Compliance of the Russian
Federation with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination
An NGO report to the
UN Committee on Elimination of
Racial Discrimination
(62nd session,
March 2003)
Moscow
December 2002
This report
includes an NGO alternative report to the CERD, an NGO comments on the Russian
official report submitted to the CERD and three Annexes, describing in more
details current Russian passport system and situation of two especially
vulnerable ethnic groups: Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai of the Russian
Federation and Chechens across Russia.
It was
prepared by the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' (Russia) in collaboration with
the Russian NGOs Network against Racism. The report was endorsed by the
Council of the Russian NGOs Network against Racism on 3 January 2003.
LIST OF RUSSIAN NGOs AND
INDEPENDENT BODIES ENDORSING THE REPORT.
(on 31 January 2003)
Center for the Development of
Democracy and Human Rights (Moscow)
The Centre for Independent Social Research (Saint
Petersburg)
Center for Pontic and Caucasian Research
(Krasnodar)
Charity autonomous non-commercial organization Harold & Selma Light
Center for Human Rights Advocacy (Saint Petersburg)
The
Citizens’ Watch (Saint Petersburg)
The 'Civic Assistance' Committee
(Moscow)
Civic Education Club of the Creative Union 'Southern Wave' (Krasnodar)
Commission on Human Rights under the President of the Chuvash Republic
(Cheboksary)
Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of
Roma
The Foundation 'For Civil Society'
(Moscow)
The Human Rights Committee of Republic of Tatarstan (Kazan)
Human Rights and Enlightenment Group 'Reverse Connection' (Moscow)
The Independent Commission on Human Rights under the Chuvash National
Congress (Cheboksary)
The Independent Human Rights Commission 'Sozidaniye' (the Chuvash
Republic, Cheboksary)
The Moscow Helsinki Group
The Moscow Independent Public Library (Moscow)
The Novorossiisk Human Rights
Committee (Novorossiisk)
Pskov Regional NGO 'Pskov Faraway Province'
Public Foundation for the Support to Women Movement in the Republic of
Tatarstan 'Siuyumbike' (Kazan)
Regional Public Foundation
'Tadjikistan' (Moscow)
Regional Public Organisation 'Nur' (Moscow)
Regional Public Organisation 'Pamir' (Moscow)
Regional Public Organisation for Support to Refugees 'Inson' (Moscow)
Regional Public Organisation 'Vatan' (Moscow)
The 'Romano Kher' Society (Moscow)
The School of Peace (Novorossisk)
SOVA Information and Analysis and
Center (Moscow)
The 'Tolerance' Foundation (Moscow)
The Tomsk Human Rights Commission
(Tomsk)
The Tomsk Regional Anti-Fascist
Committee (Tomsk)
Union of the Internet Operators and Users (Kazan)
The Youth Center for Human Rights and
Legal Culture (Moscow)
Content
Executive summary............................................................................................................................................................... 5
A Russian NGO alternative report to the CERD............................................................................................... 6
Part I. General background information and preliminary
remarks.............................................. 6
The state of former Soviet nationals and the new Russian legislation on
foreigners.... 8
Part II. Information relating to Articles 2-7 of the
ICERD.................................................................... 12
Privileges granted to member of the Cossack movement............................................................................................ 19
Article 4 (c)............................................................................................................................................................................ 33
Article 5 (a)........................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Part III. Questions and recommendations......................................................................................................... 45
Education and training...................................................................................................................................................... 47
ANNEX 1.
COMMENTS ON THE RUSSIAN OFFICIAL
REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE CERD.............................. 48
ANNEX 2. THE RUSSIAN PASSPORT SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS............................................................................. 54
ANNEX 3. THE
SITUATION OF MESKHETIAN TURKS IN KRASNODAR KRAI OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION 57
Annex 4. The situation of Chechens across Russia...................................................................................... 66
There are a number of mechanisms
for combating racial discrimination and incitement of ethnic hatred in the
Russian legal system. The 1993 Constitution guarantees the equality of rights
and freedoms, and these guarantees are reproduced in the current legislation.
The Constitution and laws guarantee judicial protection of human and civil
rights. Actually the available legal remedies against discrimination and racist
propaganda are weak and ineffective. The opportunity to employ them exists
rather in theory than in established practice. This can be explained by
different factors, including the disparity of substantive and procedural legal
norms, drawbacks of the legislative acts in force, the lack of judicial and enforcement
practice. One should also emphasise the lack of juridical and political will of
the law enforcement agencies. Besides, the existent civil legislation provides
for the defence of a definite violated right, but in practice discrimination as
such is not being considered in court. Neither the Constitution nor the
legislation contains any definition of discrimination. A significant factor is
also the lack of official and public interest to the very issue of combating
ethnic discrimination and the lack of public requirement for the corresponding
legal mechanisms. The state prefers to address the problems in the terms of
'interethnic conflict', 'regulation of migration', 'tolerance' and 'fight
against extremism', hence to neglect and hide the theme of discrimination.
In the recent years, there have
been positive changes in the legislation and judicial practice. In particular,
one should emphasise the new Labour Code of the Russian Federation, which took
effect in February 2002. It establishes the remedies against discrimination on
every stage of employment. The government undertakes some measures for the
protection of vulnerable social categories. One should highlight in this
respect the measures taken under the 1991 RF Law 'On the Rehabilitation of the
Repressed Peoples' and the 1999 Federal Law 'On the Guarantees of the Rights of
Small Indigenous Peoples'. The Federal Law 'On the Counteraction to Extremist
Activities', adopted in July 2002, provides for the governmental bodies simple
and strong remedies to suppress activities, which the state would consider
'extremist'. In 2002, the government
demonstrated a willingness to actively combat extreme nationalist and racist
organisations. Adoption of the federal programme on the promotion of tolerance
and prevention of extremism for 2001-2005 also deserves a positive judgement.
Nevertheless, one can conclude
that the state does not take sufficient efforts to effectively combat
discrimination and to establish relevant remedies. On the contrary,
governmental bodies systematically discriminate on ethnic ground against
certain categories of population or encourage discrimination. The authorities
of Krasnodar Krai with direct support of the federal government conduct the
policies of persecution against the Meskhetian Turks and try to squeeze them
out of Russia. Ethnic Chechens are systematically discriminated against and
subjected to restriction of rights throughout the entire country; the deepest
concern in this respect is caused by the fabrication of criminal accusation
against people of Chechen origin. A significant problem is also discriminatory
treatment of law-enforcement agencies towards ethnic minorities, first of all,
people originating from the Caucasus and Central Asia as well as towards the
Roma. The existing legislation on registration by place of residence and
sojourn, on refugees and forced migrants encourages discriminatory behaviour of
the enforcing agencies and officials. The government provides for direct
support and a number of privileges to extreme nationalist organisations, which
call themselves 'Cossacks', although these groups are responsible for some
large violent actions against ethnic minorities.
One should state that the general
situation is negatively affected by still unchanged fundament of the Soviet
passport system. The latter remains the main tool of racial discrimination and
a pre-requisite for most discriminatory practices. The change of regulations
concerning the position of former Soviet nationals in Russia and later adoption
of the new Federal Law 'On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian
Federation' in July 2002 deprive most of the former citizens who reside in
Russia lawfully of any legal status. Since most of them belong to ethnic
minorities, this makes them victims of discriminatory treatment and the
campaign of persecutions.
A Russian NGO alternative
report to the CERD
1. This report was compiled by the Human Rights
Centre 'Memorial' (Moscow) in collaboration with the International League for
Human Rights, Anti-Defamation League - Russia (Moscow), Centre for the
Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Moscow), Centre for Pontic &
Caucasian Research (Krasnodar), the 'Civic Assistance' Committee (Moscow),
Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Roma (Moscow), Information and Research
Centre 'Panorama' (Moscow), International Society of the Meskhetian Turks 'Vatan'
(Moscow - Krasnodar), the Moscow Helsinki Group, Novorossiisk Committee for
Human Rights (Novorossiisk).
2. The report addresses the situation during
1996 - 2001, i.e. the period, covered by the Russian Federation's 15, 16 and 17
periodical reports (submitted to the CERD as a consolidated report), and also
new developments in 2002. The authors of this NGO report welcome the official
report and share many of its evaluations and conclusions. We agree that some
positive changes in the national legislation have taken place within the recent
years and that the government has started to combat extreme racist activities
in a more active way. However, the given NGO report is alternative to the
official one. We did not determine our objective as a confrontation with the
official position or refutation of the governmental information or conclusions.
The goal of the report was to present the views on the situation different from
the official ones and to employ alternative sources of information. We also tried
to avoid duplication of the data used in the official report.
3. Compiling the report, the authors employed
the following sources of information: complaints of the people who considered
themselves victims of racial discrimination and addressed human rights NGOs,
judicial and administrative cases entailed from these complaints, regular
monitoring data, analysis of the domestic legislation and judicial practice,
official statistics (when available), official statements and responses to the
parliament deputies and NGOs inquires, mass media publications[1]. The available data enables us to state that the legislative,
administrative and judicial mechanisms of combating racial discrimination in
Russia are ineffective; in a number of situations the Russian Federation is
egregiously violating its obligations under the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The Russian
Federation is inadequately implementing ICERD, and is not taking the necessary
measures envisioned in the Convention, which under current conditions could be
implemented.
Part I. General background information and preliminary
remarks.
Role of the federative system.
4. Russia consists of 89 constituent units
(subjects of the federations, or, colloquially, regions). In accordance with
the Constitution, they are equal in their relations with the federal government
and exercise a certain degree of political, legislative and administrative
autonomy. In real politics, some regions gain a higher degree of autonomy than
it is envisaged in the Constitution, Legislative, executive and judicial bodies
of the constituent units (subjects of the federation) systematically violate
the Constitution, federal laws and international obligations of the country.
Regional authorities often practise active promotion or toleration of blatant
racial discrimination or instigation to violence and racial exclusion. The
federal state government in practice neglects many opportunities of influencing
the regions. However, the contradictions between the federal and regional governments
in the area of human rights protection shall not be overestimated. In
2000-2001, the federal government conducted a campaign on bringing the regional
laws and other legal acts in line with the RF Constitution and the federal
legislation. Although, many regional laws have been changed, some legislative
acts negatively affecting human rights and leading to racial discrimination
remained untouched. For instance, the regional laws of Moscow and Moscow oblast
(province), restricting the right to free choice of place of stay and
residence, were gradually brought in line with the federal acts but later
replaced by the new, also restrictive ones. The Rostov oblast (province),
Krasnodar Krai (territory) and Kabardino-Balkarian Republic preserved their restrictive
laws and regulation on residence registration. In 2002, Krasnodar and Stavropol Krais have adopted new laws,
violating the right to free choice of the place of residence and stay.
5. In many cases the federal organs of state
power not only neglect violations of the law by the regional authorities, but
demonstrate solidarity with such actions as well. These manifestations of
support have become more frequent in 1999-2002. In all cases of deliberate
large-scale campaigns of persecutions against certain ethnic minorities (like
the cases of Chechens and Meskhetian Turks), there have been no discord between
the federal and regional governments.
Passport system as the basic instrument of
discrimination and basic mechanism leading to discriminatory practices
6. The Russian passport system, a slightly
modified Soviet passport system, is one of the major instruments of ethnic
discrimination in public sphere and the source of the most acute problems in
this area.
7. Russian nationals as well as foreigners are
legally obliged to register themselves by the place of their permanent
residence and temporary stay. Under the Russian federal law, the registration
though being obligatory is of a notifying character. The latter results from
Article 27 of the RF Constitution, which guarantees for everyone who stays
legally in the Russian Federation the right to move freely and choose the place
of residence and stay. Registration legally is not a circumstance that creates
rights or duties under the legislation in force; that means that registration
or its absence may not constitute either a restriction or precondition for
exercise of the rights and freedoms. Absence of registration constitutes an
administrative infringement with no other legal consequences for a person.
8. In reality the system of registration
functions in a different way, creating prerequisites for human and civil rights
violations (for more details see Annex 2). In practice, residence and sojourn
registration restricts the right to freedom of movement and choice of place of
residence. There are a number of formal and informal restrictions on the both
types of registration, created by direct official prescriptions or by technical
limitations. Registration actually becomes a precondition for exercise of the
basic rights and freedoms. The system also requires an active repressive system
of police control, and it contributes to human rights violations as well.
9. In practice, the institution of
registration technically becomes a condition for the citizens to enjoy their
rights: acquisition of the citizenship and formalities in this connection; employment;
marriage registration; participation in elections; medical care; higher and
occasionally even secondary education; pensions and allowances. A citizen
cannot receive a passport without a registration either when he or she reaches
the age of 14 years, or in case of loss or damage, cannot pay taxes, register a
vehicle, obtain drivers licence, etc. As a common practice, a person cannot
bring an action before a court of justice if he/she has no passport. Often
judges refuse to process a lawsuit if the plaintiff has no residence
registration.
10. The institution of registration by place of
stay may function only on condition of support from a strict police control
system and severe sanctions for the absence of registration, since there is, in
principle, no other motivation but the punishment for a citizen to get a
registration. 'Controlling the fulfilment of the requirements of the 'passport
(registration) regime' has become one of the main goals and main activities of
the police. Respective measures include checking up personal identity papers
and registration certificates and searching the premises, where unregistered
persons might live.
11. All these kinds of restrictions and control
to a substantial degree are targeting ethnic minorities originating from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, both from the North Caucasus within the RF and
from the independent states of the South Caucasus, as well as the Roma people.
12. The institution of residence and sojourn
registration is conductive to ethnic discrimination of three types:
1) The system provides for a
series of distinct and concealed pretexts to deny the registration both by the
place of residence and stay. Under certain circumstances the local authorities
may refuse to register the persons of one ethnic group and to give advantages
in the registration to the persons of another ethnic group, restricting the
registration for the others.
2) Absence of registration is
used as a pretext for the restriction of certain civil rights, and sometimes
those restrictions are of a selective character and are based on ethnicity.
3)
The control of the registration regime may be, and as a rule is, of a selective
character too. In particular, as a rule, passports of those people who are
physically different from the majority are checked up in the streets more
frequently than of the others.
13. Though in 2000-2001 the legislation of many
Russian regions has been brought in line with the federal laws, the practice of
registration and control over registration remain discriminatory and repressive
and even become stricter.
14. Besides, strict police control and official
statements against so-called 'illegal migrants' (i.e. people without
registration) entail other forms of everyday discrimination and exclusion.
People avoid contacts with those who are supposed to be a target for police and
administrative checks, primarily with people originating from the Caucasus and
with the Roma. They are often denied housing and other services, they are less
likely to be hired and more likely to be fired.
The state of former Soviet nationals and the new
Russian legislation on foreigners
15. The situation with ethnic discrimination and
hate speech in Russia to a significant degree is determined by the state of
former Soviet nationals who actually reside in the RF.
16. After the Soviet Union's breakdown, the USSR
Law 'On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the USSR' of 1981 could not be
automatically extended onto the former Soviet nationals who stayed in Russia
but were not Russian citizens. It was not applied to the CIS nationals and
citizens of the former USSR (stateless persons). Then, their status remained
unclear until adoption of the Federal Law 'On the Legal Status of Foreign
Citizens in the Russian Federation' of July 2002 (went into force on 1 November
2002).
17. The CIS nationals and former Soviet citizens
(except for citizens of the Baltic States, since 1999 Turkmenistan and since
2001 Georgia) enjoy the right of free entry into the RF territory without visas
or any other permissions. Until 2001, the term of stay in Russia was not also
restricted for them. The same rules of registration by place of residence and
stay were applicable to them as to Russian citizens.
18. According to Article 62, par. 3 of the RF
Constitution, foreign citizens and stateless persons in the Russian Federation
enjoy rights and bear responsibilities on an equal basis with the citizens of
the Russian Federation, except for cases established by federal law or an
international treaty. Consequently, the lack of legislative restrictions mean
that former Soviet nationals in the RF had to enjoy basic rights civil and
social rights on equal footing with Russian citizens. Until adoption of the new
law on foreigners in 2002, no one law in the RF contained a general restriction
of foreigners' labour rights. There is the President's Decree on licensing
employment of foreigners from 16 December 1993. The Decree determines the
order, but not the legal ground for permission-based employment. However, human
and civil rights (including labour rights) can be restricted in accordance with
the RF Constitution (Art. 55, part 3) only by a federal law. The 1981 Soviet
law on foreigners did not limit foreigners' labour rights. Besides, the
President's Decree of 16 December 1993 lost effect when the Constitution took
effect on 25 December 1993.
19. Since 2000, substantial and drastic changes
have been taking place in the Russia's migration policies. In 2000, visa regime
was introduced for citizens of the former USSR who resided in Latvia and Estonia,
in March 2001 - for nationals of Georgia. On 31 December 2000, item 'd' of
Article 18 of the Russian citizenship law expired and citizens of the former
USSR lost the right to acquire Russian citizenship under a simplified
procedure. At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that
the status of 'citizen of the former USSR' was nullified.
20. CIS nationals and citizens of the former
Soviet Union were equated with visitors from outside the CIS by the unpublished
Ministry of Internal Affairs Instruction No. 1/15651 of 22 August 2000 'On
issuing residence permits'. These people were obliged to apply for residence
permits. Those who have already lived in Russia can acquire residence permits
only they had residence registration. CIS nationals with Russian residence
registration were entitled to residence permits for the term of 5 years and
stateless former Soviet nationals - for 3 years. However, the latter in fact
are required to prove that they don't belong to citizenship of the country where
they possessed the last propiska. Most former Soviet nationals live in
the country under a temporary registration or even without registration. It is
not their fault - they cannot objectively comply with the passport system
requirements or were arbitrarily denied registration.
21. Criteria and procedures for obtaining
residence permits for the newcomers were not established. In 2001-2002,
residence registration was given only to holders of residence permits, but
residence registration was not a sufficient precondition for getting a
residence permit. Consequently, most ex-Soviet nationals who actually resided
in Russia were unable to get residence permits in 2001-2002. At the same time,
the term of temporary stay for the people arriving in the country without visas
and special invitations was limited to one month. That was done under the
unpublished and secret Order No. 076 of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
from 5 March 1986. The term of validity for old-style internal passports of the
USSR, which identify stateless ex-Soviet nationals, was reduced till the end of
2003 (instead of 2005, as had been declared before).
22. The 2002 RF law on foreigners does not
distinguish between the foreigners who already live in the country and who
arriving in Russia anew. It also does not envisage any period of transition.
The people who are not Russian nationals and who are living in the country may
apply for temporary or permanent residence permit on equal footing with the
newcomers. However, without employment permission or residence permit they
loose the right to employment or running any business on 1 November 2002.
Without a lawful source of income and residence registration they have little
chances in getting temporary and permanent
residence permits.
23. Consequently, a large category of the
outlawed people is emerging. Hundreds of thousands or millions former Soviet
nationals who permanently live in the country (there are no reliable figures so
far) do not have Russian citizenship or are not recognised as Russian citizens
in direct violation of the law or have lost a status of legal residents. The
bulk of them have already lost links with the countries of their origin.
Currently, a nation-wide campaign against 'illegal migrants' has been launched
in the country. The authorities mean by 'illegal migrants' primarily former
Soviet nationals who live without propiska. However, residence or
sojourn registration bears the same legal meaning for Russian citizens and
foreigners. Lack of registration constitutes an administrative misdemeanour
resulting in equal consequences for citizens and non-citizens unless the law
envisages otherwise; it cannot determine legality or illegality of stay in the
country. Almost nobody pays attention to
the fact that these people have not violated any law. Remarkably, that some
official statements and mass media publications emphasise ethnic and cultural
'alienation' of the so-called 'illegal migrants'; the campaign targets
primarily ethnic minorities.
Information relating to Article 1 of the ICERD
‘In this Convention, the term ‘racial
discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or
preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which
has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment
or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in
the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.’
24. According to Article 6, part 2 of the RF
Constitution, 'every citizen of the Russian Federation has all the rights and
liberties on its territory and bear equal duties, stipulated by the
Constitution of the Russian Federation'. Article 19, part 1 stipulates that
'all people are equal before the law and in the court of law'. Article 19, part
2 states that 'the state guarantees the equality of human and civil rights and
liberties regardless of sex, race, nationality [that is ethnic affiliation],
language, origin, property and employment status, residence, attitude to
religion, convictions, membership of public associations and any other
circumstances. Any restrictions of the rights of citizens rights on social,
racial, national [i.e. ethnic], linguistic or religious grounds are forbidden'.
According to Article 19, part 3, 'man
and woman have equal rights and liberties and equal opportunities for their
pursuit'.
25. Therefore, Article 19 does not offer any
clear definition of discrimination, and the contents of Articles 6, part 2 and
19 can be interpreted in different ways. The first sentence of part 2 of
Article 19 hardly implies either a clear prohibition of any encroachment on
equality of rights and freedoms or the state's obligation to eradicate
violation of equality. The second sentence of the same part imposes a ban only
on 'restriction of rights', only on the closed list of five grounds and only
(as well as Article 6, part 2) with regard to 'citizens'. The Russian
legislation and judicial practice does not provide for a clear interpretation
of the term 'restriction of rights'. Moreover, Article 19, part 3 and the 2001
Labour Code also introduce the concept of 'equal opportunities for pursuit of
rights and freedoms'.
26. Article 37, part 3 of the Constitution
stipulates that 'everyone has the right to… remuneration for work without any
discrimination …'. Though the article
introduces the very term 'discrimination' (diskriminatsiya), it does not
offer any definition. Possible grounds of discrimination in this context are
not specified. The term 'discrimination' is also used in the 2001 Labour Code,
but without a definition and interpretation as well.
27. There is no anti-discriminatory legislation
in the country. There are no other legislative acts that contain a clear
definition of direct or indirect discrimination. The drafting and adoption of
anti-discriminatory legislation was not planned by the RF State Duma (the
Parliament) of the 2-nd (1996-1999) and 3-rd convocations (2000-2003).
28. Therefore, the notions of 'discrimination',
'restrictions of rights', 'legitimate or illegitimate distinction' remain
unclear for the professional lawyers and for the general public. There are no
official explanations on this matter issued by the Supreme Court and no
definite position of the legislative power and the law-enforcement agencies.
The 'Concept of the State Nationalities Policy of the Russian Federation',
adopted by the President’s Decree No. 909 of 15 June 1996, addresses
discrimination as the issue of direct restriction of citizens' rights. The 1993
RF Law 'On Lawsuits Against Actions and Decisions Violating Citizens' Rights'
and respective provisions of the Civil Procedural Code entitle the people to
bring complaints to a court in cases when personal rights and freedoms are
violated. The law equates by default with violation of rights also creation of
an obstacle to enjoyment of rights and freedom or illegal imposition of a duty
or responsibility. However, a similar term 'restriction of rights' us being
understood in juridical practice predominantly as a direct and overt limitation
of certain rights of certain individuals or social categories. Illegitimate
distinction, resulting in a negative effect for an individual or people
concerned, that cannot be clearly determined as direct 'restriction of rights'
(for instance, in cases of official control or supervision), is usually not
perceived as 'discrimination'.
29. A significant problem for Russia is hidden or
multiple forms of discrimination. These kinds of distinction, exclusion or
preference may be practised on the basis of other criteria - as a rule, related
to the present and former places of residence, kin ties in certain regions.
Overt restrictions on these grounds may be really aimed at persons who belong
to racial (or ethnic) minorities. Restrictions against definite social
categories in practice may be applied selectively, on the ground of personal
ethnic affiliation.
‘This Convention shall not apply to
distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to
this Convention between citizens and non-citizens.’
‘Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted
as affecting in any way the legal provisions of States Parties concerning
nationality, citizenship or naturalization, provided that such provisions do
not discriminate against any particular nationality.’
30. The federal government and regional
authorities contrary to the RF Law 'On Citizenship of the Russian Federation'
of 1991 have arbitrarily refused to recognise Russian citizenship for several
categories of the former citizens of the USSR. Notably, these people differ
ethnically from the majority of RF population (see below the section devoted to
Article5, par. (d) 'iii').
‘Special measures taken for the sole purpose of
securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals
requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or
individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental
freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination, provided, however, that
such measures do not, as a consequence, lead to the maintenance of separate
rights for different racial groups and that they shall not be continued after
the objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.’
