through the country. The existing legislation on the legal status of foreign citizens, registration at the place of residence and stay, despite some improvements, encourages discriminatory behavior of performers.

Sources

• Page of the 73rd session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination //
• Is there racial discrimination in Russia? // Website of the Center for Interethnic Cooperation. 2008. 24 July.