31. In the political and academic discourse of
Russia, the term 'small indigenous peoples' (Art. 69 of the Constitution),
which is close to the concept of indigenous populations, is used to describe a
category entitled to special protective measures. The definition 'small indigenous peoples' is given by the
respective federal law (see the part relating to Article 2, par. 2). The
constitutional term 'small ethnic
communities' (Art. 72, par. 'm' of the Constitution) is not defined anyhow
either in law or in theoretical debates. Though present in the Constitution
(Art. 71, par. 'c'), there is no definition of the notion 'national minorities'
in the federal legislation. Specific compensation measures are discussed in
respect of 'repressed' or 'formerly deported' peoples, i.e. ethnic groups that
were forcibly displaced in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1991, the respective federal law and legislative acts on separate ethnic groups were adopted,
certain measures were taken to give compensation to the victims of deportations
and their descendants. There is no discussion of the issue of the protective
measures in respect of the categories of the population who have become victims
of the racial discrimination under other circumstances (internally displaced
persons, certain national minorities).
Part
II. Information relating to Articles 2-7 of the ICERD
‘States Parties condemn racial discrimination
and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of
eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding
among all races, and, to this end:’
32. The equal rights provisions of the RF
Constitution is reproduced in a number of legislative acts: the 1994 Civil Code
(general equality of persons participating in civil relations); the 1964 Civil
Procedural Code (equality of citizens before the law and court); the Family
Code of 1995 (the ban on restrictions of rights related to marriage and family
life on the grounds of social, racial, national [ethnic], linguistic and
religious belonging); the 1996 Criminal Code (equality before the law); the RF
Law 'On Citizenship of the Russian Federation' of 1991 (equal access to
citizenship); the RF Laws 'Basis of Legislation of the Russian Federation on
Health Protection' of 1993 and 'On Medical Insurance of Citizens in the Russian
Federation' of 1991 (equal access to health care); the RF Law 'On Forced
Migrants’ of 1993 (equal access to the respective protective mechanism) and 'On
Refugees' of 1993 (equal access to the respective protective mechanism); 'On
the Basis of Civil Service of the Russian Federation' of 1995 (equal access to
civil service); 'On the Basis of Municipal Service of the Russian Federation'
of 1998 (equal access to municipal service); the RF Law 'On Militia' [On the
police] of 1991 (the principle of equal protection of human and civil rights).
33. Regretfully, the RF Law 'On Education' of
1992 enshrines equal access to education, but not a guarantee of equal
treatment within educational institutions. Also the Federal Law 'On Citizenship
of the Russian Federation' of 2002 provides only for equal rights of RF
citizens, but not equal access to citizenship regardless of race or ethnicity.
A number of relevant legislative acts do not contain any provisions on equal
rights and non-discrimination. Among them are: the 1983 Housing Code; the RF Law 'On
the Basis of Federal Housing Policies' of 1992, the Federal Law 'On the Basis
of the Federal Policies in the Area of Labour Protection' of 1999 (addresses
only the issues of physical security), the RF Law 'On the Protection of
Consumers' Rights' of 1992.
34. Adoption of the new Labour Code in 2001 (took
effect on 1 February 2002) means a remarkable positives shift in the Russian
legislation. The previous 'Code of Laws on Labour' of 1971 contained
substantially limited guarantees of non-discrimination. Its Article 2 provided
for equal remuneration for equal labour without any discrimination, but did not
specify the grounds of discrimination. Article 16 devoted to the general
principles of hiring stipulated that there were not
allowed 'direct or indirect restriction of rights or creation of direct or
indirect advantages on the grounds of sex, race, nationality [ethnicity],
language, social origin, property, place of residence, attitude towards
religion, convictions, membership of public associations and also other
circumstances, not relating to the employee's business characteristics'.
Therefore, the ban on discrimination did not cover treatment at a job place and
firing. The new Code prohibits any kind of discrimination at any stage of
employment and provides for preventive and recourse mechanisms. An employee id
entitled to bring an action on discriminatory treatment before a court. The
independent Federal Inspection of Labour has the right to supervise hiring
policies and treatment at job places; labour inspectors have the right to bring
obligatory prescriptions before employers, to bring complaints to public
prosecutor office or they can bring an action before a court. However, these
mechanisms have not been employed so far, and one can't make judgements on
their effectiveness.
35. Most of the discrimination-related legal
norms in Russia are substantive norms, and the legislation is obviously lacking
sufficient procedural guarantees against discrimination. There are some
judicial, criminal and administrative remedies for prevention and ceasing
discriminatory practices, but they are ineffective and applicable rather in
theory than in practice (for more information see the section pertaining to
Article 2, par. 1(d)).
36. No one legislative act in the Russian
Federation explicitly envisages special disciplinary responsibility of
governmental officials for discriminatory behaviour or racist speech. Article
14 of the 1995 framework Federal Law 'On the Basic Principles of Civil Service
of the Russian Federation' envisages general disciplinary responsibility of a
civil servant for improper exercise of his/her duties and contains a general
reference to the 'responsibility under federal law' for violation of rights and
freedoms of citizens. In theory, this provision can be used in a case of racist
behaviour or speech. However, there is no evidence that this opportunity has
even been used in the RF. The same situation can be witnessed in the areas of
militarised (armed forces, security service, police) and municipal services.
37. Meanwhile, the state not only fails to
undertake adequate measure to combat discrimination, but also in many cases
practises, sponsors or tolerates systematic and massive discrimination itself.
Of a deep concern is a fact that discriminatory actions often take place in the
form of co-ordinated repressive campaigns targeted at certain ethnic or racial
groups. Federal and regional authorities, municipal bodies, as well as their
officials take part in these campaigns, sometimes supported by some public
associations and mass media. One shall mention the campaign against migrants
from the Caucasian region, initiated by the Moscow and Moscow regional
authorities in September 1999; the campaign against Chechens, started 1999
across the country, as well as the campaign against the Meskhetian Turks,
residing in Krasnodar Krai. Different state and non-state actors simultaneously
use variable limitations that restrict the rights of the persons, belonging to
the discriminated groups. This is the reason, why peculiarities of the
discriminating campaigns against separate groups and general problems will be
described separately; though general problems concern many categories of the
population, they may be traced in separate campaigns as well.
‘Each State Party undertakes to engage in no
act or practice of racial discrimination against persons, groups of persons or
institutions and to ensure that all public authorities and public institutions,
national and local, shall act in conformity with this obligation;’
Discriminatory activities of the
law-enforcement agencies and officers
38. 1) Racially selective inspections and
identity checks. Racial profiling in this area manifests itself in
selective and disproportionately frequent stops and detentions of persons
belonging to the so-called ‘visual’ minorities (that is, persons with a
distinctive physical appearance, easily identifiable as natives of the Caucasus
and Central Asia and as Roma), unlawful and unprovoked use of violence toward
detainees, extortion of money, frivolous and disproportionately frequent
searches of residential premises occupied by members of these minorities or
offices of companies owned by them, arbitrary seizure of their personal
property or goods in which they trade. In the course of check-ups and
detentions, such persons are often treated in a manner humiliating to their
human and ethnic dignity.
39. This practice is directly
caused by the system of the registration by the place of residence and stay,
that was described in Part I 'General background information and preliminary
remarks', item 2. The disproportionate attention paid to the minorities and
discriminatory behaviour towards them is often provoked by the idea that the
natives of the Caucasian region and the Roma are crime-prone; this idea is
circulated on the initiative of the regional authorities and heads of the
bodies under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
40. 2)
Racially selective large-scale policing campaigns. The largest
campaign of identity checks and searches in dwellings took place in Moscow, the
Moscow oblast and in some other neighbouring provinces after two apartment
bombings in Moscow on 9 and 13 September. The Moscow city and regional
authorities imposed new restrictions upon newcomers to Moscow and undertook a
series of repressive measures against 'migrants' from the Caucasus. In
September 1999, those people who didn’t have a registration by their places of
residence in Moscow, were obliged to re-register themselves in the police
within one week. In accordance with the official data, around 105,000 people
applied for re-registration by 26 September, and more than 20,000 of them were
refused. 'Newcomers' were registered selectively, with almost all Russians
receiving registration, while many Azeris, Armenians, Georgians and others
arriving from the South Caucasian states and Russian Northern Caucasus were
refused. Almost all Chechens got negative responses, even if they had a
complete set of documents required for registration. Those who were refused
received written orders to leave the city.
41. During check-ups in streets and dwellings the
police personnel detained and brought to police stations persons of the
'Caucasian' origin, primarily Chechens, Daghestanis, and Azeris. In accordance
with some mass media publications, around 20,000 persons were detained during
the first two weeks of September 1999. During the detention, police officers
usually annulled the certificates of temporary registration by a place of stay.
In some cases during the checks in private apartments passports were withdrawn
from the detainees. In some cases the police staff forced their way into dwellings
without any sanction of a public procurator and against the will of the people
who lived there. Primarily, the apartments where Chechens and Daghestanis lived
were subjected to such checks. In a number of cases, persons who lived there
were detained and given written orders to leave Moscow and their apartments
were sealed up. According to unofficial admittance of some police officers,
including those working in the patrol service and passport and visa
departments, they were given verbal orders based on a directive of the Chief of
the Head Department of Internal Affairs of Moscow to detain and not to
re-register Caucasians, and primarily Chechens.
42. The campaign against 'migrants' and
'Caucasians' was repeatedly mounted within the next 3 years; the largest
operations took place in August 2000 and October-December 2002.
43. 3) Special treatment of the Roma people.
Roma people like other visual minorities are subjected to impromptu identity
checks at the street and in dwellings. Besides, the Ministry of Internal
Affairs periodically conducts allegedly anti-crime campaigns in a number of
Russian regions under the slogan 'Tabor' (the name for a Romani
encampment). These campaigns commonly entail checking the documents of people
identified as Roma and displacing them to whatever part of the Russian
Federation in which they were last registered. For example, these campaigns
took part in spring of 2002 in Moscow and Moscow region, Samara and Tomsk
oblasts. In July-August 2002, the operation was conducted throughout the entire
country. On 16 October 2001, the local police deported about 100 Roma people
from Krasnodar to the Voronezh oblast, the place where they had the last
residence registration.
Direct discrimination against
Meskhetian Turks (Meskhetians) in Krasnodar Krai
44. Meskhetian Turks, or Meskhetians are a
Turkish-speaking Muslim ethnic group deported in 1944 from Southern Georgia to
Central Asia; about 290,000 Meskhetians live within the former USSR. From
1989-90 onwards, after ethnic clashes, about 90,000 Meskhetians were forced to
leave Uzbekistan. About 60,000 of them sought refuge in the Russian Federation
(at that time, one of the Union republics), and of these, more than 13,000 fled
to Krasnodar Krai, a southern region of RF.
45. The regional authorities of Krasnodar Krai
refused to grant to the Turks 'propiska', or registration by place of
residence. Krasnodar Krai is the only one region of Russia where the Turks are
deprived residence registration en masse. The residence restrictions were applied selectively, almost
exclusively against Crimean Tatars and Turks. Out of 19,897 people (including
the Turks) who applied to the passport and visa service of the Krymsk district
of Krasnodar Krai (the district where approximately 60% of the local
Meskhetians are living) from 1 January of 1989 until 1 October 1994, 11,001 obtained
a propiska. Out of 8,479 Turks who applied for a propiska within
that period, only 14 persons received it.
In other words, Turks made up 92.5% of all people who were refused propiska
in the Krymsk district. The same
situation existed in the Abinsk district: in 1989-94, out of all the people
considered by local police as 'forced migrants', only Turks were refused a propiska[2].
46. Respectively, the Turks have been deprived of
the basic civil, political and social rights (for more information see Annex
3). Sales of dwellings, which the Meskhetians had purchased after coming to the
Krasnodar Krai in 1989-90, haven’t been officially authorised because of a
special ban. As a result Meskhetians, like other persons who do not have
residence registration, are not officially recognised as Russian citizens in
direct violation of the Russian Citizenship Law of 1991. Neither the law itself
nor the respective by-laws equate permanent residence with residence
registration while the Meskhetians permanently and legally resided on the
Russian territory at the dissolution of the Soviet Union and did not decline Russian
citizenship afterwards. Permanent employment is not allowed to them. They
actually cannot receive or restore (in case of loss or damage) personal
documents (like passports or drivers licences). Their marriages are not being
officially registered and recognised. The Meskhetians are completely deprived
of any access to the system of social security and public medical service. They
are not allowed to get education higher than of the secondary level.
47. The regional authorities since 1992 formally
single out the Meskhetians as a distinct ethnic category, subjected to special
discriminatory treatment. On 24 April 1996, the Legislative Assembly of the
Krasnodar krai adopted the Resolution No.291-P, according to which adult
Meskhetians were obliged to pass every three months through a special
registration procedure and to receive residence certificates. Since then, there
were several other regional acts on special registration requirements for the
Turks; in practice that meant that this ethnic group was denied access to
normal residence registration. However, the Meskhetians who have acquired
Russian citizenship and propiska outside Krasnodar Krai, but actually
live in region, are subjected to the same treatment as those who cannot provide
documentary evidence of their citizenship.
48. The Meskhetians are regularly checked and
fined by police and even by the traffic police for the lack of registration.
Massive checks of the 'passport regime' including searches of dwellings are
also take place periodically. There are a few cases of detentions and
short-term imprisonment of the Turks, living in Krymsk district.
49. The pressure upon the Turks has increased
since winter of 2001/2002. Senior officials of Krasnodar Krai often make public
statements that they will create unbearable living conditions for the Turks and
other 'illegal migrants' to force them to leave the region. Regardless of their
actual propiska status, a number of Meskhetians in the western part of
the region were denied the right to lease plots of land from local agricultural
enterprises. The Meskhetian Turks are also barred from selling vegetables even
from plots of land attached to their own houses. The local authorities refuse
to give them papers certifying that they possess these plots of land, and tax
inspection imposes fines for 'illegal' commerce. The Meskhetians are also
penalised for 'unlawful' occupation of the land and houses, which were
purchased 12-13 years ago. They cannot pay the administrative fines, and the
local courts have already seized the property (including livestock, food, and
cutlery) of dozens of families. New developments of the anti-Meskhetian
campaign are also the recent refusals in access to health care and to
pre-school educational institutions. The Turks are systematically denied access
to justice: the local judges refuse to commence Meskhetian lawsuits under
various arbitrary pretexts.
50. The federal authorities have overtly
supported the policies towards the Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai (for more
information see Annex 3). The federal Presidency, government and public
prosecutor's office did not reacted anyhow to the anti-minorities statements as
well as to the unlawful actions of the Krasnodar government. Moreover,
representatives of the President's Administration repeatedly stated that there
were no disagreement between the federal and the Krasnodar authorities with
regard to migration and ethnic policies. The Federation Council (the upper
chamber of the Russian parliament) on 10 July 2002 adopted a statement
regarding the migration and ethnic situation in Krasnodar Krai. The statement
contains a call for massive deportation of non-nationals without local
registration, for resettlement of the Meskhetian Turks to Georgia and for
displacement of some of the ethnic minorities to the central and northern
regions of the country. The policies towards the Meskhetians are usually
justified by the fact that these people were deported from Georgia and many
Meskhetians would like to return back to this country. However, any
resettlement to Georgia can be only of a voluntary character; the Meskhetians
are not obliged to move anywhere. The perspectives of their 'repatriation' to
Georgia look vague because of economic devastation and political instability in
this country.
Persecutions of the Chechens outside Chechnia
51. The Russian federal government did not
control Chechnia in 1991-94. In 1994-96 a large-scale warfare against
separatist forces took place; the federal troops were defeated and withdrawn.
In 1997-99, this territory was not controlled by the federal government, and
the government of self-proclaimed 'independent Chechnia' was unable to maintain
any kind of public order and to secure rule of law and even physical safety of
the inhabitants of Chechnia and neighbouring regions. The Russian federal
troops entered Chechnia for the second time in October 1999, since then, the
federal government has been trying to regain control over the region. In
1991-94, during the both warfare campaigns and between them many inhabitants of
Chechnia, including Chechens tried to flee the republic and to seek shelter in
other regions of Russia. Besides, many ethnic Chechens have lived across Russia
for decades. In the recent years, comers from Chechnia and ethnic Chechens have
been subjected to different kinds of discriminatory treatment and harassment.
Since summer 1999, these activities have rapidly evolved into a state-sponsored
large-scale co-ordinated campaign. During 2000, spread over most of the Russian
regions (for details see Annex 4). The authorities demonstrated their intention
to make by all means the life of the Chechen population unbearable and to
'squeeze' the Chechens to Chechnia. The pressure on the Chechens has been made
in the following forms.
52. 1) Expulsion. On 18-20 June 1999, the
authorities of Stavropol Krai presumably with the help of the Cossack units
deported 62 Chechen peasant families from the area near the boundary with
Chechnia to the Chechen Republic. Later the houses with the remaining property
of Chechens were burnt. The regional authorities virtually approved the
deportation, and the Prosecutor Office of the Kurskaya district of Stavropol
Krai refused to open the criminal case, expressing doubts on the very fact of
violent eviction.
53. 2) Arbitrary passport and identity checks,
forcible entrance into premises, searches, detentions and beatings. Such
actions repeatedly take place in different regions. From September 1999
onwards, the police control over the Chechens' movement and stay has become
routine and spread over most of the Russian regions. The Chechens suffered to a
greater degree in June-December 1999 in Stavropol Krai, from August till
December 1999 in the city of Moscow, Moscow oblast, Volgograd and Nizhny
Novgorod oblasts. From September till December 1999 in the Tomsk oblast
(Southern Siberia) the Chechen males - refugees from Chechnia, were put into
'reception and distribution centres' (prisons for administrative arrests)
without any explanations for as long as 10 days, and without any explanations
were then released. By the order dated 29 October1999 and issued by N.M.
Mamontov, temporary holding office of the Head of the Stavropol regional
Department of Internal Affairs, the police authorities in the krai were obliged
to supervise the persons who had come from Chechnia since 1992 to control their
actual whereabouts and behaviour, and to demand from them to come to the police
stations, nearest to their residence or stay, twice a week. In reality this
control was mostly targeting the Chechens.
54. Two large-scale massive campaigns of checking
and detaining the Chechen also took place in Moscow in August 2000 and in
November-December 2002, after the hostage taking in a Moscow theatre on 23-26
October. In Autumn 1999, actually all Chechens living in Moscow (including
higher school students, post graduate students and doctoral candidates of educational
and academic institutes) were obliged not only to apply for re-registration,
but to leave their finger- and palmprints, photographs and specimens of their
handwriting in the Service of Criminal Militia (criminal police units). A
similar operation was repeated in November 2002.
55. The police and taxation services also
systematically check the firms owned by ethnic Chechens. These checks, seizure
of business documentation and unofficial threats to the Chechens' contracting
parties bring substantial losses to the Chechen middle and petty business; many
small firms were bankrupted.
56.
Police 'checks' often include beating and other forms of degrading
treatment. In some cases, beatings were of massive character. On 27-28
March 2001, at night, a police detachment belonging to the 9th
Division of the Moscow Regional Department for combat organised crime (RUBOP)
penetrated the student hostel in town of Khimki (a Moscow suburb) where Chechen
students and teachers of the State University of Culture lived. 25 students
invited by the Russian Ministry of Culture from Chechen refugee camps comprised
an experimental Chechen youth theatre 'Nakhi'. The students and their teachers
were heavily beaten, their rooms were searched and some property stolen or destroyed.
A police officer tried to plant a pistol of one of the students. The students
were detained and taken to a police station but later released without any
explanations and formal accusations.
57. 3) Fabrication of criminal accusations.
In July-November 1999, a number of Chechens and a few Ingushes were detained
and charged under article 222 (illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, storage,
transportation or carrying of weapons, ammunition, explosives and explosive
devices) and 228 (illegal manufacturing, acquisition, storage, dispatching or
sale of drugs and psychotropic substances) of the RF Criminal Code. In the
mid-September the Chechnia President’s Representative in the Russian Federation
informed about 150 Chechens who were arrested under this pretext in the
previous month while the figures, given by the Moscow-based Chechen public
associations, exceeded 500 people. The Memorial Human Rights Centre and the
'Civil Assistance' Committee made up their own list, where there were 51 names
by the end of 1999. The arrested people, their relatives and acquaintances
witnessing the arrests, state that the drugs and ammunition were intentionally
planted on the accused during either detention, or personal search in the
street or at home, or at the police stations by the police officers. There are
enough evidences to suspect mass fabrication of these accusations. The same
practice restarted in Moscow and the Moscow oblast in March 2000. Since then,
this practice has become a routine. After the hostage taking in Moscow, there
was a new wave of fabrications: the Memorial and the 'Civic Assistance'
Committee traced at least 20 cases. The Chechen NGOs and State Duma deputies
reported about several hundred cases.
58. There are several circumstances testifying to
the mass fabrication of the accusations:
a) The available information
enables to speak of the targeted mass campaign: before July 1999 and between
November 1999 and March 2000 there were no complaints of drugs and ammunition
having been intentionally planted on the Chechens.
b) Special attention attracts
the fact, that in some operations officers from the departments for combat
against organised crime (RUBOP) took part, while almost all the individuals brought
to the trial were accused for the first time and were not repeated offenders or
participants of the organised criminal groups.
c) The motivation of the alleged
crimes is also doubtful: in most cases the accused are the people of a stable
social status, with a permanent income who haven't not observed either as
having criminal ties or in drug abuse.
d) There are contradictions both
in the accusations and circumstances of the detention: in some cases drugs were
found on them, when the persons voluntary came to the militia station having
been summoned there, or after their detention during the second or third, but
not the first personal search.
e) Threats of 'planting drugs'
were widely spread in the second half of 1999; many police officers and representatives
of the procurator’s offices do not deny in private talks with representatives
of human rights organisations the fact of mass fabrication of evidence.
59. Since February- March 2000, fabrication of
criminal accusations against Chechens, as well as Azeris, Tadjiks, Armenians
and Roma restarted in Moscow, the Moscow and Tver province and some other
regions. The human rights organisations, including Memorial, possess
information about several dozens of people (concrete estimates are varying) who
are arrested under allegedly fabricated accusations upon Articles 222 and 228
of the Criminal Code. As a rule, most of the arrested are found guilty in the
courts.
60. 4) Refusal in granting the status of
forced migrants. The Chechens who fled Chechnia are en masse refused
the status of forced migrants in all Russian regions. Such refusals also affect
people of another ethnic origin who left Chechnia, but they are selective and
not total (see the paragraphs relating to Art. 2, par. 1(c)).
61. 5) Dismissals. In autumn 1999, several
Chechens were fired from their jobs in schools and health care institutions in
Moscow. In two cases the dismissal was motivated by the Order No. 567 ‘On
Strengthening Security in Schools’ dated 21 September 1999 issued by the Education
Committee of Moscow. After the hostage taking in Moscow, at least 15 Chechens
have reported to the Memorial and 'Civic Assistance' Committee in Moscow that
they were fired with a direct reference to these people's ethnicity as the
reason for firing. Chechens are systematically denied employment primarily in
large cities.
62. 6) Denied access to education. In
autumn 1999 and in November-December 2002, administration of some schools in
Moscow ceased admittance to the Chechen pupils under the pretext that their
parents did not have a local registration. This requirement was addressed only
to Chechens.
63. 7) Violation of the right to the freedom
of movement and choice of the place of residence. In most of the regions
(Moscow city, Moscow, Tver, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd oblasts,
Stavropol Krai), the local authorities systematically refuse to register the
Chechens by place of residence and by place of stay. Within 1999, officials of
Stavropol Krai, Republics of North Ossetia - Alania, Kabardin-Balkarian
Republic several times prohibited entry of ethnic Chechens to their
territories. (For details see the section, relating to the Article 5 (d) 'i').
Privileges
granted to member of the Cossack movement
64. The Cossack movement advocates revival of the
specific militarised corporation that existed before 1917, and claims special
and group rights for its participants. The Cossack organisations represent
themselves in different ways: as a specific
'ethno-cultural community', a component part of Russians, a public
movement, a corporation with a special semi-official status. The Cossack
movement was granted by the government with several privileges for themselves
and their members. Meanwhile, entry to the Cossack movement membership is not
free. Only people of Orthodox faith and loyal to the ideology of Cossackhood
are admitted. Descendants of the pre-1917 Cossacks have advantages in joining
the movement, the rest are discouraged from this. Therefore, one can talk about
a descent-based discrimination.
65. The 1991 RSFSR Law 'On the Rehabilitation of
the Repressed Peoples' determined the Cossacks as a 'cultural ethnic entity'
and equated them with ethnic groups repressed in the Soviet period.
Presidential Decree No.835 'On the Governmental Register of Cossack Communities
in the Russian Federation' of 1995 approved the semi-official status of Cossack
organisations, although none of the federal laws directly confirms it. The
President's Decree No.67 of 1996 created Chief Directorate of Cossack Troops
within the President's Administration. The President's Decree No.563 and No.882
of 1996 granted to members of the Cossack communities special privileged access
to governmental and other kinds of public service. The Decree No. 564 of 1996
provides for agricultural land allocation to Cossack societies. The Decrees
No.95 - 97, 611 - 613 of 1997 and some others included a number of regional
Cossack societies into the official register and thus gave them an official
status. The Federal Programme for support of the Cossack Societies for
1999-2001, adopted by the RF Government Resolution No. 839 of 1999, reaffirmed
the previous official policies aimed at integration of the Cossack units into
power structures and at providing them privileges concerning civil service,
local self-government and economic activities.
66. Cossack organisations in receive direct and
indirect financial support from governmental agencies. Cossackhood has become a
special mechanism of recruitment to civil and military service. The Cossacks
benefit from special access to all kinds of public service (governmental,
including militarised, and municipal). The Cossack societies, which are
included in the register may conclude special agreements with the authorities
on the service and offer their candidates. Meanwhile, the Constitution and the
legislation of all levels envisage equal access to all kind of services
regardless of origin and membership in any associations.
Discriminatory norms of the federal
law on compatriots abroad
67. The Federal Law 'On State Policy of the
Russian Federation towards Compatriots Abroad' of 24 May 1999 introduces a
special legal status of 'compatriots abroad', applied both to the Russian
citizens and certain categories of foreign citizens and stateless persons. The
law guarantees support of the Russian Federation to 'compatriots' in enjoyment
of certain rights as well as certain privileges in maintaining relations with
the Russian Federation. Article 1 of the Law introduces a restriction on ethnic
ground. Descendants of Russian citizens, citizens of the former USSR, as well
as emigrants from the Russian Empire/the USSR/the Russian Federation, relating
to 'the titular nations of foreign states' cannot claim the compatriot status.
Article 2 defines 'titular nation' as an ethnic category, or 'a part of the
population of a state whose nationality defines the name of a state'. The
status of 'compatriots abroad' is not connected either with the citizenship or
naturalisation procedures; it is directly related to exercise of fundamental
rights and freedoms. As it is formulated in the law, it does not allow to
qualify 'compatriots' as racial and ethnic groups requiring protection, and it
does not justify the exemption on ethnic ground.
‘Each State Party undertakes not to sponsor,
defend or support racial discrimination by any persons or organisations;’
Official
support to the Cossack movement
68. In 1991-97 the bulk, and in 1998-2002 a
significant part of incidents involving violence and harassment against
minorities was carried out by the organised groups which identified themselves
as 'Cossacks'. In Krasnodar and Stavropol Krais, Rostov and Volgograd oblasts,
the Cossacks are pressing upon the regional authorities to restrict the rights
of the persons of Caucasian origin or to deport them. Cossack units (both
separately and together with police) conduct identity checks at private
dwellings and in the streets and markets, search private apartments and motor vehicles
and detain people. Despite the extremist and nationalist sentiments of many
leaders and rank-and-file members of Cossack units and their extremist
activities, federal and regional authorities have provided various kinds of
support to them. Moreover, the authorities have been granted to the Cossack
organisations some official functions and competence. Ministry of Internal
Affairs Directive No.1/2899 of 28 June 1994 'On the Participation of the
Cossacks in Maintaining Public Order' and a Joint Directive of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and the Chief Directorate of the Cossack Troops under the RF
President dated 5 January 1997, No.1/127 'On the Interaction of Members of
Cossack Communities, Included in the State Register of Cossack Communities in
the RF, with Ministry of Internal Affairs Structures', served as the formal
basis for employing members of the Cossack organisations as an auxiliary police
force. In a number of regions, Cossack organisations have been granted the
right to conduct joint operations with law-enforcement agencies also on the
basis of regional regulations.
69. The mostly significant case is the entry of
the All-Kuban Cossack Army (AKCA) under the title of the Kuban Cossack Army
Society to the State Register by the RF President’s Decree No. 448 from 24
April 1998. Earlier AKCA was known as the most radical nationalistic
organisation, directly responsible for a series of violent actions on ethnic
ground in Krasnodar Krai and the one that has been demanding from the local
authorities to aggravate the discrimination against national minorities.
Representatives of the Kuban Cossack Army Society are present in the Krasnodar
Krai administration.
Obstruction
by the para-military groups in The Republic of North Ossetia - Alania to the
return of Ingush refugees to Prigorodnyi district of RNO-A, and connivance of
the RNO-A authorities to these actions
70. Since the armed clashes between Ingushs and
Ossetians within Prigorodnyi district of North Ossetia broke out in
October-November 1992, the issue of Ingush forced migrants still remains
unresolved. A significant progress in voluntary return of the refugee took
place in 1998-2001. The number of returnees increased, governments of the
Republic of North-Ossetia - Alania and the Republic of Ingushtia have
established a durable process of negotiations, a substantial amount of firearms
was confiscated from the gangs operating in North Ossetia. However, authorities of the Republic of North
Ossetia - Alania pay insufficient attention for securing public order and
preventing ethnic discrimination, segregation and violent actions in the places
where the Ingushs live. The authorities in fact oppose the return of those
Ingushs who try to do so at their own risk, alleging they are unable to
guarantee their safety. The republican government declared a number of
settlements completely closed for trespassing and residence of the Ingushs. The
RNO-A authorities directly connived at mass-scale actions aimed at blocking the
roads to prevent forced migrants’ return to their homes. In a few settlements,
where Ingushs had stayed or to which they later returned, unbearable conditions,
namely artificial unemployment, firings and blockade are being created for
them. They are also regularly threatened and terrorised by arsons. As a result,
many Ingush families were forced to leave the territory of Prigorodnyi district
twice.
71. According to the official data, more than
21,000 but actually about 12,000 Ingushs have returned back to the Prigorodnyi
district. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority actually resides in the
settlement Mayskoye, which is situated at the borderland with Ingushetia and
really remains under control of the Ingush administration. A significant number
of people there are still deprived of permanent dwelling and employment. The
general official figures, which concern the returned Ingushs, also include more
than 1000 people who have official residence registration in the settlement of
Kartsa, but actually do not reside there. The real process of return concerns
only the settlements of Chermen and Dachnoye, but the Ingushs live there in
blockade and without any stable guarantees of security.
‘Each
State Party shall take effective measures to review governmental, national and
local policies, and to amend, rescind or nullify any laws and regulations which
have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination wherever it
exists;’
72. In all the situations enumerated above in
the section related to pars. 1(a) and 1(b) of Article 2 of ICERD, the federal
governmental agencies do not take the necessary steps to review all laws or
regulations, which may create or perpetuate racial discrimination.
Official negligence towards the
effects of passport system
73. The Constitutional Court of the Russian
Federation in a number of cases qualified as unconstitutional the restrictions
upon registration by a place of residence and place of sojourn, established by
the Government Resolution No.713 of 17 July 1995 and by the respective regional
regulations. Though the Constitutional Court decision on the Government
Resolution No. 713 was issued on 2 February 1998, the Resolution was brought in
line with it only in August 2002. However, neither the court's decision nor
amendment to the Government Resolution changed the existing practice. The
Presidential Administration, the RF Government, the Prosecutor General’s Office
and the RF Ministry of Justice did not take sufficient measures to abolish
regional regulations establishing illegal restrictions on residence
registration. Such acts are still in force in Krasnodar and Stavropol Krais,
Rostov oblast, Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. The Ministry of Internal Affairs,
the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Federal Migration Service do not take
steps to make their territorial branches observe the provisions of federal law
rather than regional acts contradicting the Constitution and federal
legislation.
Official
negligence towards discriminatory effects of the legislation of forced migrants
and refugees
74. The RF Law 'On Refugees' of 1993 (with
further amendments) is designed in general accordance with the 1951 UN Refugee
Convention. The RF Law 'On Forced Migrants', adopted at the same time, (with
further amendments) rests on the same concept. The term forced migrant' bears a
narrower meaning that the term 'internally displaced person'. 'Forced migrants'
are RF nationals who had to leave their places of residence either within
Russian or abroad under the expectations of persecution on ethnic, social,
political and religious ground and who seek shelter within the country.
Foreigners who reside in Russia and were forced to leave a certain territory in
Russia under the same fear are also entitled to apply for the status. The
status of 'forced migrant' is vitally important for coerced migrants since in
the framework of the passport system it is a precondition for exercise of some
basic rights. Besides, there are no other mechanisms for applying for aid from
the government for those who were deprived of their dwelling and property in
armed conflict zones. Actually only forced migrants can get temporary dwelling
and can be registered as unemployed. The status of forced migrant also provides
for residence registration.
75. Article 1 of the Law on forced migrants is
formulated in an unclear way that provides for two different interpretations[3]. One enables to consider 'mass disorders' as a separate legitimate
ground for claiming the status, the other one rests on the assumption that
'mass disorders' are mentioned in the law only as an additional component of
persecutions. Usually, the people who just escape from 'simple' disorders or
from warfare cannot obtain the status unless they prove that they were at risk
of persecutions on ethnic, religious or similar grounds. Besides, the vague
criteria of 'persecutions' provide for officials' freedom of discretion.
Consequently, the system creates thresholds of different height for different
ethnic groups. Moreover, potential applicants are often orally denied access to
the very submission of written applications for the status. Besides, some
regional normative acts (in Moscow and Moscow oblast, Krasnodar Krai)
conditioned granting the status by availability of registration by a place of
sojourn, kin ties within the respective territory or other additional
circumstances. These restrictions became a ground for abuses and unmotivated
refusals in granting the status.
76. When the first armed conflict in Chechnia
broke out in December 1994, the migration service with a three months delay
started to grant the status to the people fleeing the region. The warfare
itself was considered a sufficient reason for granting the status to Chechens,
Russians and people of other ethnic backgrounds. The Chechens who fled Chechnia
between the two wars (1996-1999) and during the second war (1999 - until
present) as a rule do not receive the status of forced migrants. The migration
service asks them to provide documentary proofs of the persecutions against
them, and only few Chechen can fulfil this requirement. The Federal Migration
Service reported that about 568,000 people had left Chechnia by October 2001;
of them 12,500 people were granted the status of forced migrants. The Federal
Migration Service overtly recognised that there were only few ethnic Chechens
among them, since ethnic Chechens did not comply with the Law 'On Forced
Migrants'[4]. The people of other ethnic
origins from Chechnia (mostly Russians) got the status (though with strict
limitations) since the migration service agrees as a default that the Russians
are persecuted on ethnic ground in Chechnia.
77. Granting the status of refugee is also often
ethnically selective[5]. Several dozen thousand people who fled Tadjikistan during the civil war
of 1992-95 and subsequent armed clashes were granted the status of 'forced
migrants' or refugees in Russia. The total number of ethnic Tadjiks within
Russia who acquired a status is estimated by the Foundation 'Tadjikistan' and
other human rights NGOs between 30 and 40 people, although the Tadjiks and
non-Tadjiks were suffering from the war, and primarily Tadjiks were persecuted on
political ground or the ground of place of birth or residence. Most of several
thousand Tadjiks who applied for the status got oral refusals even before the
submission of applications.
78. Ethnic preferences were also obvious in the
case of refugees from Abkhazia. Abkhazia is an autonomous region of Georgia,
the zone of armed conflict since 1992, which is not under control of the
Georgia government. According to some estimates, there are approximately 60,000
refugees from Abkhazia in Russia, the most of them are ethnic Georgians. By
1997, 21,000 migrants from Abkhazia were granted the official status, and of
them only 4,000 were Georgians, while among the persons of another ethnic
origin the share of those who were granted the status and registration by a
place of residence was much higher.
Refugees from Abkhazia have found themselves in the most vulnerable
position in Krasnodar Krai. In autumn 1992, as a result of fighting in
Abkhazia, at least 30,000 people were forced to fled this republic directly to
Krasnodar Krai. Later, in October 1993, up to 5,000 persons were also evacuated
from Sukhumi, the administrative centre of Abkhazia. Russia was for them the
first safe territory and the country of first refuge. While most ethnic
Russians and Abkhazians obtained the status of forced migrants, the majority of
Armenians and virtually all ethnic Georgians were refused it. At the present
time, according to various estimates, there are between 12,000 to 15,000 ethnic
Georgians in Krasnodar Krai who were forced to flee Abkhazia, of these, up to
11,000 who went to Sochi (the Black Sea coast area). According to the data
provided by the local migration servicearound 2,000 forced migrants from
Abkhazia were granted the respective official status[6], by the beginning of 1998. Among them were only 121 ethnic Georgians and
598 Armenians, and by the end of 2002 no one else from these groups got the
status. Formally, these persons were denied the forced migrant or refugee
status under the pretext that they didn’t have any close relatives within the
region. Actually, there was a selective approach on ethnic criteria, since most
of the Georgian and Armenian refugees who had relatives in Krasnodar Krai, were
refused the status. As a result, most of the refugees from Abkhazia have been
also denied registration by places of residence, and consequently, all
fundamental civil and social rights. These people are not being given the
opportunity to obtain legal status not only in Krasnodar Krai, but also in
other major cities and regional centres, although they are not able to return
to the places of their former residence.
(d) Each State Party shall prohibit and bring
to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by
circumstances, racial discrimination by any persons, group or organization;
79. In theory, non-material wealth, including
rights and freedoms and personal dignity can be defended in court by civil
litigation (for more details see the section relating to Article 6 of the
ICERD). The law protects non-material wealth including personal dignity, the
right to free movement, inviolability of the person and family (Articles 21,
22, 23, 27 of the Constitution, Article 150 of the Civil Code).
80. The Criminal Code contains Article 136
'Violation of equality of human and civil rights and freedoms’ which envisages
criminal liability for ‘violation of equality of human and civil rights' on the
basis of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official
position, place of residence, attitude towards religion, convictions,
membership of public associations which inflicted damage on citizens’ rights
and lawful interests’. Part 1 of the Article envisages punishment varying from
the penalty fare of 200 minimal wages to the 2 years imprisonment. Part 2
concerns the same crime committed by the abuse of official position and
envisages punishment up to 5 years imprisonment. Article 136 is not an article
of private accusation, therefore a criminal proceeding can be commenced only by
a public prosecutor or by the police. Article 136 determines the crime
exclusively in substantive, but not in formal sense. Thus, only actual damage
to a victim must be available for criminal liability of the perpetrator;
instructions to discriminate or instigation to discrimination if they are not
public, are not punishable. Article 136 is being used only in rare occasions.
According to the data provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs[7], there were 3 criminal cases
on Article 136 commenced in 1997, 4 in 1998, 5 in 1999, 1 in 2000. 3 people
were accused in 1997, respectively 2 in 1998, 3 in 1999, 3 in 2000. No official
statistics on the court trials and their outcome have been made public so far.
81. The Federal Inspection of Labour (established
in 1994) has the competence of general supervision of labour conditions. Until
2000, the FIL was within the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, and
later it has become an independent centralised service. Labour inspectors in
case of violations of the labour legislation have the right to make obligatory
prescriptions to employers or to bring complaints to public prosecutor office
or to litigate. There is no information that this discretion has been ever used
for prevention or eradication of discrimination. The State Housing Inspection
(established in 1994) has the task to supervise the exercise of rights and
lawful interests of citizens and the state in the sphere of housing. Actually,
the SHI controls only physical state of dwellings and their compliance with the
governmental technical standards. The Ministry of Education has the supervisory
service that is only in charge of attestation of educational units; the
governmental and municipal educational bodies are not explicitly obliged to
tackle discrimination.
82. In the Russian Federation, Public Prosecutor
Office constitutes a separate system of state organs. Among the tasks of public
prosecutors are: a) general supervision over the compliance of governmental and
non-governmental bodies with the Constitution and federal laws; b) general
supervision over the state of rights and freedoms of citizens; c) public
persecution and investigation. There is no information confirming the Public
Prosecutor Office's interference in cases of ethnic or racial discrimination.
As a rule, the Public Prosecutor Office demonstrates reluctance to commence
proceedings and investigate cases under Articles 136 (discrimination) and 282
(hate speech) of the Criminal Code.
83. There are no special agencies in the Russian
Federation, either at the federal level or at the regional level, which are in
charge of prevention and elimination of discrimination. In theory, the Human
Rights Ombudsman of the Russian Federation has the competence to examine any
complaint to human rights violations in the cases when all the other remedies
available are exhausted or to address the cases of mass and systematic
violations. There is no evidence that the Ombudsman has been involved in the
cases of racial or ethnic discrimination. The Ombudsman's Office has not
demonstrated a specific and sufficient interest to this area so far. The
Ministry on Federative, Nationalities and Migration Affairs did not address the
issues of discrimination at all, nor did analogous local offices of the
subjects of federation. However, the Ministry was dissolved by the President's
Decree of 16 October 2001. The new State Minister on Nationalities Affairs does
not address the issues of discrimination.
84. The country is lacking a special
anti-discriminatory legislation. Formally, the USSR Law 'On Reinforcement of the Liability for
Encroachment on National Equality of Citizens and for Violent Acts Aimed at
Violation of the USSR's Territorial Integrity' of 1990 is still in force. It is
not implemented since its provisions, which envisaged criminal, administrative
and civil liability of people, and public associations were overcome and
replaced by the later legislation. There are no special anti-discriminatory
programs or programs in the field of providing equal opportunities in the
country. The state occasionally declares its willingness to provide for equal
rights of citizens, but these declarations are seldom if compared with the
statements on 'regulation of interethnic relations', 'prevention of conflicts',
'promotion of tolerance' and 'combat against extremism'.
(e) Each State Party undertakes to encourage,
where appropriate, integrationist
multiracial
organizations and movements and other means of eliminating barriers between
races, and to discourage anything which tends to strengthen racial division.
85. The Russian society at large is not
ethnically or racially segregated and the general public does not perceive
elimination of social barriers between ethnic groups as an important issue on
the agenda. Mono-ethnic organisation or organisations based on exclusively
ethnic membership are seldom in comparison with multi-ethnic ones. Ethnically
based public associations of minorities, as a rule, co-operate among themselves
and with non-ethnic NGOs. However, there are substantial problems of social
barriers on ethnic lines. One should mentions in this respect the cases of
Chechens across the country, Roma across the country, Ingushs in the Republic
of North Ossetia-Alania, the Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai (the relevant
information is provided above, in the sections pertaining to Article 2, par. 1
(a) and (b)). Social barriers are created and reproduced to a significant
degree by the passport system, related practices and public campaigns targeted
at 'migrants'. The state does not pay any attention to this area.
86. Organised political activities on ethnic
ground (as well as religious and professional) are actually not allowed in
Russia. The Federal Law 'On Political Parties' of 2001 envisages that among
public associations only political parties can take part in political
activities, namely in referenda, elections and electoral campaigns. Political
parties can be only federal, inter-regional or regional parties are not
allowed. Political parties cannot be established on the grounds professional,
racial, ethnic and religious belonging (Art. 9, part 3). Such grounds are
understood as any indication in the organisation's charted or programme on the
protection or expression of the respective professional, ethnic etc. interests.
To compare - the 1995 law on public association prohibited political public
associations on these grounds but determined the latter as blatant membership
restrictions. The 2001 law on political parties obviously imposes restrictions
on the freedom of association and on the right to participate in governance; it
actually prohibits any minority activism with a political component. This kind
of integrationist measures shall be considered excessive and disproportionate.
87. There is also the problem of hate speech in
public sphere. The government addresses this issue and reinterprets it as
'promotion of tolerance' and 'fight against political extremism'. The basis
assumptions of this approach and its effects are currently controversial in
Russia (for more information see the sections related to Articles 4 and 7 of
the ICERD).
‘States Parties shall, when the circumstances
so warrant, take, in the social, economic, cultural and other fields, special
and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of
certain racial groups or individuals belonging to them, for the purpose of
guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental
freedoms. These measures shall in no case entail as a con sequence the
maintenance of unequal or separate rights for different racial groups after the
objectives for which they were taken have been achieved.’
88. Article 69 of the Constitution of Russian
Federation guarantees the rights of small indigenous peoples, Article 71, par.
'c' puts 'regulation and protection of the rights of national minorities' under
the competence of the federation. Article 72, par. 'b' imposes jointly on the
federation and its subjects (constituent units) obligations regarding the 'protection
of national minorities', and par. 'm' - the 'defence of the traditional
habitats and traditional way of life of small ethnic communities'. On the basis
of Article 69 there was adopted the Federal Law 'On the Guarantees of the
Rights of Numerically Small Indigenous Peoples' of 1999. It envisages some
privileges in employment, land possession, exploitation of natural resources,
taxation, local self-government for the persons, belonging to aboriginal
peoples and carrying out traditional economic activities, as well as the right
of the regions to adopt additional protective measures in favour of these
people. The legislation of some Russian regions (Buryatia, Yakutia-Sakha, the
Tyumen oblast, Khabarovsk Krai) admits special rights of the aboriginal groups to
using and disposing of land and natural resources.
89. The State Duma suspended its work on the
draft law on national minorities in 1997. The mechanism of minority protection,
resting on the federative structure, governmental and educational and cultural
institutions and so called 'national-cultural' (i.e. exterritorial) autonomy,
actually exists (for more details see Annex 1), although it is not effective
and sufficiently funded.
90. The federal authorities have not taken any
measures to redress the violated rights and to improve the situation with those
categories, which had become the victims of racial discrimination and mass
infringement of the human rights. Among them are citizens of the former USSR
who have not been acknowledged the citizens of the Russian Federation contrary
to the law, forced migrants from Chechnia and several regions of the former
USSR and refugees from outside the former Soviet Union who were denied relevant
status and protection.
‘State Parties particularly condemn racial
segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all
practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction.’
91. The Russian legislation does not contain
either any notion of segregation or provisions, which would provide for its
prohibition.
92. Involuntary separation of pupils and classes
on ethnic ground has started is the recent years in Krasnodar Krai. Children of
Turks, Armenians, Kurds or Assyrians are placed in classes and courses separate
from ethnic Russians. This practice was first introduced in school No.2 of the
Krymsk district (the town of Krymsk). Within the recent 2 years, the division
of students into 'Slavic' and 'non-Slavic' (or 'Turkish') classes has been
established also in the settlement Nizhnebakanski (the Krymsk district), the
settlement Kholmski (the Abinsk district), the village Kubanskaya (the
Apsheronsk district) as well as in the Belorechensk district[8]. The school administrations justify this selection by the argument that
ethnic minorities need special treatment because of their poor command of
Russian language. However, the
separation is compulsory, the ethnic minority kids are sent to the 'non-Slavic'
classes regardless of their real fluency in Russian, and they receive lower
quality education than other students. Several schools are segregated on ethnic
lines between Ossetians and Ingushs in the Prigorodny district of North
Ossetia.
93. One can also employ the terms 'the crime of
apartheid', 'similar policies and practices of racial segregation and
discrimination' and 'systematic oppression' introduced in Article 2 of the
International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid’ of 30 November 1973. They cover 'denial of the liberty of person',
'infliction of serious bodily or mental harm, infringement of freedom or
dignity, subjection to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment', 'arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a
racial group or groups' (Article 2 clause 'a'); 'measures calculated to prevent
a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic
and cultural life of the country..., in particular by denying ... basic human
rights and freedoms, including the right to work..., the right to education,
the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality,
the right to freedom of movement and residence' (Article 2 clause 'c').
Persecutions of the Chechens across the Russian Federation and of the
Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai fall within these definitions. Actions
against Chechens and Meskhetians include frivolous detentions and arrests,
refusals to register by at the place of residence or stay, threats to oust the
people from the places of their residence, preventing the people from crossing
an administrative border, fabrications of criminal cases, firings and refusals
in employment, refusals to admit to schools, colleges and universities,
refusals to draw up passport and other personal papers, non-recognition of
Russian citizenship with regard to Meskhetian Turks.
‘States Parties condemn all propaganda and all
organisations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race
or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify
or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt
immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or
acts of, such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to the
principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights
expressly set forth in article 5 of this Convention, inter alia:’
94. The issue addressed by Article 4 of the
ICERD constitutes one of the mostly important problems for the Russian
Federation. Extreme nationalist organisations produce and disseminate racist,
anti-Semitic and anti-Moslem printed stuff, audio- and video-materials. Some
mass media, especially regional newspapers, publish materials blaming certain
ethnic groups, mainly natives of the Caucasus and Roma, for deterioration of
criminal and economic situation and demanding to restrict their rights. Within
2001-02, the Russian federal mainstream media (ORT TV channel, 'Komsomolskaya
Pravda', 'Moskovski Komsomolets', Literaturnaya Gazeta' newspapers) started to
broadcast and publish overtly racist materials and appeals. Racist statements
of governmental officials and parliamentary deputies have become frequent. Organised
violent attacks on the minorities, especially on people of Asian and African
origin, have become common. Mass violations of public order including racist
mob violence have taken place in Moscow and other large cities.
95. The principles enshrined in Article 4 of the
ICERD are partially implemented in the Russian legislation. Moreover, the new
legislation on fight against 'extremism', adopted in 2002, enables the
government to effectively suppress any public activity, which could be
interpreted as 'extremist'. Meanwhile, the government does not undertake
sufficiently to eradicate and prevent organised racist activities and hate
speech. Moreover, it supports, finances, and integrates into the official
structure paramilitary formations which identify themselves as Cossacks, while
these formations are as a rule demonstrate hostility towards many non-Russian
ethnic groups and commit racially motivated violent actions.
‘Shall declare an offence punishable by law all
dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to
racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such
acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin,
and also the provision of any assistance to racist activities, including the
financing thereof;’
96. Article 13, par.5 of the RF Constitution
prohibits the establishment and activities of public associations whose goals
and activities are targeted, among the rest, at 'inciting social, racial,
national and religious hostility'. Article 29 also contains a ban of
'propaganda or agitation inciting social, racial, national or religious hatred
and enmity'.
97. Article 63, part 1, par. 'e' of the 1996
Criminal Code of the Russian Federation acknowledges the motive of ethnic,
racial or religious hate or enmity as an aggravating circumstance for the
qualification of a crime. There is no statistical data on this article's
application in criminal accusations and juridical proceedings.
98. Article 282 of the Criminal Code envisages
criminal liability for 'actions aimed at inciting national, racial or religious
enmity, humiliation of national dignity, and also propaganda of exceptionalism,
superiority or inferiority of people on the ground of their attitude toward
religion, or their national or racial affiliation if these actions are
committed publicly or with the use of mass media'. Part 1 establishes
punishment varying from penalty fare of 500 minimal wages to 4 years
imprisonment. Part 2, which concerns the same deeds committed with violence or
threat of violence, abuse of the official position or by an organised group,
envisages from 3 to 5 years imprisonment. Article 282 is an article of public
and not of private accusation, that is a criminal investigation can be filed
exclusively by a public law-enforcement authority.
99. Article 282 in practice is applicable only to
a limited degree. The main reasons are the lack of will of public prosecutors
and a relatively unclear definition of the criminal offence. The obvious
drawback of Article 282 is that it combines at least three different kinds of
crimes varying by the degree of their potential threat to public order.
Consequently, the exceedingly broad scope of the article results in its
wittingly selective utilisation. The law-enforcement agencies must look upon
the article as a tool used on a special occasion. Besides, the police, public
prosecutors and judges interpret the formulation 'actions aimed at inciting…' in the
way that only direct intention must be among elements constituting a
crime in terms of Article 282. 'Absence of evidence of direct intention to
incite enmity' is the main pretext of the Russian law-enforcement bodies for
not instituting criminal investigation on hate speech.
100. As a common practice, police units do not
persecute the people, distributing racist papers, books and leaflets. Public
prosecutors, as a rule, refuse to start criminal investigations even in the
cases of public appeals to ethnic violence. When the law-enforcement agencies
take action against extreme nationalist and/or racist groups, they demonstrate
reluctance to employ Article 282. Usually, in these rare cases when the
criminal investigations were initiated, police or public prosecutors employed
different articles like 'hooliganism' or 'bodily injury' and did not recognise
racist components of the certain crimes.
101. According to the data provided by the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, there were 12 criminal cases on Article 282
processed in 1997 (among them 12 new cases for this year), 16 in 1998 (16 new),
29 in 1999 (25 new) and 24 in 2000 (17 new). Respectively, 6, 8, 14 and 8
investigations were closed or ended within each calendar year. 1 person was
accused in 1997, respectively 9 people in 1998, 11 in 1999, 8 in 2000. There is
no official information on the court trials and their outcome so far. According
to an unofficial information from the RF Supreme Court (dated February 2002),
no one was found guilty in court under Article 282 in 1997, 1 person was
sentenced in 1998, 4 in 1999, 10 in 2000 and 3 people in the first half of
2001. As a rule, those few persons who had been sentenced to a short-term or
conditional imprisonment were released either under an amnesty or because the
punishment had been covered by the duration of the pre-trial custody.
102. Until August 2002 (when the Federal Law 'On
Counteraction to Extremist Activities' took effect), assistance to racist
activities was not a crime under the Russian legislation.
103. The 1995 Federal Law 'On Immortalisation of
the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45'
prohibits the use of Nazi symbols in any way and proclaims fight against
fascist organisation on the RF territory a priority for the governmental
internal policies. In 1997, the regional legislative assemblies in Moscow and
Saint Petersburg introduced administrative liability for distribution of Nazi
or similar logos and symbols; in practice the norm remains actually
inapplicable. The new RF Code on Administrative Violations, adopted in 2001
(went into force on 1 July 2002), also envisages (Article 20.3) administrative
liability for the propaganda and demonstration of Nazi and similar symbols. The
previously adopted regional legislation on Nazi symbols obviously contradicts
the federal Code, and it is still unclear how the regional laws would be
brought in line with the federal one and what the practice of implementation
would be.
104. The limits of freedom of speech consistent
with the constitutional norms are stipulated in the RF Law 'On Mass Media' of
1991 (with subsequent amendments). For violation of the existing regulations
offenders are subject to civil and administrative liability, and, besides, to
criminal liability, established by the Criminal Code.
105. Article 4 of law on mass media prohibits 'abuse
of the freedom of speech', i.e. propaganda of violence, incitement of enmity
and similar things. Article 16 prescribes the mechanism for making sanctions
against a periodical, which violates Article 4. Issue of a periodical or
broadcasting can be stopped against the will of its founder only by a court
decision. The 'registering agency' (i.e. the Ministry of Mass Media,
Information and Communications and its territorial branches) can officially
submit an official written warning to a periodical or a broadcasting company,
which violates Article 4. The 'registering agency' has the right to bring a
suit before a court on closing a periodical or a broadcasting company only
after repeated violation of Article 4 within 12 months after at least two
official warnings. Each warning can be contested in court. As a rule, the
Ministry of Mass Media and its territorial branches demonstrate reluctance to
employ the existing mechanisms and use official warnings and actions before a
court only in rare cases. Besides, civil process in Russia gives the defendants
unlimited opportunities to drag out the hearings, and the extreme nationalist
newspapers as a rule use them.
106. Only public authorities can defend public
interest and file suits before a court in case of racist publications; the
purpose of the litigation with respect to mass media can be only its closure,
but not a penalty. Citizens or civil associations are not entitled to litigate
against a periodical or a broadcasting company unless a publication encroaches
on dignity or business reputation of the respective physical or legal person.
In other words, if public hate speech was not directed against a certain
person, it is not interpreted as a moral damage by the courts.
107. Administrative penalties for racist
publications as such are not envisaged.
108. The situation has changed when the Federal
Law 'On the Counteraction to Extremist Activities' took effect in August 2002.
The law determines the term 'extremist activities' broadly, as violent actions
against the state and any kind of actions aimed at inciting national, racial,
religious and social enmity in connection with violence or threats of violence;
humiliation of national dignity; vandalism and mass disorders; propaganda of
exceptionalism, superiority or inferiority of people on the ground of their
social, racial, religious, national and linguistic belonging; propaganda and
public demonstration of Nazi or similar symbols. The definition also covers
public appeals as well as financing and any other support to all these kinds of
activities. The law gives public prosecutors, the Ministry of Mass Media and
its territorial departments the right to submit official warnings to the
periodicals and broadcasting companies, which disseminate extremist materials.
If the periodical or broadcasting company does not bring its activities in line
with the official warning, the respective public prosecutor or registering
organ must file a suit before a court on the issue of liquidation of the
respective periodical. The issuance of the periodical or broadcasting may be
suspended for the term of proceeding (the latter is a new legislative element
if to compare with the previous legislation). A court may also determine
certain printed or other materials 'extremist' and ban their dissemination in
Russia; the Ministry of Justice is obliged to maintain the list of banned
materials (this is also a new element).
(b) Shall declare illegal and prohibit
organizations, and also organized and all other
propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination,
and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offence
punishable by law;
109. There are dozens of active extremist
nationalist groups and organisations, which preach ethnic superiority and
xenophobia, especially towards Jews and people who ethnically originate from
the Caucasus and Central Asia. Propaganda of racist and extreme nationalist
kind has been typical for such organisations as Russian National Unity (RNU),
the National-Bolshevik Party (NBP), the Russian Party and many others. Members
of some of these organisations in individual cases were involved in acts of
violence against ethnic minorities. In 2000-01, there was an obvious decrease
in these groups' activities. The RNU got into internal crisis and split into
three parts. The NBP leader has been on trial on the accusation of 'terrorism'
and of illegal arms possession. The politicised extreme nationalist political
groups and parties like the RNU and NBP have been to a significant degree
replaced by less politicised but more active and massive neo-Nazi or
non-ideological 'skinhead' youth gangs, which are now present in almost all
large cities. The number of unmotivated violent crimes against 'visual'
minorities has drastically increased within the recent 4 years[9].
110. Article 239 of the Criminal Code envisages
criminal liability for 'foundation of an association encroaching on citizens'
personality and rights. Part 1 establishes punishment for 'creation of a religious or civic association, the
activities of which are connected with violence towards individuals or other
harm to their health or with instigation to refusal from civil duties or to
other unlawful deeds as well as the leadership in such association' varying
from penalty of 200 minimal wages up to 3 years imprisonment. Part 2 makes
punishable membership in such association or propaganda and establishes
sanctions from penalty fare of 100 minimal wages to 2 years imprisonment. Until August 2002,
participation in a prohibited racist organisation as
such was not a criminal offence. Only if an association of this kind made
physical and moral harm directly to an individual or tried to violate directly
certain people's rights, Article 239 can be employed. Under Article 208 of the
Criminal Code, citizens of the RF can be prosecuted for participating in an
'illegal armed formation'; however, the concept of 'illegal armed formation'
appears to be non-functional.
111. The investigators usually refrain from
acknowledging the organised character of the hate crimes and their link with
the extreme nationalist or racist activities. Article 239 of the Criminal Code
('Foundation of an association encroaching on citizens' personality and
rights') is being also used occasionally. According to the data of Ministry of
Internal Affairs, there were 4 criminal cases on Article 239 processed in 1997
(2 new), 6 in 1998 (5 new), 6 in 1999 (5 new) and 8 in 2000 (8 new). 1, 4, 1
and 3 investigations were closed or ended within each of these 4 calendar
years. 1 person was accused in 1997, 2 in 1998, 2 in 1999, 2 in 2000. There is
no official information on the court trials and their outcome so far. Article
208 is used exclusively in Chechnia during the armed conflict.
112. Article 23 of the Federal Law 'On Public
Associations' of 1995 states that if a group's charter violates the
Constitution and the law on public associations, there are possible grounds for
the governmental organ to refuse registration of this group as a legal person.
Many years of practice have clearly shown that no public association includes
in its charter forms of activity prohibited by the RF Constitution and federal
laws. That of course does not prevent such groups from participating in such activities
anyway. Articles 41-45 of the same law envisage responsibility of civic
organisations for violating the RF laws. Possible sanctions include suspending
an association's activities or disbanding it. Both suspending and disbanding a
group can be conducted only by a judicial procedure after two repeated written
warnings, 'if these warnings were not contested in court through the
established legal procedure or not declared unsubstantiated under the law by
court'. Only the Ministry of Justice, its regional departments and public
prosecutors are entitled to file civil suits before a court against public
associations. Citizens or public associations do not have the rights to
litigate against a public association promoting or propagating racist ideas.
113. Federal and regional authorities took certain
measures against extreme nationalist or racist organisations, however, those
actions were sporadic, inconsistent, sometimes of an arbitrary character and
contradicting the law. They seldom achieved the goals they were aimed at. In
1997, the RF Ministry of Justice refused registration to the party Russian
National Unity and several other similar associations. Several regional
Departments of Justice issued analogous refusals. Nevertheless, many extreme
nationalist organisations got official registration, and many others have
operated de facto without registration.
114. In November 1998 the Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov declared that he would not let the RNU Congress be held, though the
Mayor was not entitled to ban public meetings; and the RNU Congress did not
take place. The General Procurator’s Office together with the Federal Security
Service has distributed methodological guidelines and recommendations on
investigation of the cases of hate speech; although there is no information of
how those instructions are applied in practice. On 25 November 1999, the RF
Central Electoral Committee refused to register the list of candidates
submitted by the electoral bloc 'Spas' (that was formed on the basis of RNU),
which was to participate in the elections to the RF State Duma. The legal
reasoning was based on incompatibility of the declared and actual activities of
the organisation.
115. In 2002, the government significantly
intensified combat against extreme nationalist groups. Several nationalist
editions got official warnings or/and were liquidated. 6 regional branches of
the former RNU were denied official registration. The police started to form
special units for combating extremist gangs.
116. The 2002 Federal Law 'On the Counteraction
to Extremist Activities' gives public prosecutors, the Ministry of Justice and
its territorial departments the right to submit official warnings to a public
association, which is involved in extremist activities. If the respective public
association does not bring its activities in line with the official warning,
the public prosecutor or registering organ must file a suit before a court. The
court may liquidate this public association (if it is a legal person) and
impose a ban on its activities (if it does not have official registration). A
public prosecutor or an organ of the Ministry of Justice up to 6 months can
also suspend a public association's activities after commencing the lawsuit on
the issue of liquidation (the latter is a new legislative element if to compare
with the previous legislation). The law also establishes denial or restriction
of access to public service and to some professions by a court decision as a
new type of responsibility for person involved in extremist activities.
117. In July 2002, there were also amended the
Criminal Code and a number of laws. Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code
establishes liability for organisation of or participation in an 'extremist
group', i.e. a group organised by committing crimes motivated by ethnic, racial
and other kinds of hatred. Article 282.2 envisages liability for organisation
of or participation in an 'extremist organisation', i.e. an association
disbanded and banned by a court.
118. The enforcement practice regarding the
extremist law is still missing, so one can't make judgement on to what extent
the mechanism is actually effective. Most Russian human rights NGOs consider
the law, especially the broad definition of 'extremist activities' creates
prerequisites for abuse of power. Administrative suspension of a periodical or
a public association (with can be endlessly repeated) without a judicial
decision may mean actual liquidation of any organisation disliked by the
government. Under Article 15 of the law on extremist activities establishes the
duty of a public association publicly express disagreement with a statement of
its leader or member within 5 days afterwards if this statement can be
considered 'extremist'. Otherwise, the lack of statement of disagreement must
be regarded as an element of extremist activity. Meanwhile, Article 29, part 3
of the RF Constitution stipulates that 'no one may be coerced into expressing
one's views and convictions or into renouncing them'. The term of 5 days for
expressing public disagreement is unreasonable, besides, this norm makes public
associations vulnerable to provocations. The new version of Article 280 of the
Criminal Code establishes responsibility for 'public appeals to extremist
activities', although not all kinds of these 'activities' are subject to
criminal liability.
119. Besides, the broad definitions of the new
pieces of legislation are conductive to selective and, consequently, arbitrary
enforcement. The previous legislation, though relatively effective, was not enforced
properly and actively; there are no guarantees that the new one will be applied
in a better way. Previously, the law enforcement agencies justified their
reluctance to persecute hate crimes and hate speech by the alleged lack of
legal definition of 'extremism'. Currently, the new legislation on combating
'extremism' contains the same formulations as the former provisions;
consequently, it is not obvious that the new norms can encourage new
enforcement policies.
‘Shall not permit public authorities or public
institutions, national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination.’
120. As stated above, the Russian legislation
does not also explicitly ban racial harassment by civil or municipal servants.
It is also missing any norms concerning disciplinary liability of elected
public officials and of civil and municipal servants for racist speech as such.
The 2002 law 'On the Counteraction to Extremist Activities' (Article 14)
prohibits 'extremist speech' and appeals to 'extremist activities' for
governmental (both civil and militarised) and municipal servants. On the matter
of their liability, it contains a general reference to the federal legislation,
which is lacking any definite norms and sanctions directly related to racist
activities. The 'General Principles of
Official Conduct of Civil Servants', adopted by the President's Decree No. 885
of 12 August 2002, declare that a governmental official 'shall demonstrate
tolerance and respect towards customs and traditions of the peoples of Russian
Federation, take into account cultural and other features of different ethnic,
social groups and confessions, support interethnic and interconfessional
dialog'. This Decree is, however, is a mere declaration, it does establish any
mechanism of implementation and control or any sanctions for violations.
121. In a number of cases, high-ranked governmental
officials and parliamentarians made overly racist statements. A matter of deep
concern is the fact that the federal Presidency and Government as well as the
chairpersons of the Federal Assembly chambers never condemn or refute them. The
mostly radical nationalist rhetoric aimed at ethnic minorities, especially Jews
and peoples of 'Caucasian' origin (Armenians and Turks) is used by the
authorities of Krasnodar Krai, and, in particular, its governors for Nikolai
Kondratenko (1996-2000), Alexander Tkachev and some other regional officials
(for more details see Annex 3). In October 2000, the formal head of the major
pro-governmental political party 'Yedinstvo' Sergei Shoigu publicly and clearly
expressed his regret on Kondratenko's refusal to be balloted for the second
term as a Krasnodar governor and his desire to leave the politics. In May 2002,
the deputy head of the President's Administration Vladislav Surkov, several
times publicly stated that there were no discord between the federal government
and the regional administration on the migration and ethnic issues. Alexander
Mikhailov, the newly elected head of the regional executive in the Kursk
oblast, made blatantly anti-Semitic statements on his coming to office in
November 2000.
‘In compliance with the fundamental obligations
laid down in Article 2 of this Convention, States Parties undertake to prohibit
and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the
right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or
ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the
following rights:
(a) The right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs
administering justice;’
122. In many cases there are grounds to state,
that Krasnodar Krai courts were biased in relation to the Meskhetian Turks who
filed the claims against the local police in connection with the refusals to
register Turks by the place of residence. In many cases the court decisions
were not in plaintiffs' favour and ignored the requirements of the law. Because
of the somehow political dimension attached to Meskhetian’s litigation cases,
there have been some instances where the courts did not register or did not
process claims submitted by Meskhetians. In 1999-2002, about 30 Meskhetians in
Krasnodar Krai tried to assert the legal fact of their residence in Russia in
1992 by a juridical decision and thus to make the authorities recognise their
Russian citizenship. In some cases, the judges under various pretexts did not
commence the suits of this kind. For instance, in March 2001, the judge of the
Krymsk district court refused to accept the suits on assertion of permanent
residence in Russia of Zuhra and Mustafa Eminovs on the date the Russian
citizenship law had taken effect. The main pretext was following: the
Meskhetian Turks are temporary residents in Krasnodar Krai and in Russia, they
cannot claim Russian citizenship, and their status must be determined
separately. After the same refusal of the Krasnodar regional court of June 2001
to commence the suit, the Eminovs whose access to justice was denied, brought an
action before the European Court on Human Rights under articles 6(1), 13 and 14
of the ECHR and are awaiting a decision.
123. Some judges in Moscow demonstrated a similar
biased attitude towards the Armenians who had to flee Azerbaijan in 1988-91 and
tried to assert their Russian citizenship in court.
124. As a rule, the courts in Moscow and the
Moscow oblast ignored contradictions in accusations and evidence provided by
the police and public prosecutors against the Chechens charged of illegal
possession of drugs and ammunition. Although there were clear indications that
the evidence had been falsified, the judged found these people guilty[10] (see the section pertaining to Article 2, paragraph 1 'a').
125. According to the data, collected by the Legal Advocacy Centre of the
Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Roma, public prosecutors and judges
always use arrest by warrant and never safe-pledge deposit in the cases of
criminal accusation of a Roma. The courts sentence Roma convicts to maximal
punishment envisages by the respective provisions of the Criminal Code.
‘The right to security of person and protection
by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government
officials or by any individual group or institution;’
Violent
actions of the law-enforcement staff
126. Racially motivated violence of police
officers towards ethnic minorities is course of identity checks, searches and
detentions is systematically recorded by human rights organisations and
reported by minority associations[11].
127. In some cases police detachments (usually
belonging to special units) sporadically beat up and insult large groups of
people belonging to ethnic minorities of Caucasian and Central-Asian origin and
to the Roma.
128. On 26-28 February 1999, a special police
unit subjected to the Stavropol Regional Directorate of Internal Affairs chased
across the city of Stavropol the people who were looking like natives of the
Caucasus. About 30 Daghestanis, Chechens and Armenians were detained, taken to
a police station, beaten up and then released. The policemen explained as a
'revenge', because some of their colleagues had been either wounded or murdered
by unidentified 'Caucasian criminals'. The local public prosecutor refused to
process a criminal investigation, and the Regional Directorate of Internal
Affairs denied the fact of beatings and explained the incident as a routine
checking-up operation[12].
129. On 5 November 1999, in the morning, eight
people, allegedly officers of the criminal investigation department, entered
the building of the State Management Academy (Moscow) and checked up the
students’ Ids. All students, ethnically originating from the Caucasus, were
gathered in the canteen, and their papers were taken away from them. Later 15
policemen, wearing the uniform and armed with automatic rifles, joined the
first group of officers. Having gathered 25 young men, 3 girls and the father
of one of the students, they convoyed them to the police station No. 44.
Several people were beaten up there, all the detainees were searched, their
fingerprints were taken, and their photographs in three foreshortening were
taken. Afterwards, the detainees were released without any explanation[13].
130.
On 29 March 2001, armed and masked policemen belonging to a special
detachment conducted a 'mop-up' operation in the Romani settlement Dorozhnyi
(Guryevski district of the Kaliningrad oblast). The policemen checked several
houses and beat up dozens of Roma, including women and children. A few men, but
later released without any explanations or apologies[14].
131.
On 3 November 2001, about midnight 8 policemen gathered and lined up 60
Tadjik migrant workers at the Cherkizovski market in Moscow. The police
searched these people, took away the money that were on them. 20 Tadjiks were
beaten up. The convoyed all Tadjiks to the 51st police station of
Moscow, and kept them there until morning, and released them after taking away
there passports. Most passports were given back in a few days, but some were
lost[15].
132.
On 23 September 2002, around 9 p.m. a special police detachment rushed
into the student campus of the Moscow University of Forestry (the town Mytishi,
the Moscow oblast). A large group of students originating from the Caucasus
were gathered, beaten up and delivered to the 1st police station of Mytishi. In some rooms,
furniture and doors were damaged. The policemen photographed the students and
took their fingerprints, then released them without any explanations. Three
students were heavily injured. The police threatened the students and demanded
from them not to apply to a public prosecutor. Later, until 1 October, checks
and searches took place every night. Students of 'Caucasian' origin were chased
over the campus. A number of students had their money and valuables like mobile
phones stolen by the police. A State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov visited the
campus and talked to the deputy head of the police station. The officer
insisted that the police had checked 'passport regimen' and acted lawfully
without any abuse of power[16].
133. In all incidents of this kind, high-ranked
police officials and public prosecutors refuse to process investigation and
characterise the police actions as lawful.
Refusal
of the law enforcement agencies to give equal protection to persons subjected
to violence by extremist groups
134. Most of acts of violence against persons,
belonging to ethnic minorities, in the Southern regions of RF (Krasnodar and
Stavropol Krais, Rostov and Volgograd oblasts) are committed by members of
organisations that refer to themselves as Cossacks. The law enforcement bodies
refrained from penalising the perpetrators. In July 1997, two Crimean Tatar and
Azeri boys of 10 and 11 years old were charged with homosexual lechery against
the other children at khutor (village) Vinogradny, the Krymsk district,
Krasnodar Krai. On 29 July, the Cossacks from Krymsk summoned 'a meeting of
citizens' in the village. Representatives of the settlement and district
administrations as well as the police officers from Krymsk police attended the
meeting and did not try to prevent or contest it. The meeting sentenced the
families of those teenagers to move out of the village. Four families[17] under threat of violence from the Cossack and under pressure from local
authorities left the district. Temur Aliev, the head of one of these families
was beaten, his house was robbed and then blown up by the Cossacks (that was
directly acknowledged by the local Cossack newspaper)[18]. On 16 April 2001, a large group of the Cossacks beat up more than 30
Turks in the village of Novoukrainskaya (Krasnodar Krai); a hand grenade was
thrown into a shop run by a local Turk[19]. On 30 November
2001, 6 Turks were beaten up and heavily injured in the village of Shkolny in
Krymsk district[20] (Krasnodar Krai).
In April and May 2002, the Cossack chieftains of the Rostov oblast publicly
threatened to expel the Meskhetian Turks and other Muslim groups out of the
region. They started patrolling railway and bus stations to prevent Meskhetian
Turks and Kurds who were at that time to be deported from neighbouring
Krasnodar Krai from arriving to the Rostov oblast.
135. The police did not try to prevent mass
assaults to the shops owned by the persons of Caucasian (Azeri, Armenian and
Chechen) origin, pogroms and arsons committed by a crowd of aggressive youth in
the town of Udomlya (the Tver oblast, the Central Russia) on 9 and 10 May 1998.
The local and regional authorities interpreted this incident as a 'spontaneous
interethnic conflict'; deputies of the town council supported the hooligans
overtly. None of those who participated in the pogrom was officially
prosecuted.
136. Since spring 1998, there has been a rapid
rise in the number of assaults against the people with a dark skin or looking
like Roma or natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia in Moscow and other large
cities. Since 2000, assaults on foreigners have become an everyday routine in
Moscow. Most of these crimes are committed supposedly by neo-Nazi or 'skinhead'
gangs. In most cases, the police did not take measures to investigate the
cases. When the criminal investigation was processed, the police qualified the
incidents as pure 'hooliganism' and not crimes on racist grounds. Most of the
perpetrators remain unidentified and unpunished. There have been only few
exceptions. A skinhead leader Semion Tokmakov was accused in May 1998 of
beating a US Moscow Embassy guard officer and sentenced to a short-term
imprisonment. Tokmakov was released in 1999 in the court building, since his
pre-trial custody covered the sentence.
137. On 7 May 1998, members of a supposedly
neo-Nazi group killed one young retailer of Azeri origin at the 'Luzhniki'
market in Moscow. The police witnessed the murder, but didn’t try to interfere.
Later a spontaneous demonstration of Azeri retailers who protested against
racist violence was forcibly dispersed and many people were severely beaten.
138. On 17 September 2000, a group of
approximately 15 youngsters wearing black uniform attacked the Jewish Sunday
school in Ryazan. They damaged the furniture in the lobby, broke telephones and
destroyed the exhibition of children pictures. The local police incited a
criminal case under Article 213 of the Criminal Code ('Hooliganism') and
shortly determined 4 persons who had taken part in the attack, but did not
detain them. Later on, the criminal investigation was closed under the pretext
that the police was unable to find out any proof of guilt.
139.
On 21 April 2001, between 160 and 200 youngsters looking like
'skinheads' attacked the Yasenevo market in Moscow. They beat the vendors who
were looking like people from the Caucasus and destroyed property; 15 people
were injured. The police did not prevent the pogrom and did not interfere, but
detained 53 persons later. Later on, 6 people were accused of 'hooliganism' and
'incitement of ethnic hatred'. 5 of them were found guilty in 2002.
140. On 30 October 2001, between 200 and 300
young people looking like 'skinheads' beat people looking like non-Russians, at
the South of Moscow (near the Tsaritsyno underground station and other places).
39 people were injured and hospitalised; 3 people were killed or died from
wounds. The police did not cease the pogrom, but detained 26 youngster right
after it. The day after the police prevented a similar clash in the other part
of the city. Subsequently, 5 people were accused of murder and hooliganism and
found guilty in December 2002. There is no information whether the
law-enforcement agencies tried to find out the organisers of the pogrom.
141. A pogrom targeting Armenians took place in
the town Krasnoarmeisk (the Moscow oblast) on 11 July 2002. Several dozens of
people were beaten up, but the police did not proceed any investigation.
‘Political rights, in particular the right to
participate in elections - to vote and to stand for election-on the basis of
universal and equal suffrage, to take part in the Government as well as in the
conduct of public affairs at any level and to have equal access to public
service;’
142. In some republics within the Russian
Federation, just as in other unit of the federation, there are regimes with
authoritarian tendencies, under which the selection and appointment of top
officials are the privilege of a small group of people at the apex of the
executive system. These same people control the elections, including the system
for nominating candidates and guaranteeing candidates access to the mass media.
The ruling elite in these republics uses as a basis for their own legitimacy
the ideas of 'national (ethnic) statehood' and 'republican sovereignty'.
Candidates to the official positions are selected on the basis of loyalty to
the guiding ideas and personally to the top leaders. Moreover, the people are selected
on the grounds of whether they are relatives or originate from the same area at
the higher officials. That leads to a drastic reduction in opportunities for
people who are not members of the 'titular' nationalities, so that they are
barred from taking prestigious or responsible positions. For example, ethnic
Adygeis make up around than 20% of the population of the Republic of Adygeia,
but totally make up more than 70% of the members of the republican parliament
and government. In the Republic of Bashkortostan, ethnic Bashkirs make up 22%
of the population, but about half of the members of parliament and a majority
of the member of government.
'Other civil rights, in particular:
(i) The right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of the
State;'
Discrimination
related to the restrictions on freedom of movement
143. The following are the main discriminative
restrictions of freedom of movement.
144. 1) Ban on crossing the administrative
border of a subject of federation for persons of a certain ethnic origin and
compulsory ousting back those of them who try to enter the territory of a given
region. Starting from March 1999, this restriction was periodically imposed
by Stavropol regional authorities on the Chechens willing to cross the Krai's
administrative border from the Chechen Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia
– Alania and the Kabardin-Balkarian Republic. From August 1999 till January
2002, authorities of the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania and the
Kabardin-Balkarian Republic prohibited entry to all Chechens, irrespective of
the region of their registration by place of residence. The prohibition was
maintained by the overall checks of the motor and railway vehicles and of personal
documents; the Chechens were identified either by the 'nationality' entry, if
they held the old-type Soviet passports, or by their personal names and
physical appearance.
145. 2) Refusals to register by place of stay.
In the first half of 1999, several Chechens were refused registration by their
places of stay in Moscow. Personnel of the passport offices openly explained
their refusal by referring to the applicants’ ethnic affiliation. After the
apartment bombings in Moscow on 9 and 13 September 1999 during the compulsory
re-registration of all 'newcomers' around 20,000 people were refused; many of
them obtained written orders to leave Moscow. Later on, refusals to register
the Chechens and Ingushes became massive, though not total. Police officers
check up the premises where Chechens are registered, and if they do not find
the registered Chechens there, they cancel registration (see the section
pertaining to the Article 2, clause 1 'a'). Since 2000, the Chechens
systematically are not registered by place of stay in many Russian regions.
Discrimination
based on restrictions of the right to free choice of residence
146. 1) Direct restriction on registration at
the place of residence of the people belonging to certain ethnic groups,
overtly stipulated by certain legislative acts. This is the case of
Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai (see the section pertaining to Article 2,
par. 1 ‘a’).
147. 2) Advantages given under the regional
legislative acts to certain ethnic groups in registration at the place of
residence. Authorities of some North Caucasian regions give privileges in
authorising permanent residence to 'newcomers' who belong to so-called titular
nationalities (i.e. ethnic groups mentioned in the name of the region), but
limit this right for the people of other ethnic origins. The normative acts of
these regions define the privileged categories as 'compatriots' or
'repatriates', and in practice their identification is entirely based on ethnic
criteria. In 2000-2001, these acts were amended or abrogated in the Republic of
Adygeia and the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania. However, the practice has remained
unchanged. In the Kabardin-Balkarian Republic, the limitations on the right to
permanent residence, introduced by the Parliament Resolution 'On Some Measures
Aimed at Regulating Migration in the Kabardin-Balkarian Republic' No.17-P-P of
5 May 1994 do not extend to the 'compatriots' who are regarded as persons
belonging to the 'titular' nationalities. The Parliament Resolution No.17-P-P
was confirmed by the additional Resolution No. 61-P-P of 27 June 1995 and
reproduced by the new Resolution of the KBR Parliament No. 410 from 22 November
2001.
148. 3) Systematic refusals to register
persons belonging to certain ethnic groups by places of residence.
Officials who do this exercise their discretionary power under existing federal
or regional norms or
the established practice. The following groups are the
victims of such mass refusals:
a.
Chechens across the country,
starting from August 1999 (earlier refusals were seldom and sporadic);
b.
the Georgian refugees from
Abkhazia in Moscow and Krasnodar Krai;
c.
Kurds in Krasnodar Krai, the
Republic of Adygeia, the Nizhny Novgorod oblast;
d.
the Nogais - forced migrants
from Chechnia - since 1999 in Stavropol Krai;
e.
the Meskhetian Turks - forced
migrants from Chechnia in Stavropol Krai (in Budionovsk, Kirovsk and Kursk
districts).
149. In 1996 and 1997, according to the official
figures available, total of 49,551 people applied to the Commissions on
Migration Control in 32 municipal units of the Krasnodar krai. Of those
applicants, 37,872, or 76.4%, received positive decisions. Among Russians
(38,110 persons, or 76.9%) 81.1% received positive answers, among Armenians
(3,876, or 7.9%) - 41.0%. The share of positive decisions among East Slavic
peoples (Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians) was 80.8%, among natives of the
South Caucasus (Abkhazians, Azerbaijanians, Armenians and Georgians) - 43.4%,
among persons belonging to peoples of the South and North Caucasus or those who
came from the former USSR (including Kurds and Turks, but not Greeks) - 45.0%,
and among the rest - 70.4%. Answers from separate municipal units also contain
information on how many people were sent to the Regional Migration Commission
and how many people received final rejection at the city and district level. In
1996-97, in Belorechensk the following applicants to the Commission on
Migration Control were rejected: Russians - 5.2%, Armenians - 45.2%, in Anapa -
21.8% and 50.7%, respectively, in Armavir - 5.0% and 41.0%, in Pavlovsky
district - 5.9% and 29.3%, in Kutshevsky district - 1.7% and 23.4%.
150. In 1996, in the city of Zheleznovodsk of
Stavropol Krai 23 % of the applicants for a registration received negative
answers: 16.7 % of the Russian applicants; 29.2 % of the Greeks, 21.9 % of the
Ukrainians, 53.6 % of the Georgians; 78.3 % of the Armenians. In 1997, the
average percentage of refusals was 23.1: 16.6 % for the Russians; 31.6 % for
the Greeks; 37.5 % for the Ukrainians; 84 % for the Armenians; 88.1 % for the
Georgians. From 1994 till 1997 the Registration Committee in the Predgorny
district considered 6,959 applications for the registration, 5,297 applications
were satisfied; the average percentage of refusals was 23.9: 14 % for the Russians;
42.8 % for the Greeks; 47.5 % for the Armenians; 56.4 % for other ethnic
groups. The average percentage of refusals in Shpakovsky district in 1996 was
34.7 % of all the applicants: but 27.8 % of the Russians, 2/3 of the Armenians
and 2/3 of the Georgians. In 1997, in the same region the average percentage of
refusals was 17: 8.3 % of the Russians, 34.8 % of the Armenians, and 2/3 of the
Ukrainians. From 1996 till 1997 in the Sovetskiy district the average
percentage of refusals was 7.4: 6.3 % for the Russians, 5.6 % for the
Ukrainians, 16.7 % for the Georgians, 18 % for the Armenians, 20.5 % for the
Gypsies, 40 % for the Chechens. The same period and the same information from
the Kirovsk district: the average percentage of refusals was 3.8: 0.8 % for the
Russians, 15 % for the Georgians, 25 % for the Turks, 25.4 % for the Armenians.
There have been no changes in the work of those structures in Krasnodar Krai.
In Stavropol Krai, most of these commissions were abandoned in 2000-2001, and
the discretionary power has shifted to the police and local administrations.
(iii) The right to nationality;
Non-recognition
of Russian citizenship
151. The non-recognition of citizenship does not
fit the exception containing in Article 1, par. 3 of the ICERD, because it is
not a matter of legislative or any other lawful distinction or requirement,
which concerns nationality, citizenship, or naturalisation, but of arbitrary
selective approach to different ethnic groups.
152. The problem concerns several groups of
citizens of the former USSR distinguishable on ethnic ground. They arrived at
the territory of Russia, mainly involuntarily, before the collapse of the
Soviet Union. They have not received residence registration in Russia, as a
rule because of arbitrary refusals. In certain cases the refusals were caused
by discriminatory motives. As a result, these have not been officially
recognised as citizens of the Russian Federation. Under Article 13, part 1 of
the RF Law 'On Citizenship of the Russian Federation' of 1991, former Soviet
citizens who permanently resided in the RSFSR on the date the law
entered into force (6 February 1992) and who did not decline their Russian
citizenship within one year afterwards, were deemed Russian citizens (so-called
acquisition of Russian citizenship 'by recognition'). Coming to Russia, these
people travelled within a single country and their stay in the RSFSR cannot be
interpreted as 'illegal'. Russian officials have systematically
interpreted the term 'permanent residence' (which concept is not defined by
law) in a restrictive manner, as meaning possession of propiska. This
approach is widely spread although it is completely arbitrary and is not based
on the law. Neither the citizenship law, nor the regulations, which determined
the procedure for obtaining and registering Russian citizenship[21], equated 'permanent residence' with availability of propiska or
registration by place of residence. According to the civil and administrative
legislation, the place of residence is the place of actual residence, that is,
where a person permanently or predominantly resides. Nevertheless, government
agencies, primarily the Ministry of Internal Affairs, de facto equate
'permanent residence' with 'the presence of registration at the place of
residence. The absence of residence registration was the basis for
non-recognition of Russian citizenship, and non-recognition of citizenship is
used as a pretext to refuse registration by place of residence. The attempts to
ascertain Russian citizenship in court or by administrative procedures as a
rule were unsuccessful.
153. The following groups are affected by this
arbitrary non-recognition of citizenship.
1.
Meskhetian Turks (Meskhetians)
who were forced to migrate from Uzbekistan in 1989-90 to Krasnodar Krai. Their
number is more than 10,000 people, the refusals are obviously racially
motivated.
2.
Some of the Kurds from Armenia
and Azerbaijan who sought refuge in Krasnodar Krai, Republic of Adygeia and
Nizhny Novgorod oblast in 1988-91. The estimated number is 2,000 - 4,000
people, the refusals are obviously racially motivated.
3.
A part of Armenians and Russians
who fled Azerbaijan in 1988-91 to Moscow, Moscow oblast, Krasnodar and
Stavropol Krais and Rostov oblast. The number in Moscow and Moscow oblast is
approximately 2,000 (the refusals are unlikely rather socially than racially
motivated). The number of Armenians in Krasnodar Krai is estimated between
3,000 and 5,000 (the refusals are obviously racially motivated). The exact
number in Stavropol and Rostov regions is unknown as well as the authorities' motives.
154. Discriminative restrictions in registration
at the place of residence (see the section concerning Article 5 ‘d’) limited
the opportunities to obtain Russian citizenship by the way of registration. The
latter term means a simplified procedure for the citizens of the former USSR,
envisaged by the 1991 citizenship law and valid until 31 December 2000. The
reason is that in practice access to this procedure requires registration by a
place of residence.
(iv) ‘The right to marriage and choice of
spouse;’
155. Marriages of persons who have no local
registration by place of residence or stay, in contravention of the law, are
not registered officially within the respective region. The state does not
undertake to put an end to this practice.
(ix) The right to freedom of peaceful assembly
and association;
156. In general, this right is being secured
legislatively and in practice. A single exception is the pressure on the
'Vatan' ('Homeland') Society of the Meskhetian Turks, which defends the rights
of Meskhetians in Krasnodar branch. The Krasnodar regional branch of the International
Society of the Meskhetian Turks 'Vatan' was liquidated by a court decision on
24 July 2002. The action was brought by the regional Department of the RF
Ministry of Justice, which accused the 'Vatan' of the activities contradicting
its own Charter. The reasoning was that the 'Vatan' society defended the rights
of the Turks in Krasnodar Krai and therefore was working for their 'sedentary
residence' in the region, while the organisation's Charter allegedly envisaged
resettlement of the Turks to Georgia; the latter obviously was not true. The
'Vatan' representative was not properly informed about the hearings, and was
not able to participate in the process. The court did not examine the actual
activities of the 'Vatan', it just stated that the organisation had got
official warnings of the Department of Justice twice, but had not brought its
activities in line with the official prescriptions.
Article 5 (e)
(i),(ii),(iii),(iv),(v)
(e)’Economic, social and cultural rights, in
particular:
(i) The rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable
conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal
work, to just and favourable remuneration;
(ii) The right to form and join trade unions;
(iii) The right to housing;
(iv) The right to public health, medical care, social security and social
services;
(v) The right to education and training;
157. In theory, exercise of all rights cannot be
conditioned by residence or sojourn registration and no one right can be
limited on the pretext that a registration is lacking. In practice, only
citizens of the Russian Federation who have registration by a place of
residence have access to the rights to work, social security, and social
services. The rights to housing, medical care, joining trade unions, education
and training are substantially limited for a person who does not have a
residence registration. Since in a number of instances (see the section on
Article 2, par. 1 (a)) refusal to register a person’s residence is
discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity, the same can be said about the
restriction of rights.
158. Besides, economic and social rights in
individual cases are restricted or denied exclusively on ethnic ground. This
affects the Chechens across the country, Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai
(regardless of their residence registration and recognised citizenship),
Ingushes in the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania. The state does not
undertake to stop or prevent this practice. For example, in 1997-98 and in
spring 2002, massive firings affected exclusively the Turks who were
temporarily employed at various enterprises in Krasnodar Krai. In May - June
2002, police patrols swept through the crop fields in the western part of
Krasnoadr Krai detained any Turks who have tried to start planting. In May
2002, 18 Turkish children were expelled from the municipal kindergarten in the
village of Novoukrainskaya of the Krymsk district. In May and June 2002, the
municipal health clinics in the Krymsk district blatantly refused to grant even
paid health care to patients of Turkish origin[22].
‘The right of access to any place or service
intended for use by the general public, such as transport, hotels, restaurants,
cafes, theatres and parks.’
159. From September 1999 till February 2000, the
Chechens en masse were refused accommodation in hotels in Moscow city
and in the Moscow oblast. Later on, these refusals became sporadic. For
example, on 14 April 2002, Umar Javtaev, a chairperson of a charitable and
human rights NGO ('SOS-Spasenie') in Khasaviurt (Daghestan) and a Chachen by
origin, came to Moscow on business. He was refused accommodation in the Vega
Hotel and was told to go to a police office to get permission. The reception
clerk demonstrated a certain police instruction but refused to give Javtaev a
copy. The local authorities do not combat, but rather encourage this practice.
‘States Parties shall assure to everyone within
their jurisdiction effective protection and remedies, through the competent
national tribunals and other State institutions, against any acts of racial
discrimination which violate his human rights and fundamental freedoms contrary
to this Convention, as well as the right to seek from such tribunals just and
adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered as a result of such
discrimination.’
160. In theory, rights and freedoms can be
defended in court (Article 46 of the Constitution; Article 11 of the Civil
Code), in particular by the ways of recognition of a right, restoration of a
violated right, recognition of an act issued by a state body or by local
self-government as contradicting the law. The law protects non-material wealth
including personal dignity, the right to free movement, inviolability of the
person and family (Articles 21, 22, 23, 27 of the Constitution, Article 150 of
the Civil Code). Article 1065 of the Civil Code stipulates that an activity bearing
a risk of making damage in future may be banned by a court decision. There are
no examples that this mechanism has been employed with regard to
discrimination.
161. The 1993 Law 'On Lawsuits Against Actions
and Decisions Violating Citizens' Rights' and respective provisions of the
Civil Procedural Code provide for the right to bring a complaint to court
against an action or inaction of state organs, public associations and
officials. This can be done in cases when 1) personal rights and freedoms are
violated; 2) an obstacle to enjoyment of rights and freedom are created; 3) a
duty or responsibility is unlawfully imposed on a person. A plaintiff has to
bring primary evidence of the violation and the burden of proof is shifted to
the defendant's side.
162. There are a number of cases when people
defended and redressed their rights, which had been actually violated on a
discriminatory basis. This kind of cases usually concern illegal firing or
refusals in registration by a place of residence, in granting the status of
refugee or forced migrant. The subjects of the suits were merely violation of
the respective rights. The issue of discrimination as such plays no role in
these situations as such and was not examined as a separate subject by a court.
There have been no lawsuits and juridical decisions, when certain regulation,
requirement, action or omission was found illegal not because it violated or
restricted certain rights, but due to it discriminatory nature.
163. Article 426 of the Civil Code related to the
institution of 'common contract', i.e. offer of a good or service by a
commercial organisation to an unidentified circle of consumers, establishes the
duty of a seller not to distinguish between consumers and provides for
juridical remedies in case of violation. There are no examples on this
article's application in cases of ethnic or racial discrimination.
164. In theory, a court may directly use the
constitutional anti-discriminatory provisions and must, respectively, apply on
the issue to the Constitutional Court. In a few individual cases, the RF
Supreme Court referred to the anti-discriminatory provisions of the 1971 Code
of the Laws on Labour and overturned the decisions of the lower courts
concerning labour disputes. These cases concerned, however, not ethnic or
racial discrimination, but discrimination on the grounds of age.
165. Article 15, part 4 of the Constitution
stipulates that ratified international treaties constitute an integral part of
the Russian legal system. In theory, international treaties may be applied
directly in court. There is no judicial practice of this kind relating to
anti-discriminatory provisions of the international human rights instruments.
166. The Constitution stipulates that (Article 52)
'the rights of the victims of crimes or of abuses of power are protected by
law. The state guarantees the victims' access to justice and to compensation
for damage caused.' Article 53 states that 'each person has the right to
compensation from the state for damage caused by the unlawful actions (or
inaction) of bodies of state power or their officials'. The current
legislation, however, does not envisage special guarantees of this kind. Direct
or indirect damage can be redressed on the general basis of civil legislation.
The legislation in force does not envisage juridical redress or compensation
for discriminatory treatment as such.
167. Moral damage can be compensated monetarily
under a court decision (Article 151 of the Civil Code). In practice, this
mechanism is not being used in cases of discrimination or ethnic harassment.
168. The RF Supreme Court Plenary, which observes
and analyses judicial practice, has never addressed the issues relating to
racial or ethnic discrimination or incitement of racial hatred.
169. Administrative remedies for individual
protection and compensation are not envisaged.
‘States Parties undertake to adopt immediate
and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education,
culture and information, with a view to combating prejudices which lead to
racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship
among nations and racial or ethnical groups, as well as to propagating the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and this Convention.’
170. The need for such measures is declared at
various levels and remarkable steps have been taken, but the real progress
cannot be considered as sufficient.
171. In December 1999, the RF Government adopted
the interdepartmental programme on the promotion of tolerance and prevention of
extremism and envisaged 25 million roubles (appr. 900,000 USD) budgetary
support. In March 2000, the project was reshaped into the Federal Programme for
2001-05 and adopted by the RF Government Resolution No. 629 of 25 August 2001.
The Programme envisages public funding at the amount of 397.7 million RUR
(appr. 13.3 million USD). Within 2001-02, the programme supported exclusively
research projects conducted primarily by governmental institutes.
172. There are special courses on 'basic
principles of official ethnic policies' arranged in the Academy of State
Service under the RF President (which provides for professional re-training of
governmental officials) and in its regional branches. These courses primarily
address such themes as federalism and conflict management, but prevention and
elimination of discrimination as well as minority protection are scarcely
taught upon. Besides there are a couple of pilot courses for sociologists and
journalists on multiculturalism and tolerance in the entire country, namely in
the Moscow State University and the non-governmental the Moscow School of
Social and Economic Sciences.
173. Since 1997, the secondary school curricular
includes the obligatory 'national [i.e. ethnic] and regional component'. As a
rule, the programmes on regional history and geography include data concerning
the main ethnic groups of the given region. Meanwhile, studying human rights,
including the issues of combating racial discrimination and intolerance,
remains optional. Only a limited number of schools teach these issues at the
initiative of their schoolmasters. Though the need for promotion of multicultural
education and ethnic tolerance in secondary schools is unanimously accepted,
the country is still missing respective teaching methods and textbooks.
174. Broadcasting of the nation-wide (federal)
as well as the regional television companies in general does not reflect
multi-racial and multi-ethnic nature of the Russian society. TV companies of
the republics within the RF have broadcasting programmes in languages of their
'titular nationalities'. Broadcasting companies of some other regions (the Samara,
Tyumen, Orenburg oblasts) broadcast for a limited time (as a rule, a few hours
a week) in the languages of the largest national minorities.
Part
III. Questions and recommendations.
Questions
addressed to the RF government.
175. Why does the RF government neglect the
discriminatory effects of the passport system, particularly of residence and
sojourn registration and of the police control over the 'passport regimen'? Why
it does not acknowledge the problem and undertake to change it?
176. Why does the RF government neglect the
emergence of outlawed ethnically based underclass as a result of de-legalising
the former Soviet citizens in the Russian Federation after adoption of the new
legislation on citizenship and on the status of foreigners?
177. Why does the RF government connive at the
systematic discrimination of the Chechens in Russia and why does not undertake
to defend them from persecutions and harassment?
178. Why does the RF government publicly support
the systematic pressure of the Krasnodar Krai authorities upon the Meskhetian
Turks and their policies to drive this group out of Russia? Why does the
Russian authorities seek the 'solution' in resettling the Meskhetians to
Georgia though this resettlement, if even happens, can be only voluntary?
179. What are the purposes of official support to
the para-military Cossack movement and of granting it special status and
privileges including special access to public service?
180. Why did the Russian authorities employ two
different interpretations of the RF Law 'On Forced Migrants' during the first
and second warfare campaigns in Chechnia so that the Chechens were entitled the
forced migrant status in 1994-96 but have been denied it since 1999 till present?
181. Why does not the Russian government address
the issues of abuse of power, violent crimes and racial harassment
systematically practised by the police?
182. Why does the Russian government interpret
the problems of ethnic relations as the issues of 'conflicts', 'extremism' and
'tolerance', but not as ethnic discrimination and hate speech? Why does not it undertake
to the respective training of governmental officials to prevent discriminatory
conduct?
183. What are the guarantees of effective
suppression of racist activities under the 2002 Federal Law 'On the
Counteraction to Extremist Activities', while the law reproduces the
definitions of the previous legislation?
184. The Russian Federation should undertake the
following measures.
Discrimination-related
legislation
185. Examine the national legislation with the aim
of ensuring prohibition, elimination and sanctioning of a broader range of
prohibited discrimination, and inter alia introduce the definitions of
direct and indirect discrimination as well as segregation, incitement to
discrimination, instructions to discriminate and support to discrimination.
Overtly prohibit discrimination and segregation in such areas as housing and all
stages of education.
186. Amend the Civil Procedural Code and the 1993
Law 'On Lawsuits Against Actions and Decisions Violating Citizens' Rights' in a
way that it would entitle people to bring actions against any kind (not
necessary including restriction of rights) of direct and indirect
discrimination as well as segregation.
187. Consider enacting procedural amendments to
permit public organisations to bring actions concerning discrimination and
incitement of ethnic hatred on behalf of groups/categories of people.
188. Consider amending Articles 136, 239 and 282
of the Criminal Code to further define its scope, in line with the terms of
Articles 1, par. 1; 2, par. 1 and 4 of the ICERD.
189. Amend the 2002 Federal Law 'On Counteraction
to Extremist Activities' to avoid abuse of power against freedom of speech and
public associations.
190. Assert Russian citizenship of the former
Soviet nationals who are entitled to Russian citizenship under Article 13, part
1 of the 1991 Citizenship Law, particularly members of ethnic minorities
discriminated against (Meskhetians, Kurds, Armenians). Amend the 2002
citizenship law to make access to Russian citizenship easier for the former
Soviet nationals.
191. Grant legal status (residence permits) in a
way of group status recognition to the former Soviet citizens who were actually
residing in Russia on the date the 2002 Federal Law 'On the Legal Status of
Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation' went into force. Amend the 2002 law
on the status of foreign citizens, abolish its discriminatory and excessively
restrictive provisions, and introduce transitional provisions enabling
legalisation of the former Soviet citizens actually residing in Russia.
192. Undertake to replace the passport system by
another system of personal documentation and identification not based on a
uniform personal identity document and not bond with a person's place of
residence. Before a fundamental reform in this area revise all laws and
regulations establishing the passport system. In particular, eliminate the
institution of mandatory sojourn registration, eliminate any provisions, which
impede the right of freedom of movement and choice of place of residence,
eliminate all provisions and practices, which condition exercise of rights and
duties by the availability of passport and residence registration, end the
system of police performance targets based on reporting of administrative
violations.
193. Amend the 1993 RF Law 'On Forced Migrants'
and the respective governmental policies to effectively entitle all people
suffering within the country from discrimination, persecutions, public
disorders and warfare to seek the forced migrant status without any
discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity and place of residence.
194. Revise the policies towards the Cossack
movement, deprive the Cossack organisations of their privileged status.
195. Stop the countrywide campaign of
persecutions against the Chechens and punish its perpetrators. Safeguard the
rights and freedoms of the people belonging to Chechen minority, in particular,
the right to freedom of movement and choice of residence, the right to
employment and to education. Stop attempts to forcibly return or exert undue
pressure to return the Chechens to Chechnya and to place obstacles in receiving
personal documents. Take urgent measures to address widespread sentiments of
hostility and prejudices against ethnic Chechens.
196. Stop the campaign of persecutions against the
Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Krai and punish its perpetrators. Ensure
accelerated and simplified procedure of securing legal status and rights of the
people belonging to this group. This group legalisation shall include 1) recognition
and redress of their property rights (registration of real estate purchases),
2) their recognition as Russian nationals in accordance with Article 13, part 1
of the 1991 Citizenship Law, 3) registration at the places of residence.
Judiciary
and law-enforcement agencies
197. In the context of persistent allegations
that criminal cases have been fabricated against members of ethnic and racial
minorities conduct a review of disputed cases brought under Criminal Code
articles 222 (illegal weapons) and 228 (illegal drugs). Release or rehabilitate
those arrested and convicted on fabricated charges, compensate them for damage
suffered, prosecute officials who are responsible for such fabrications.
198. Promptly investigate all allegations of
torture, ill-treatment and other race-related abuses by agents of the state and
ensure protection against any form of intimidation, harassment or abuse.
Consider establishing a commission of inquiry into cases and patterns of
race-related ill-treatment.
199. Ensure that state statistical reports include
data on the number and results of hearings in civil, as well as administrative
and criminal cases arising in relation to discrimination and incitement to
racial, national or religious hatred.
200. To review curricula and teaching methods in
order to eliminate prejudices and racist attitudes, and negative stereotyping.
201. Include cross-cultural awareness and
anti-racism programs for the selection, training and monitoring of justice
officials. Institute comprehensive training and performance monitoring
programmes to ensure that all officials, including law enforcement officers, do
not act in a discriminatory way.
ANNEX 1. COMMENTS ON THE
RUSSIAN OFFICIAL REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE CERD
The objective of these
comments is not to express disagreement with the report submitted by the
Russian Federation. Certainly, the alternative report, drafted by the Memorial
Human Rights Centre and other Russian NGOs, offers partly a different view on
the situation in the Russian Federation. Therefore, reading and comparing two
reports must sufficiently provide for understanding the essence and key points
of controversies. Commenting the official report on, we are just trying to
explain or highlight the things that might not be clear enough for the people
who are not familiar with
peculiarities of the Russian politics and public discourse.
The comments below correspond
to some selected paragraphs of the official report and to its annexes.
To paragraph 3. The RF
Constitution (Article 19, part 2, sentence 2) prohibits not 'racial
discrimination', but 'restrictions of rights on social, racial, ethnic,
linguistic or religious grounds', that is a more narrow notion than the
definition of discrimination enshrined in Article 1., par. 1 of the ICERD. It
is unclear whether the formulation 'the state guarantees equality of rights and
freedoms' (Article 19, part 2, sentence 1) can be interpreted as a clear prohibition
of discrimination on different grounds. Anyhow, the existing juridical
practice does not enable us to understand this provision in a straightforward
way. It is also unclear whether an understanding of 'discrimination' deriving
from Article 19 can be applicable in cases when a person or an official body
exercises discretionary power or in cases of official control or supervision.
Thus, one can hardly insist that the relevant constitutional provisions are 'fully
consistent with Russia’s international obligations'.
To paragraph 12. The separate
indication in 5 articles[23] of the Criminal Code onto
'motives of national [ethnic], racial or religious hatred or enmity' as an
aggravating circumstance of a crime does not bear any additional or specific
juridical sense. That means just a mechanical transfer of the provision of
Article 63, part 1, paragraph 'e' belonging to the General Part of the Code to
5 articles of the Special Part, which is devoted to definite crimes. Article
63, part 1, paragraph 'e' is applicable to all articles of the Special
Part except for the 5 articles mentioned afore, which contain the same
provision.
Besides, the content of
Article 117 of the Criminal Code is interpreted in the official report in not a
completely correct way. The Russian word 'istyazaniya', of course, can
be literally translated as 'torture', but, more precisely, it means infliction
of physical torment. Unfortunately, torture in the term of international
instruments (the Convention against
Torture and others) is penalised neither Article 117 nor in the Russian
legislation at large.
To paragraph 22. It is a matter of
common knowledge and a thing directly acknowledged even by staff of the President's
Administration, that the President's Decree No. 310 of 23 March 1995
on the combat against 'extremism' played no role in internal policies and was
forgotten shortly after its adoption. The same is true for the Commission to
counter political extremism, established by the Decree No.1143 of 27 October
1997. No one can say anything about the results of its work.
To paragraph 26. The Russian
migration policy except for the passport system rests on the following simple
thing. Within 10 years after the Soviet Union's breakdown, the Russian
authorities neither extended the Soviet legislation on foreigners onto the
former Soviet nationals nor introduced any special regulations regarding the
people who were Soviet citizens. The Russian government was pretending to
ignore these people. There were neither legal nor however else expressed
restriction on their entrance into Russia, stay, residence and enjoyment of
rights in the country. Afterwards, in 2000, the Russian government extended a
part of the Soviet Union's regulations regarding foreigners onto the ex-Soviet
citizens living in Russia. The new federal law on the status of foreigners,
adopted in 2002, does not distinguish between the people already resident in
Russia and those who are coming anew. In practice, that means de-legalisation
of most ex-Soviet nationals who reside in Russia and do not have acknowledged
Russian citizenship, since they are objectively unable to comply with the new
requirements.
Treating a part of the
permanent population as 'illegal migrants', the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and other governmental bodies refer to residence registration as criteria for
determining whether a residence id lawful or not. Requirements of the passport
system concerning residence and sojourn registration cannot be a substitution
to regulations determining foreigners' status. The registration rules are
applicable on equal footing to Russian citizens and non-citizens, so they have
not more in common with the foreigners' legal regimen that the traffic
regulation. According to the legislation in force, registration or its absence
is not a legal circumstance that creates any rights or duties.
The de-legalisation of
ex-Soviet nationals in Russia is formally ethnically neutral, but the new
control mechanism and sanctions target primarily ethnic and racial, primarily
'visible' minorities.
The RF Law 'On Refugees' is
basically in conformity with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees. Some differences should be also taken into consideration. A person
who is seeking asylum and who is forced to cross the Russian border illegally
is entitled to apply for the status only within 24 hours after crossing the
border. A person who already lives in Russia can apply for the status only if
he/she resided in the country 'on legal ground'. These requirements effectively
bar asylum-seekers from applying for the status. Besides, the people seeking a
status of refugee or forced migrant are often denied access to the respective
procedures orally without a written refusal that can be contested in a court.
Consequently, the total number of people who have come from outside of the
former Soviet Union and have been granted refugee status was approximately 530
persons by December 2002. The refugee status has not been granted to ex-Soviet
nationals since 1998. The number of those former Soviet citizens who had got
the status before is gradually declining because of term of status expiry. By
the beginning of 2002, their number was 17,000, by July 2002 it declined to
11,000. Most of them are the people who fled the Georgian regions of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia.
To paragraph 28. One shouldn't
overestimate effectiveness of the State Duma's Committee on Nationalities.
During the 2-nd (1996-99) and 3-rd (2000-2003) convocations of the State Duma,
the Nationalities Committee has managed to draft the laws on 'national-cultural
autonomy' and regarding the small indigenous peoples. The committee has failed
to draft the laws on rehabilitation concerning individual formerly repressed
people (that is envisaged by the 1991 RF Law on the repressed peoples) and the
law on national minorities. The amendments and additions to the laws in force,
which are elaborated in the committee, basically envisage restrictions of the
existing guarantees. Particularly, the amendments to the law on
'national-cultural autonomies' envisage limitation of the right to association
and further mandatory centralisation of the existing structures.
To paragraph 46. The Conception of
the Nationalities Policy in the Russian Federation (translated in the official
report as the Outline of Russian State Policy on Nationalities) cannot anyhow
be 'one of the core documents regulating nationality relations in Russia'.
Legal content of the President's Decree No. 909 of 15 June 1996, which approved
the Concept, was approval of the Concept; but nobody knows what the legal force
and content of a conception is. It does not bind any legislative body, it is
not mandatory for the executive, and its provisions cannot be defended in a
court. Besides, the principles and concepts of the Conception are too vague to
be implemented directly, so the document can hardly be called 'outline'.
To paragraph 47. Paragraph 47 is a
good specimen of wording used by Russian official bodies. Really, ethnic issues
are primarily perceived and interpreted as 'relations between nationalities
and socio-economic and national-cultural development of the peoples of Russia',
but not as prevention and elimination of discrimination and as minority
protection.
To paragraph 49. Really, more than
60 regions of the Russian Federation have adopted regional programmes for
'national-cultural development of peoples and ethnic groups'. The basic trouble
of all these programmes is their insufficient funding. For example, the Perm
oblast (province), situated in the Urals, a relatively prosperous and stable
region, has adopted 3 regional programmes namely for 1993 - 1995, 1996 - 1998
and 1999 - 2004. The first one was eventually funded for 1.5% of the initially
planned amount, the second one was not funded at all[24]. The third one was
funded in 1999 for 6.5% of the total amount envisaged by the programme. The
programme for national-cultural development, adopted by the Administration of
Stavropol Krai for 2001-2005, has not got any public funding so far.
About 80 minority languages
are either taught or used as means of instruction in public primary and
secondary schools throughout the country. Basically, this has nothing in common
with the regional programmes. Most newspapers and broadcasting programmes in
minority languages are private and they do without any public funding.
To paragraph 50. Consultative
bodies for ethnic affairs exist in less than half of the regions of Russian
Federation. The Assembly of Peoples of Russia is a name of a voluntary
association, which does not have any special status and capacities. Telephone
hotline in Moscow for the people who have been discriminated against was
established in Moscow in November 1999. It was open by the Moscow government
after an unprecedented flow of complaints caused by the purges against
'migrants' following the apartment bombings in Moscow in September 1999. Since then, the hotline has appeared to be
completely ineffective. Its staff was unwilling and unable to help the people
suffering from the new large-scale purges in August 2000 and November-December
2002.
To paragraphs
51-54. Basically, public (governmental and municipal) support to educational
and cultural institutions serving ethnic minorities rests on two mechanisms.
One is educational and cultural institutions, owned and run by the state or
municipalities. The other one is 'national-cultural autonomies'.
Governmental or municipal
schools, theatres, museums, folklore bands etc., whose work is aiming at ethnic
minorities, are relatively well developed in the republics and autonomous
districts of the Russian Federation. They serve primarily the so-called
'titular' ethnic groups (like Tatars in Tatarstan, Bashkirs in Bashkortostan)
of these regions. However, while ethnic minorities (i.e., non-Russians) constituted
approximately 18.5% of the country's population in 1989, 'titular' groups of
the republics and autonomous districts constituted only 6.7%. An advantage of
the republics in this area is their constitutional right to establish their own
official languages (Article 68, part 2 of the RF Constitution, the 1991 RF Law
'On Languages of the Peoples of Russian Federation') and, respectively, special
institutional guarantees[25]. The opportunities provided
for the rest are substantially less (also look at the comments to Paragraph 132
below). The main drawback of this mechanism is the absence of any particular
status and guarantees for the public institutions serving minority languages
and minorities as such. Nobody knows, under what circumstances and after what
kind of public requests the authorities are obliged to establish new schools.
Minority schools are not protected from a frivolous closure or reorganisation.
They do not enjoy any additional opportunities of self-government.
According to the 1996 Federal
Law 'On National-Cultural Autonomies', national-cultural autonomies are
voluntary non-governmental non-profit organisations established by ethnically
based public associations. 'Autonomies' do not have individual membership, they
can be of local, regional and federal level. Each autonomy is to serve a
separate ethnic group and to promote its culture and language. In theory,
'autonomies' are entitled to public funding for their individual projects and
to consultative functions before federal and regional executive.
The mechanism of
'national-cultural autonomies' has several obvious drawbacks. The 1996 law
reduces the opportunities of public funding and support in comparison with the
1995 Federal Law 'On Public Associations'. The state may fund the
autonomies' activities, but not obliged to do this. The government or
municipal authorities have the right to finance separate projects, but not an
autonomy or an institution as such. In accordance with Article 78 of the RF
Budgetary Code of 1998, public finances can be allocated to non-governmental
organisations only under a federal or regional law or a federal, regional or
municipal programme. That means that only short-term projects can be funded,
but established long-term non-governmental institutions cannot actually get
budgetary financing since relevant laws are lacking. Besides, neither the law
nor any by-law envisages who and how distributes public funds allocated for
'national-cultural autonomies'.
In practice, with minor
exceptions 'national-cultural autonomies' do not get funding. Consultative
bodies for national-cultural autonomies, envisaged by the 1996 law, have not
been established in the regions under the regional executive. The federal advisory
council of 'national-cultural autonomies under the RF Government was founded in
1999, but it is virtually not active.
To paragraph 59. The Government of
Moscow might 'review the chances
to co-operate with NGOs for preventing discrimination'. However, there is no
evidence of this in reality. Moreover, none of the regional governments
acknowledges and addresses the issue of discrimination. The best variant for
the moment is regional authorities' involvement in the 'promotion of
tolerance'. The Government of Moscow did not ever acknowledge the very issue of
discrimination in the city and hasn't demonstrated any willingness to undertake
for prevention of discrimination. A single exception was the meeting of the
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov with activists of ethnic associations in October 1999
after the large-scale campaign of persecutions against migrants and minorities.
The mayor and other officials interpreted the problem as misconduct of
individual police officers. Anyway, that did not cause any practical outcome.
To paragraph 62. Though the content
of Paragraph 62 is unclear, the wording of this paragraph is very typical for
the Russian authorities. Some incident, where the police (Ministry of Internal
Affairs) was involved, id interpreted as a 'conflict' which should be resolved,
but not as a matter of human rights or obedience of the law.
To paragraph 80. Paragraph 80 is a
good sample of excuse utilised by the Russian law-enforcement authorities. They
justify their inaction to suppress and punish racial discrimination and hate
speech by references to the legislation, which "'does not, however,
provide legal definitions of 'fascism' or 'political extremism' ". It
is not clear whether the notions of 'fascism' and 'political extremism' could
be accurately defined in legal terms, why racial discrimination and incitement
of racial hatred must be re-interpreted as 'extremism' and 'fascism' and why
the existing legal provisions concerning racism and hate speech could not be
applied. Since 2002, Russia has a specific legislation concerning fight against
'extremism'. It reproduces the preceding formulations of the Criminal Code. One
may wonder whether it changes anything.
To paragraphs
99-104. The federal Ombudsman (Commissioner for Human Rights) is really a
significant institution of human rights protection in the country. It
contributes to the awareness raising of the country's authorities and the
population and undertakes to defend the rights of many vulnerable social
categories. Of particular importance the Ombudsman's reports on the problems of
residence registration and of torture practised by the police. However, the
Ombudsman does not address the issues of discrimination, minority protection
and hate speech. He also did not anyhow react to the situations of systematic
persecutions of certain ethnic groups like Meskhetian Turks or Chechens. The Ombudsman tried to establish within his
apparatus a unit in charge of religious and ethnic affairs, but virtually
failed.
To paragraphs
113-115. There is no information that the existence of ethnically based
criminal groups has ever been a subject of any accurate sociological research.
No reliable data on the very existence, scope and kind of activities of these
groups has been ever made public. Meanwhile, the police and other
law-enforcement agencies usually speculate upon the issue of 'ethnic
criminality'. These speculations are often used to justify police brutality and
racial profiling. Paragraphs 113-115 are a good specimen of this.
To paragraph 132. The official report
refers to Stavropol Krai, a southern region of Russia as an example of regional
policies for the support of minority languages and cultures. This is actually
good, because the situation in Stavropol Krai is really typical for the country
at large. The programme for the support of 'national-cultural development' was
really adopted in the region in December 1999 for the years of 2000-2005. The
programme was not 'ratified' since it's an act of the regional governor.
The programme has not been funded so far, and it has nothing in common with
study of minority languages. There are really 24 municipal schools where 5
minority languages are taught, namely Nogai, Turkmen, Tatar, Greek and
Armenian. The secondary school in the settlement Gornozavodskoye (the Kirovski
district), where a small Georgian minority lives, repeatedly tries to launch an
optional programme for the study of Georgian. Yiddish is not studied at all,
two non-governmental Sunday schools run by religious communities teach Hebrew.
Teaching of the Nogai and Turkmen languages is relatively developed. The Nogais
(0,8% of the regional population) and Turkmen (0,5%) are Turkic ethnic groups
who are natives in the region and whose languages have been promoted in the
krai by the government since late 1980s. For the 1998/99 academic year,
approximately 60% of the pupils of Nogai origin in Stavropol Krai had the
opportunity to study the Nogai language and 41% of the Turkmen pupils - to
study the Turkmen language. The respective percentage for the Tatars was 9%,
Greeks - 6% and Armenians (the largest minority, about 5% of the population) -
3%[26]. Minorities' languages are
not taught in higher educational establishments of Stavropol Krai.
To Annex II on the people who
fled Chechnia.
Regretfully, Annex II
completely ignores such issues as the nationwide systematic discrimination of
Chechens and the 2002 campaign on squeezing the Chechen forced migrants from
Ingushetia back to Chechnia (for more see Annex 4 to the NGOs alternative
report).
To Annex III on the Roma.
Regretfully, the official
report and Annex III reduce the issue of Roma people in Russia to the questions
of their 'ethno-cultural development'. Annex III totally ignores such issues as police
brutality and fabrication of criminal accusations against Roma, refusals in
residence registration, racist assaults, systematic hate speech in mass media.
To paragraphs 17, 47, 59. The
Krasnodar Krai authorities have not adopted an act on regional 'nationalities
policies', however, they do not address ethnic issues in terms of ethnic
discrimination and its prevention. The Krasnodar regional administration has
not provided any special support to Roma, moreover, the largest violent
expulsion of Roma in the recent years took place in Krasnodar Krai. About 100
Roma were deported by the police from Krasnodar to Voronezh oblast on 16
October 2001.
To Annex IV on the Meskhetian
Turks.
In June 1990, the USSR
Ministry of Internal Affairs reported about 89,700 Meskhetians who had fled
Uzbekistan[27], and on that time their
outflow was going on. About half of the Meskhetian Turks were arriving in the
Russian Federation and approximately 10,000 Meskhetians had already lived in
Russia by 1989. Therefore, the total number of Meskhetian Turks in Russia is
estimated between 50,000 and 70,000.
Resolution No. 503 of the USSR
Council of Ministers of 1989 and Resolution No. 220 of the RSFSR Council of
Ministers of 1989 did not envisage any 'resettlement' of the Meskhetians in
Russia. They were devoted to the measures to ease economic and social
adaptation of the Turks who were coming to the Central Russia. No kind of
'Jewish pale' was established for the Turks, and even if the Soviet authorities
had done so, that would not have any legal importance. Resolution No. 220
listed only 6, but not 27 regions where the public funds were allocated to. The
allowances and the social aid envisaged by the governmental resolutions were
insufficient for the adaptation of the Meskhetians. The Meskhetians were really
granted 500 roubles per person and 2,000 roubles per family, while the average
monthly wage for the USSR in 1989 was 190 roubles.
Most Turks who were coming to
Russia were not covered by the 1989 Resolutions. They were even unaware of
these acts and had to solve their problems on their own. A minority of the
newcomers (approximately 13,000) arrived in Krasnodar Krai; to compare, 14,000
(and not 1447) people came to Rostov oblast.
Krasnodar Krai is the only one
region of Russia where the Meskhetian Turks en masse have been denied
residence registration and recognition of Russian citizenship (for more see
Annex 3 to the NGOs alternative report). The authorities interpret the problem
of Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar as an issue of ethnic tensions or ethnic
conflict. The situation can be hardly explained by the current processes of
migration. Two million migrants who have arrived in the Russian South (not
solely Krasnodar Krai) are the people who have been coming within the recent 12
years and not exclusively from armed conflict zones, but from different places
across Russia and the former Soviet Union. This volume of in-migration is
comparable with the previous decades. The overwhelming majority of newcomer to
Krasnodar Krai are ethnic Russians, the population of Krasnodar Krai is
decreasing in number since 1998 despite of migration. However, Meskhetian Turks
who came in the region in 1989-90 and constitute 0.3% of the population, have
little in common with the current migration. One may ask why this 'problem' is
existing only in Krasnodar Krai where the Turks are discriminated against, but
not the other regions where a significant number of the Meskhetians also
reside.
References to a possible
'repatriation' of the Meskhetians to Georgia are irrelevant. Anyway, any
resettlement can be arranged only on a voluntary basis. The perspectives of the
Meskhetian movement to Georgia are vague. Drafting of the Georgian law on
'repatriation' is still in progress in the Georgian Ministry on Justice and the
outcome is unclear. Georgia's obligations regarding the Meskhetians before the
Council of Europe are not fulfilled. In November 2002, the Georgian Directorate
of Intelligence publicised a report on the Meskhetians and insisted that their
immigration would be a threat to national security.
ANNEX 2. THE RUSSIAN PASSPORT SYSTEM AND ITS EFFECTS
The Russian passport system, a
slightly modified Soviet passport system, is one of the major instruments of
ethnic discrimination in public sphere and the source of the most acute
problems in this area.
The Russian passport system
shall not be confused with or reduced to Soviet institution of authorised
domicile, or permission-based registration at the place of residence, colloquially known as propiska.
The passport system includes different institutions: internal passports and
citizens' duty to possess them, official recognition of only internal passports
(with minor exclusions) as papers identifying personality, obligatory
registration by place of residence and stay and the duty to stay or live at the
place of registration, administrative (police) control over registration. The
passport system is closely linked with the other register systems: taxation,
social security, military enlistment, penitentiary etc.
The
RF Constitution (Article 27, part 1) guarantees for everyone, who stays legally
in the Russian Federation (nationals and non-nationals), the right to move
freely and choose the place of residence and stay. Under the RF Law 'On the
Right of Citizens to Freedom of Movement and Choice of Place of Residence
within the Russian Federation' of 1993, residence and sojourn registration
though being obligatory is of a notifying character, while the Soviet propiska
was permission-based. Registration legally is not a circumstance that creates
rights or duties under the legislation in force; that means that registration
or its absence may not constitute either a restriction or precondition for
exercise of the rights and freedoms. Absence of registration constitutes an
administrative infringement with no other legal consequences for a person.
The 1993 RF Law ‘On the Right
of Citizens to Freedom of Movement and Choice of Place of Residence within the
Russian Federation’ establishes two types of mandatory registration, namely
registration at the place of residence and registration at the place of
temporary stay. A citizen may be registered at one and only one place of his
(her) residence, while he (she) may be registered by the place of stay (a
temporary stay is implied here) without cancelling permanent registration by
the place of residence.
The 1993 law directly pertains
to Russian citizens. Under the RF Constitution, foreign citizens and stateless
persons fall under the national regime, i.e. they exercise the rights and bear
responsibilities on equal footing with citizens of the Russian Federation with
the exemption of the cases stipulated by a federal law or an international
treaty. Until 2002, there were neither federal laws, nor international
treaties, which restricted the freedom of movement or a choice of a residence
in the country for foreign nationals except for the acts which closed several
territories for foreign visitors. The USSR Law 'On Legal Status of Foreign
Citizens in the USSR' of 24 June 1981 and the related legislative acts were
applied only to citizens of the countries outside the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS). Therefore, until 1 November 2002 (the date, the new Federal Law 'On Legal
Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation' took effect) the
procedure of registration of Russian nationals was applicable to the people
coming from the CIS countries.
In reality the system of
registration functions in a different way. In practice, registration by a place
of residence or stay restricts the right to freedom of movement and choice of
place of residence. Registration actually becomes a precondition for exercise
of the basic rights and freedoms. The system also requires an active repressive
system of police control, and it contributes to human rights violations as
well.
Until August 2002, resolutions
of the RF Government and instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
formally based on the 1993 law, introduced restrictions and additional
conditions for registration, not envisaged by the law, such as restrictions by
the size of the residential space per person, including the persons applying
for registration; restriction on the term of stay; the requirement of
de-registration at the previous place of residence, the requirement of the
preliminary military enlistment registration. The Constitutional Court Decision
No.4 of 2 February 1998 abolished a bulk of these restrictions (restrictions on
the term of temporary stay and on living space); the registration-related
resolution of the RF Government was brought in line with this decision in
August 2002. Basically, the situation has not changed.
Many regions (units of the federation) have introduced
additional local conditions for registration, and among them: availability of
kin ties in the given region, residence registration within the region
(different requirements to the people, already registered in the region and to
the outsiders), citizenship, status of dwelling (in some places there is a
direct prohibition to register and to have the real estate deals attested to by
a Notary Public to the persons without a local registration, while incomplete
formalities with the real estate result in the refusal to register); special
registration levies; social position and profession.
Even
the current stay of the federal passport and registration regulations secures a
substantial discretionary power for the enforcement officials. This freedom of
choice is usually utilised not in favour of applicants. There is still a set of
stable administrative customs: the linkage between registration and civil,
housing and family legislation, the requirement of de-registration from the
previous place of residence addressed to a person him(her)self, interpretation
of registration as a precondition for enjoyment of rights (this is directly
prohibited by the law) etc.
The
system has some intrinsic drawbacks, the main one is the linkage between
personal identification, registration and certain dwelling. The passport system
itself matched well the country with closed borders, plan economy (and planned
distribution of manpower), state ownership of almost all wealth (including most
dwellings) as well as with unlimited capacities of police and special services.
The system cannot work properly under the new conditions. That means that
notwithstanding anybody's desire or abuse there appear hundreds of thousands or
millions of people who cannot objectively comply with the system's
requirements. They are the people who lost their identity paper at the moment
they did not have a registration. They are also the people who arrived from the
former Soviet republics or zones of armed conflicts within the Russian
Federation and who were not able to process residence and military
de-registration at their previous place of living. As a rule, the latter may be
technically not feasible or dangerous. The former Soviet nationals without
Russian citizenship (or who are not recognised as Russian nationals) are in the
mostly vulnerable position, because the newly independent states have
established the new systems and procedures of population registers, new forms
of identity papers etc.
The dwelling market and the
market of related services (renting and leasing) are gradually taking shape in
the country. A person who possesses a permanent registration (propiska)
at a certain dwelling enjoys rights of exploiting this dwelling. His/her
eviction and de-registration against his/her will according to establish
administrative practices turn out to be difficult, even impossible. Since that
limits the rights of owners or holders, they are usually reluctant to give
permission to permanent registration. A person with temporary registration as a
rule finds his/her rights and social opportunities restricted.
Formal and informal conditions
and restrictions introduced both at the federal and regional levels are such,
that many of those willing to be registered at a new place of residence or
stay, do not meet the requirements for certain. In practice, the institution of
registration technically becomes a condition for the citizens to enjoy their
rights: acceptance of a citizenship and formalities in this connection;
employment; marriage registration; participation in elections; medical care;
secondary school and higher school education; pensions and allowances. A
citizen formally could not receive a passport without a registration until 1999
and actually cannot do this afterwards, cannot pay taxes, register a vehicle,
obtain driver’s licence, etc.
Mandatory registration at
place of stay (sojourn) means that the people, who come on a visit to a certain
place for a short period of time, are obliged to inform the police of their
whereabouts and apply for certificate of sojourn. The period for which a
temporary registration is required under the federal law is ten days and more,
but for Moscow, the Moscow oblast (province) and many other regions it is three
days. This practice brings about inconveniences for the population and provokes
abuse of power. First, the registration procedure, determined by the federal
rules, is inconvenient and time-consuming, while the regional requirements make
it still more complicated. Secondly, regional authorities introduce additional
formal and informal requirements. Consequently, many comers cannot get a
registration through no fault of theirs in due time. Thirdly, the mechanism of
registration by place of stay may function only under the condition of a strict
police control and severe sanctions for the absence of registration, since
there is, in principle, no other motivation but the punishment for a citizen to
get a registration.
'Controlling the fulfilment of
the requirements of the 'passport (registration) regime' has become one of the
main goals and main activities of the police. Respective measures include
checking up personal identity papers and registration certificates and
searching the premises, where unregistered persons might live. No doubt, a
stimulus for such checks up is bribery and screwing money out of the detainees.
Regional authorities set up arbitrary sanctions for the violation of the
registration regime; in practice an enforcing officer decides how much to
charge, he or she is actually not obliged to give a receipt when the penalty is
paid, and that provokes bribery and extortion. There is also a widely spread
practice to confiscate a passport as a pledge for the payment of a penalty, and
passports are often lost at militia (police) stations.
All
these kinds of restrictions and control are primarily targeting ethnic
minorities originating from the Caucasus, both from the North Caucasus within
the RF and from the independent states of the South Caucasus, and the Roma.
The institution of a
registration is conductive to ethnic discrimination of three types.
1) The system provides for a
series of distinct and concealed chances to deny the registration both by the
place of residence and stay. Under certain circumstances the local authorities
may refuse to register the persons of one ethnic group and to give advantages
in the registration to the persons of another ethnic group, restricting the
registration for the others.
2) Absence of registration is
used as a pretext for the restriction of certain civil rights, and sometimes
those restrictions are of a selective character and are based on ethnicity.
3) Control of the registration
regime may be, and as a rule is, of a selective character too. In particular,
as a rule, passports of those people, who are anthropologically different from
the majority, are checked up in the streets more frequently than of the others.
Besides, strict police control and
official statements against so-called 'illegal migrants' (i.e. people without
registration) entail everyday discrimination and exclusion. People avoid
contacts with those who are supposed to be a target for police and
administrative checks, primarily with people originating from the Caucasus.
They are often denied housing and other services, they are less likely to be
hired and more likely to be fired.
ANNEX 3. THE
SITUATION OF MESKHETIAN TURKS IN KRASNODAR KRAI OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Summary
The
Meskhetian Turks, or Meskhetians, are an ethnic minority of the Russian
Federation. In recent months, the Turks in Krasnodar Krai [Territory], a
southern region of Russia, have been facing an unprecedented campaign of
harassment and persecution launched by the regional government and supported by
federal authorities. The escalation of this organised, direct discrimination
against the Meskhetians as a distinct ethnic group; the systematic local media
incitement of hatred against the Meskhetians; and the massive involvement in
the reprisals against them of the extreme nationalist paramilitary units known
as 'Cossacks' have pushed the situation to the brink of possible massive
violence.
The
Meskhetian Turks were Soviet citizens and came to the Russian Federation before
the break-up of the Soviet Union. Krasnodar Krai is the only region of Russia
where the Meskhetians have been arbitrarily denied registration at their place
of residence (propiska), a legal requirement in Russia, then as now,
upon which hinge social services, health care, education, property ownership,
etc. As a result, they are denied enjoyment of their basic human and civil
rights. Contrary to Russian law, they are not officially recognised as Russian
nationals. This is the root of their current problem, and the other issues of
their possible return someday to their previous homeland in Georgia or to other
parts of the former Soviet Union where they formerly resided such as
Uzbekistan, should not be allowed to distract from this central issue of
citizenship and enjoyment of rights.
Historical Background
The
Meskhetians, or Meskhetian Turks, are Muslims who speak the Turkish
language. They traditionally inhabited a
borderland region of South Georgia, part of the historical province of Meskheti,
hence their name. In November 1944, Stalin ordered the deportation of
approximately 90,000 Meskhetians to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan –
they were on the list of other 'punished peoples' such as Crimean Tatars and
Chechens who were viewed as unreliable during wartime. Most Meskhetians
identify themselves as Turks; a small number consider themselves as 'Georgian
Muslims'. To date, Meskhetians have not
been able to return en masse to the places where they had originally
been deported from or to Georgia in general.
In
June 1989, Meskhetians living in the Ferghana oblast (province) of Uzbekistan
(then a part of the Soviet Union, now an independent state) became the victims
of massive violent clashes in that region. All Turks living in Ferghana
(approximately 17,000 people) were evacuated to Central Russia by order of the
Soviet government. The movement of Turks
to the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was approved by
Resolution No. 503 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 26 June 1989 and by Resolution No. 220 of the
Council of Ministers of the RSFSR of 13
July 1989. In the following year and a half, more than 70,000 Meskhetians were
forced to leave other regions of Uzbekistan, fearing for their safety during
continued ethnic tensions in the region.
The Meskhetians spontaneously began moving mainly to Russia and
Azerbaijan; a small number migrated to Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Currently,
there are an estimated 270-290,000 Meskhetian Turks living within the former
USSR. There are 80-100,000 Turks in Kazakhstan; 50-70,000 in Russia (40-60,000
of them are among the original forced migrants of 1989-90 from Uzbekistan),
40-60,000 in Azerbaijan, 25-30,000 in Kyrgyzstan, 15-20,000 in Uzbekistan,
5-10,000 in Ukraine, and about 600 in Georgia.
In all these countries, Meskhetian Turks are almost exclusively a rural,
agricultural population. In the recent years, the Meskhetians have also been
emigrating to Turkey.
The policies of the
Soviet and Russian governments towards Meskhetians arriving in the Russian
Federation in 1989-90.
There
was no special long-term programme for the integration of Meskhetians resettled
to the RSFSR from Uzbekistan. The Meskhetians' displacement to the RSFSR was
approved by Resolution No. 503 of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 26
June 1989 and by Resolution No. 220 of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR of
13 July 1989. The both acts envisaged the distribution of small allowances
among the Meskhetians resettled to rural areas of Central Russia and some
measures to ease their economic and social adaptation. The RSFSR Council of
Ministers Resolution No. 220 listed six oblasts where these measures were to be
undertaken (namely, Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol, Tver (at that time - Kalinin),
Smolensk and Voronezh oblasts, the places where the Meskhetians had been
evacuated previously), and did
not contain any instructions for the Meskhetians to settle exclusively in these
regions. The Meskhetians who were resettled there or arrived on their own were
granted propiska automatically if they had arrived in rural areas.
The
Meskhetians, who arrived in the other regions of Russia in 1989-1991, as a rule
also acquired propiska as most of the common Soviet citizens travelling
within the USSR used to do. In particular, the Meskhetians who came to the
Republics of Kalmykia and Checheno-Ingushetia, Stavropol Krai, Astrakhan,
Orenburg, Rostov, Saratov and Volgograd oblasts, (i.e. all regions not
mentioned in the RSFSR Council of Ministers Resolution No. 220) were granted propiska.
In general, the local authorities did not obstruct the Meskhetians from getting
propiska. Some minor exceptions were in Stavropol Krai and
Kabardino-Balkarian Republic where small groups of the Meskhetians were denied propiska;
however, these people were gradually registered at their places of residence in
1990s. Krasnodar Krai remains the only one region of Russia where the
Meskhetians have been deprived of residence registration.
Allowances
granted to the Meskhetians coming to six regions of the Central Russia were
several times less than the cost of their properties lost in Uzbekistan. The
Meskhetians were scattered in small groups over the most remote and
economically disadvantaged areas of these provinces; those who tried to find
dwellings and jobs in the local urban centres were denied propiska. Single
payments and the social aid envisaged by the governmental resolutions turned
out to insufficient for the adaptation of the Meskhetians. More than 2/3 of the
Turks, who arrived in six regions of Central Russia in 1989, still remain
there; many of them constitute a low-income and socially marginalised segment
of the local population. The major trouble is housing conditions, since many
dwellings occupied by the Meskhetians in 1989, still belong to the local
agricultural enterprises, and the Meskhetians cannot sell or rebuild them[28].
Meskhetian Turks in
Krasnodar Krai
Currently,
of 50-70,000 Meskhetians residing in Russia, approximately 15-18,000 people
live in Krasnodar Krai. More than 13,000 Turks have arrived specifically in the
region since 1989; 3,000 lived in Krasnodar Krai before 1989. The total number
constitutes approximately 0.3% of the Krai's 5-million population. The
overwhelming majority of Meskhetians reside in rural areas. They cultivate
vegetables on leased lands or on the plots of land attached to their houses,
they operate small-scale wholesale or retail businesses, or work as temporary
manual labourers.
Since
1989, most of the Turks who have come to Krasnodar Krai (between 10-13,000)
have been refused a propiska. Krasnodar Krai is the only one region of
Russia where the Turks are deprived residence registration en masse. The
lack of a propiska results in denial or restriction of almost all civil,
political and social rights. For example, Meskhetian Turks have found that
their marriages are not registered and paternity is not officially recognised
because they lack the propiska. In the cases, when the Meskhetian
mothers do not have passports, local registrars refuse to make official records
of the births of Meskhetian children and to issue birth certificates. The
regional authorities have imposed a ban on official registration of ownership
rights to the houses and plots of land purchased by people without a local propiska,
including the Meskhetians. Accordingly, their rights to own and dispense with
their dwellings and plots of land are restricted. The Turks cannot acquire land or other real
estate, and can only sell their houses and the plots of land attached to them
under extreme circumstances, after receiving special permission from local
authorities and only if they are leaving the region. They are not allowed to construct anything on
their properties. Officially, they
cannot sell or purchase cars or other motor vehicles. They cannot receive or
restore personal identity papers including internal and foreign passports.
Thus,
the Turks are deprived of the right to freedom of movement and the right to
choose a place of residence. They cannot
travel outside Russia unless they leave it for another place of permanent
residence and it is difficult to conceive of which neighbouring state might
welcome them at this time. They are deprived of the right to receive or restore
drivers’ licences. The Turks cannot be hired for most jobs and cannot work on a
permanent basis. Therefore, they receive less compensation for equal labour
compared with those who have the propiska. They are also deprived of the right to paid
leave. All of these restrictions create a situation where Meskhetian Turks are
set up to be banned, and then criminalised for attempting to engage in the
routine activities of daily life to in order to survive.
Meskhetians
without a propiska or registration permit do not receive pensions,
benefits, or any social allowances. They do not have access to the system of
medical insurance and have to pay all medical services at full cost. Turkish
children have been accepted at secondary schools without exceptions, but they
cannot receive education at any higher level.
The
authorities do not treat Meskhetians as citizens of the Russian Federation;
they treat them as illegal aliens, who were tolerated for a time but are no
longer. Yet they must be regarded as citizens under Article 13, part 1 of the
1991 Russian Federation Citizenship Law. Article 13 stipulates that former
Soviet nationals who permanently resided in the RSFSR on the date the law went
into effect (6 February 1992) and who did not renounce their Russian
citizenship within one year of that date qualify as Russian citizens. The
Meskhetian Turks were permanently residing in the RSFSR (subsequently made the
Russian Federation) on 6 February 1992, did not renounce their citizenship, and
therefore by law qualify for Russian citizenship. Their presence in the RF was
further legalised by the Council of Ministers resolutions bringing them there
in the first place back at the time of unrest in Uzbekistan.
Without
citizenship papers, the Turks cannot participate in elections and referenda on
any level, cannot participate in local self-government and cannot work as civil
or municipal servants and therefore are deprived of the ability of representing
their people’s plight through local governance.
The
Meskhetians are regularly searched and fined by police for the lack of
registration permits. Since 1997, many Meskhetians who were stopped by the
police and did not possess a passport on their persons were subject to
administrative jail terms of up to 10 days. The Meskhetians have also
constantly suffered 'inspections', which are really unlawful searches and
seizures, where they are subject to violence and harassment by the extreme
nationalist paramilitary units known as the Cossacks. On 16 April 2001, for
example, a large group of the Cossacks beat up more than 30 Turks in the
village of Novoukrainskaya; a hand grenade was thrown into a shop run by a
local Turk[29]. On 30 November 2001, 6
Turks were beaten up and heavily injured in the village of Shkolny in the
Krymsk district. Cossacks have also intimidated Meskhetians and human rights
activists who have become involved in attempting to protect them.
Evidence of racial
discrimination
The
Turks in Krasnodar Krai are subjected to discriminatory treatment and campaigns
of persecution.
The
USSR Council of Ministers Resolution No. 1476 of 24 December 1987 on the
limitation of propiska in the Crimean oblast of Ukraine and in Krasnodar
Krai was applied selectively, almost exclusively against Crimean Tatars and
Turks. Out of 19,897 people (including the Turks) who applied to the passport
and visa service of the Krymsk district from 1 January of 1989 until 1 October 1994, 11,001 obtained a propiska.
Out of 8,479 Turks who applied for a propiska within that period, only
14 persons received it. In other words,
Turks made up 92.5% of all people who were refused propiska in the
Krymsk district. The same situation
existed in the Abinsk district: in 1989-94, out of all the people considered by
local police as 'forced migrants', only Turks were refused a propiska[30].
The
regional authorities in Krasnodar Krai repeatedly single out the Meskhetian
Turks through special regulations citing their ethnicity as a distinct category
and subjecting them to special regime of personal registration. On 12 February
1992, the Minor Council (the presidium of the regional legislature) of
Krasnodar Krai issued Decision No. 97
which subjected Meskhetians to a certain provisional restrictive regimen[31]. On 24 April 1996, the
Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Krai adopted Resolution No. 291-P,
according to which adult Meskhetians were obliged to pass every three months
through a specific registration procedure and to receive residence certificates
paying a fee[32]. Those certificates
allowed Meskhetians to re-register their vehicles for the corresponding period
and to be employed on a short-term basis (for not more than 2 months). From
June 1997, the regional authorities started to register Meskhetians for the
term of 45 days only, as if they were persons coming from abroad for a short
stay, and to levy a revenue for one registration at an amount of $33.00 USD per person. Only in January 2000,
the term of temporary registration for the Turks was extended by a special
governor's decree to 8 months. Later, in August 2000, the Turks were
re-registered for another 5 months. The resolution of the Krasnodar governor of
12 March 2001 permitted the Turks to get temporary registration by place of
stay for the term of 1 year. Temporary registration certificates do not provide
for any social rights, they usually only temporarily protected the people from
fines for 'violation of the passport regimen' and did not grant them permanent
work papers.
On 20
February 2002, the regional Legislative Assembly adopted a new Decree No.
1363-P, 'On Additional Measures to Decrease Tensions in Interethnic Relations
in the Areas of Compact Settlement of Meskhetian Turks Temporarily Residing on
the Territory of Krasnodar Krai'[33] which confirmed a
special status of the Meskhetians as such. It bans any means of residence
registration for 'stateless persons' (in theory, the permission could be given
by the regional commission of migration control), envisages more intensive
passport and residence checks, and requires strict administrative control over
the issue of papers certifying land possession in the places of 'compact
settlement of ethnic groups'. This document like all the previous regulatory
acts directed at the Turks is being clearly perceived and interpreted in the
way that the Meskhetians as such are a population 'in transit' excluded from
the Russian legislation and subjected to a special regimen. The Decree was
abrogated when the 2002 Federal Law 'On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in
the Russian Federation' went into force and established new, more severe
restrictions on the people considered non-nationals in Russia.
The
local authorities are clearly selective in their review of the Turks’ claims
for residence registration: the Turks are denied a propiska unlike
people of other ethnic origins who have suffered less from registration
restrictions. In 1997-98, massive firings affected exclusively the Turks who
were temporarily employed at various enterprises in the Krymsk and Abinsk
districts. In March and April 2002, the Turks were fired en masse at the
enterprises of Temryuk and Anapa districts and of the city of Novorossiisk[34]. The house-to-house
'passport checks' and fining for the lack of registration, fining for 'illegal
commerce' and 'illegal occupation of land', seizures of private property for
non-payment of fines have been used exclusively against the Meskhetian Turks
and Kurds in Krymsk, Abinsk and Anapa districts[35]. In May - June 2002,
police patrols swept through the crop fields of Krymsk, Abinsk, Anapa, Temryuk
districts and in Novorossiisk and have been detaining any Turks who have tried
to start planting. For example, on 23 May 2002, dozens of Turks were detained
at the fields in Anapa district and Novorossiisk and taken into custody[36]. In May 2002, 18
Turkish children were expelled from the municipal kindergarten in the village
of Novoukrainskaya of the Krymsk district[37]. In May and June 2002,
the municipal health clinics in the Krymsk district blatantly refused to grant
health care to patients of Turkish origin[38].
The
Krasnodar regional branch of the International Society of the Meskhetian Turks
'Vatan' was liquidated by a court decision on 24 July 2002. The action was
brought by the regional Department of the RF Ministry of Justice which accused
the 'Vatan' of the activities contradicting its own Charter goals. The
reasoning was that the 'Vatan' society defended the rights of the Turks in
Krasnodar Krai and therefore was working for their 'sedentary residence' in the
region, while the 'Vatan' Charter envisaged only the resettlement of the Turks to
Georgia; the latter obviously was not true. The 'Vatan' representative was not
properly informed about the hearings, and was not able to participate in the
process. The court did not examine the actual activities of the 'Vatan', it
just stated that the organisation had got official warnings of the Department
of Justice three times but had not brought its activities in line with the
official prescriptions.
The
Cossacks paramilitary units repeatedly launch massive house-to-house 'passport
checks' exclusively against the Turks. They usually threaten the Meskhetians
and commit acts of violence. On 31 March 2002, 150 Cossacks tried to evict 2
Meskhetian families from the settlement Nizhnebakanski (the Krymsk district),
but were stopped by the local Turks[39]. On 28 June 2002, a
group of approximately 200 Cossacks arrived in Kievskoye village where the
Meskhetians went on hunger strike. Many Meskhetian Turks also came from other
localities to support their fellows, and
clashes nearly broke out, prevented only by intervention of local human
rights groups and citizens trying to avoid conflict.
Hate speech
Senior
officials of Krasnodar Krai often make public statements that they will create
unbearable living conditions for the Turks to force them to leave the region. At a
meeting on migration issues on 18 March 2002 in Abinsk for officials of regional and district
levels, the Krasnodar Krai governor Alexander Tkachev said: 'We must protect
our land and the native population… When we have several thousands Kurds,
several thousands Turks who inhabit in compact communities the Krymsk and
Abinsk Districts and the Krai in general … As a result of our leniency a
different ethnographic situation might arise in the Krai in 10 years… This is
Cossack land and everyone must know this … Here are our rules of the game…'[40] Regarding the
Meskhetian Turks, Tkachev said: 'According to various estimates, from 15 to 20
thousand Turks are residing in the Krai, and that is a very serious problem. I
say addressing them: don't forget that you are guests on our land. Sooner or
later we'll have to say good-bye to them… Some 'guests' engage in theft, drugs…
Most of the Meskhetian Turks do not want to get out of our territory. I think
all available mechanisms of pressure and persuasion will be employed to make
the number of leaving 'guests' rise. Furthermore, we should decrease the number
of people coming in as well, not only Turks, but Azeris, Kurds and others
also…'[41] 'There is an
international agreement on the displacement of Turks to Georgia, to their
historic homeland. The point is, they don't want to return there. We are
willing to defend Kuban from those who have forgot that they are guests here
and that they must behave correspondingly and not abuse hospitality.'[42]
The
regional and local media entirely controlled by the government clearly supports
the views and policies of the Krasnodar administration regarding migrants,
ethnic minorities and the Meskhetian Turks as a specific group. The Meskhetians
are described as a population in transit or as 'illegal immigrants', a group
whose presence is socially harmful for the region. The local media portray the Meskhetians as a 'criminal'
minority and a 'fifth column' of foreign intelligence services.
Below
is a couple of typical mass-media judgements regarding the Meskhetians.
'The
re-settlers are not integrated socially, two thirds of them reside in the Krai
without any legal ground and are involved in illegal business. In accordance
with the Head Directorate of Internal Affairs, in those places where the
Meskhetian Turks live, illegal drugs and arms trade has increased sharply. Theft
from the fields has become a real disaster. Even more fearful crimes take
place, like murders, rape of children and elder people. The Turkish population
contributes almost nothing to the budgets of the Krai and raions… The situation
is aggravated by the Turks-Meskhetians aggressive claims for electoral rights
on equal ground with the local population. The leaders of the Turkish society
'Vatan' apply to all international organisations and demand to give them the
right to take part in elections and to abolish registration on the territory of
Krasnodar Krai to enable the Turks live in any settlement of the Kuban without
restrictions…[43]
'Not
for the first time we are addressing the residence of stateless people -
Turks-Meskhetians, Armenians, Azeris etc. Keeping silence this time means to
imply that many newspapers support demands of those who live in the Krai
illegally and commit disgraceful things. It is just enough to talk to any
inhabitant of the Krymsk raion to understand that this place is like on a
volcano, and the volcano's crater is getting wider day by day and is sucking
new victims. Usually the victims are Russian people. The people who not just
gave shelter to refugees from the former USSR, but who also shared with them the last piece of
bread and bedding. Well, the former refugees have got stronger, took roots, and
we saw who they are for ourselves. No! They haven't thanked the Russians, they
did not have such a desire. They have had one aspiration - to sit on our neck
and to become real master of the other people's land. As early as 10 years ago
only several hundreds Turks-Meskhetians lived on the Kuban. Now their number is
25,000, according to the official data. Nobody known, how numerous they are
really. The quantity of Armenians, Azeris, Chechens has grown significantly as
well… Understanding quite well, that there won't be a better place for them,
our "guests" start to urge and rather, more often, to demand; besides,
their demands become more pressing every year. Well, when nothing mends matters
and the Krai's administration conducts a harsh policy towards those who live on
the Kuban illegally, then political means are employed like the hunger strike
in Kiyevskoye village of the Krymsk raion. … Now what the "Vatan"
society leaders want. First of all - to live on the territory of Krasnodar Krai, not in a god-forsaken place,
but exactly in the Krymsk raion, better - at the Black Sea coast. If we are not
allowed this, then we'll notify the whole world that the policies of ethnic
cleansing are pursued at the Kuban (remember Kosovo, everything there has got
started from the same)'[44].
Recent developments in
Krasnodar Krai
The
pressure upon the Turks has been increased since winter of 2001/2002. The
regional authorities have imposed new restrictions on their freedom of movement
and choice of residence and have launched a campaign against the residents who
do not possess residence registration who are stigmatised as 'illegal
migrants'. The new law of Krasnodar Krai 'On Stay and Residence on the
Territory of Krasnodar Krai' No 460 of 11 April 2002 provides for a restrictive
and permission-based procedure for issuing residence and or temporary stay
registration.
Senior
officials of Krasnodar Krai often make public statements that they will create
unbearable living conditions for the Turks and other 'illegal migrants' to
force them to leave the region. Regardless of their actual propiska
status, a number of Meskhetians in the western part of the region were denied
the right to lease plots of land from local agricultural enterprises. The
Meskhetian Turks are also barred from selling vegetables even from plots of
land attached to their own houses. The local authorities refuse to give them
papers certifying that they possess these plots of land, and tax inspection
imposes fines for 'illegal' commerce. The Meskhetians are also penalised for
'unlawful' occupation of the land and houses, which were purchased 12-13 years
ago. They cannot pay the administrative fines, and the local courts have
already seized the property (including livestock, food, and cutlery) of dozens
of families. New developments of the anti-Meskhetian campaign are also the
recent refusals in access to health care and to pre-school educational
institutions.
The Turks are systematically denied access to justice:
the local judges refuse to commence Meskhetian lawsuits under various arbitrary
pretexts.
In
March and June 2002, the Krai's governor announced campaigns of mass expulsion
of 'illegal migrants', and at least 2 Kurdish families were deported to the
neighboring region of Rostov in April. The authorities have mobilised the
Cossack ultra-nationalist paramilitary units as an auxiliary police force. The
Meskhetians are repeatedly subjected to house-to-house passport checks and
fines[45]. The police are working
together with the Cossacks, and the Cossacks also carry out anti-Meskhetian
'inspections' on their own.
In a
sign of mounting desperation, a group of Meskhetian Turks who reside in
Kievskoye village went on hunger strike on 22 June protesting against such
persecution and harassment. The strike was suspended on 1 July. The regional
officials placed enormous pressure on the people participating in the action
and threatened to punish them. Extreme nationalist paramilitary units of
Cossacks threatened the Turks with violence.
In
summer 2002, the Meskhetians were entitled to a temporary sojourn registration
for 3 month. When it expired in November, no new registration was envisaged.
Since then, the Turks have been once more targeted by massive police checks of
'passport regime'. Many people were fined and detained.
The position of the
federal government
Mounting
discrimination and the harassment of the Meskhetian Turks sponsored and carried
out by the regional authorities in Krasnodar Krai have been completely
neglected by the federal government. The federal authorities have announced
their willingness to drive the Turks out of Russia. The Krasnodar governor
Aleksandr Tkachev repeatedly said that his plans to get rid of 'migrants' have
been supported by President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has neither clearly
confirmed nor denied these statements. While in Krasnodar in late May 2002, the
deputy head of the President's Administration, several times publicly stated
that there were no discord between the federal government and the regional
administration on the migration issues. The Federation Council (the upper
chamber of the Russian parliament) on 10 July 2002 adopted a statement
regarding the migration and ethnic situation in Krasnodar Krai. The statement
contains a call for massive deportation of non-nationals without local
registration, for resettlement of the Meskhetian Turks to Georgia and for
displacement of some of the ethnic minorities to the central and northern
regions of the country.
However,
the Russian government has officially acknowledged that the Meskhetians in
Krasnodar Krai were subjected to discriminatory treatment. The Report of the
Russian Federation on the implementation of provisions of the Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (March 2000) contains the
following paragraph[46]: 'In 1998-1999
representatives of the regional branch of the interethnic society of the
Meskhetian Turks “Watan” addressed repeatedly the public prosecutor’s office of
the Krasnodarsky krai asking it to determine finally the status of this ethnic
group members inhabiting Kuban. More than once the regional legislative
authorities adopted normative acts aimed at limiting the rights of the
Meskhetian Turks who migrated to Russia from Kirgizia, as regards their
registration at the place of residence and acquisition of dwelling. As a result
of the prosecutor’s intervention all these anti-constitutional acts were
brought in conformity with the federal legislation'[47].
Judicial practice
The
Meskhetians' actions before the court in Krasnodar Krai within the last 13
years have not been of a massive and organised nature; their total number
probably does not exceed 200. The Meskhetians won several dozens cases on three
issues, namely, on recognition of their property rights, on residence
registration and on assertion of the legal fact of their residence in Russia
from 1989. However, this has not had a positive impact on the situation as they
are not enforced, and are not available as a remedy to an entire class or group
of people and are evidently not a legal precedent in the Russian non-precedent
legal system which can function to provide remedies to the class. The Turks are
for the most part barred from litigation by their social conditions, since they
live in remote rural areas, many of them have poor command of the Russian
language, the court filing fees are relatively high for them. The local
authorities by various means discourage the Turks from bringing actions before
the courts and discourage local lawyers from representing the Turks in court.
In recent years, the judges also refuse under various arbitrary pretexts to
commence the lawsuits. For example, a judge of the Krymsk Court, T. Litvinenko,
in 1999 suspended a suit lodged by R.Tashtanov concerning recognition of his
property rights to a house. The pretext was the 'absence of proof that the
seller refrained from validation of the bargain' although Tashtanov produced
the police certificate proving that the seller had left the Krai long ago. In
2000, the Krymsk district court did not accept for review a complaint lodged by
H. Umarov. He filed a complaint against the Krymsk passport and visa service
which had refused to register his wife and son at his house even while his
Russian citizenship and ownership rights to the dwelling were officially
recognised.
Since
1997, the local courts have often ruled against plaintiffs, citing regional
legislation although they had are obliged to implement federal laws. Hatice and
Abdulkerim Ahmedov who lived in Abinsk complained before the district court
against the passport and visa services’ refusal to register them in their own
house. On 22 May 1997, the district court declined the complaint, citing the
regional law on residence registration and pronouncing the Ahmedovs as
non-nationals, since the regional law restricts registration of people without
Russian citizenship. It has taken the Ahmedovs’ case two years to reach the RF
Supreme Court. The Court’s Board on Civil Cases, in its capacity as a
supervisory instance, considered a new complaint and ruled that the decision
had not been based on the law and that the Ahmedovs’ status of Russian
nationality had not been examined by the court of first instance. On 20 June
2000, the Abinsk district court re-addressed the Ahmedovs’ case and ruled that
their complaint must be satisfied. The Krai Court on 10 August 2000 confirmed
this decision. So, one individual case involving the Supreme Court took 37.5
months because of the resistance of regional judiciary and this has had no
positive effect for the situation at large.
In
some cases, court decisions affecting primarily residence registration are not
implemented by the police. For instance, the Krymsk district court on 23
February 1998 ordered the passport and visa service to register Farman Pashaev
(who lived in the village Adagum of the Krymsk district from 1990), but the
passport and visa service has not fulfilled the court decision to this day.
Within
recent years, some Turks tried to confirm the legal fact of their residence in
Russia in 1992 through obtaining a judicial decision and thus force the
passport and visa services to recognise their Russian citizenship. Usually the
judges decline the actions under formal pretexts at the pre-trial stage. For
instance, in March 2001, the judge of the Krymsk district court refused to accept
the suits confirming possession of Russian citizenship brought by Zuhra and
Mustafa Eminovs. The pretexts were following: the plaintiffs did not provide
any evidence of their residence in Russia before 1992 (although that should not
have been a legitimate subject of the trial), and the Meskhetian Turks were
temporary residents in Krasnodar Krai, so their status must be determined
separately. After the same refusal of the regional court of June 2001 to
consider the suit, the Eminovs, given that their access to justice was denied
in Russia, brought an action before the European Court on Human Rights under
articles 6(1), 13 and 14 of the ECHR and are awaiting a decision. Meanwhile,
the Meskhetians by August 2002 won 26 cases on recognition of the judicial fact
of permanent residence in Russia on 6 February 1992. Passport and visa services
of the Krymsk district refused to issue a Russian passport to these people. One of
them, Lachin
Aydinov brought the complaint before the district court, but the court declined
it on 6 May 2002. The regional court confirmed this decision a month later.
ANNEX 4. THE SITUATION OF
CHECHENS ACROSS RUSSIA
The
given explanatory note is prepared on the basis of information compiled by the
lawyers - members of the countrywide Network 'Migration and Law'[48] (further - Network) who
participate in the project of the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' and provide
for legal assistance to all kinds of migrants within 46 regions of the Russian
Federation. Most of the data given below has been already published in the
report 'The Internally Displaced Persons from Chechnya in the Russian
Federation' compiled in May 2002 by Svetlana Gannushkina[49]. The note contains several
mostly typical cases selected from the Network database.
Acquisition of the 'forced migrant' status
Acquisition
of the 'forced migrants' status is one of the crucial problems for the people
leaving Chechnya (further - 'internally displaced persons', IDPs). First, the
forced migrant status is the only hope for the people fleeing Chechnia to get a
minimal support from the state and a minimal guarantee of social rights. It
should be mentioned here, that there haven't been adopted any federal
programmes or normative acts for support to the victims of the second military
campaign in Chechnya. Secondly, the police persecutes those who have the status
on a lesser scale. It is much easier for them to register themselves in new
places, that is, to legalise their presence if this term can be applied to the
citizens of Russia who have never left the country of their citizenship.
Between
1991 and 1996, that is before and during the first war in Chechnya about 150
thousand people from the republic got the forced migrant status. From October
1999 until late 2001, only 12,464 people who had left the republic got the
status. Meanwhile, 568,449 people were registered under so called 'Form No.7',
that is a form used by the nigration service to register people leaving their
places of residence in a situation of emergency. In particular, only 89 persons
received the status in the Republic of Ingushetia while the total number of
IDPs from Chechnia now living there is comparable to its own population strength.
7,710 people (3,398 families) were registered from September 1999 till April
2002 in the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania according to 'form No. 7'
(arrived because of the state of emergency); 9 of them got the status, none of
them are ethnic Chechens. In Moscow, that attracts most Chechens who
collaborated with the federal government, only 157 people were granted the
status. Over a quarter of all those who got the status throughout the country
received it in the Stavropol region (3250 people).
The
Ministry of Federation, Nationalities and Migration Policies has admitted that
'The majority of those who got the status did not belong to the titular nationality'[50]; that means they
were not ethnic Chechens. They are refused the status on the ground that
"there are no evidences and circumstances envisaged by Art. 1 of the Law
of the RF 'On Forced Migrants'." Consequently, today the authorities
interpret the concept of 'forced migrant' in a way different than in 1996 when
'mass disorders' were often recognised as a sufficient ground for granting the
status. In some cases migration service officials directly admitted that they
had been instructed not to give the Chechens the forced migrant status since
they were not victims of ethnic, confessional or political discrimination. In
certain regions, the members of
ethnically mixed families or those Chechens who can supply documentary proof of
their loyalty to the Russian authorities and their direct co-operation with
them under pro-Moscow Zavgaev administration of Chechnia in 1994-96 or of being
persecuted by Muslim fundamentalists and bandits are lucky exceptions.
Tatiana
Zharova, a Network lawyer from Astrakhan, reported that the family of
M.
Matsasev and Ia. Akhmetkhanova and their four minor children who had left
Chechnya in July 2000 did not receive the status. Their application was
registered by the migration service only in March 2001. The application
indicated the following reasons for leaving Chechnia: threats of fundamentalist
Wahhabi militants, unacceptance of the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and
their way of life, enforcement to collaborate with bandits. On 21 June 2001,
the migration service refused to grant the status because it found that the
reasons for leaving the previous place of residence did not satisfy the
requirements of the Law 'On Forced Migrants'. This case is not a unique one:
Chechens insist that they were persecuted by separatist militants on social and
confessional grounds, but their testimonies are not taken into account and
considered to be a fraud.
The
family of T.Makaeva and Kh. Iasaev with
three small children had to flee Chechnia for Ingushetia in November 1999
during the bombardments of Grozny. Later they were sent by the migration
service to the Voronezh province. There they were denied the forced migrant
status; they lodged a complaint before a court, but also unsuccessfully.
During
the hearings, it turned out that the migration service of the Voronezh Region
were guiding themselves by the letter of the Ministry of Federation,
Nationalities and Migration Policies of 23.05.2001 (No. 08-3757). The letter
said in particular: “The law does not envisage granting the forced migrant
status in connection with the threat caused by the anti-terrorist operations in
the Chechen Republic and by mass disorders without taking into account the
above mentioned circumstances of leaving the places of permanent domicile. In
these cases the status should not be granted. Besides, the counter-terrorist
operation cannot be regarded as a mass violation of public order because it is
aimed at restoring public order.” Protocol No. 2 attached to the Makaeva’s file
showed that among those who had left Chechnya and had applied for the status
only the Chechens did not get it.
The
family of Gichibaevs lives in the Centre for Temporary Accommodation
Serebrianiki (the Tver province). Their father was a Chechen while mother was
Russian. The parents registered the sons as Chechens and daughters as Russians.
As a result, the female members got the status, the male members did not. A Network lawyer Nikolai Trofimov reported a
similar fact from Taganrog. In an ethnically mixed family, Russian mother and
minor daughter got the status after a lot of trouble while the father, a
Chechen, was denied it. According to Zhanna Buriukova and Valentina Molokova
who work in a relatively loyal to migrants Saratov province all Russians who
arrived from Chechnya during the second campaign got the status while the
Chechen families of Kahadisovs, Taisumovs, Shamilovs, Iunusovs, Iakhtiaevs, and
others got a refusal from the Territorial Office of the Ministry of Federation.
The court considered the complaints against this decision and confirmed it.
According
to a Network lawyer Nina Efremova from the Pensa province, herself a forced
migrant from Chechnya who got the status in 1995 and now heads a large and
active migrant organization, about 500 ethnic Chechens who arrived early in
2001 were denied the status. Her colleagues and her own attempts, to defend
their interests in court proved futile.
It
is quite often that the migration structures refuse to register applications,
that is, rejections occur at the first stage, even before the applications are
considered on the merits. There are numerous facts of applications remaining
unregistered and rejected outright. This means that the procedure does not
start at all. According to information from a Network lawyer Svetlana Tarasova
and head of a local migrants organization Lydia Naumova, there were over 5,000
IDPs from Chechnya in the Volgograd province. A considerable number of them
arrived in 2001; twelve were admitted to apply for the forced migrant status,
only nine people were granted it.
Bringing an action before a court
provides for a positive outcome only in exceptional individual cases.
According
to a Network lawyer Tatiana Lyndrik, the courts of Vologda province overruled
the complaints on the refusal to grant the forced status of all those who came
from Chechnya in 1999-2002. The case of Malika Tagaeva is one of the most
graphic examples. Her application for the status for herself and her five small
children (aged between 2 and 10) was not registered by the regional migration
service. She applied before the Federal Migration Service, but the FMS
confirmed the initial negative decision. The court declined her complaint and
refused to take into account that her house had been destroyed and that there
was a threat of persecution on ethnic and confessional grounds.
Valentina
Shaysipova, a Network lawyer from the Tambov Region, reported that since
January 2001 the IDPs from Chechnya (except for one person) have received the
forced migrant status by a court decision. Complaints of S. Astaev, S. Baysangurov, S. Iaskaev who
proved that they were not able to stay in the Chechen Republic for fear of
death were declined. The cassation instance did not alter the initial
decisions. Irina Nekrasova, a Network lawyer from Ekaterinburg, also reports
that the courts refuse to satisfy complaints of ethnic Chechens about denials
of the status. For instance, Natalia Estimirova, a activist of the regional
human rights centre, could not get the status through the court although she
was supported by an experienced lawyer and was willing to defend her right. In
the Kurgan province, a well-known lawyer Sergei Salasiuk who worked with the
Network, failed to get in court satisfaction of the complaint about the refusal
to grant the status lodged by Buvadi Nutsulkhanov and other Chechens.
Sometimes
courts decide in favour of claimants, but territorial migration structures do
not hasten to obey. For example, Nurbika Magomadova arrived at the Saratov
province in August 1999. The territorial agency refused to grant her the
status. For over two years her case was put before court three times, and
eventually the decision was in her favour. But N.Magomadova got the certificate
of a forced migrant only at the end of 2001.
A
similar thing happened to the family of Zeinap Baisaeva in Moscow. Her house in
the settlement of Samashki was destroyed by a direct hit. Several members of
her family were killed or heavily wounded. She and her niece Madina who had
lost an eye and needed permanent medical help in the Gelmgolts Institute of
Ophthalmology (Moscow) were denied the forced migrant status and applied before
a court. They have passed three rounds in courts. The court of the first
instance passes a positive decision, but it was contested in the second
instance by the Moscow migration service. The case was returned back for
reconsideration, another positive decision was passed and appealed against once
more and once again returned back. Meanwhile, the Moscow City Court, i.e. the
court of the second instance can consider the case and pass a decision itself,
but preferred to start another round along the same route.
Each
positive court decision is a result of hard work of lawyers, NGOs, and migrants
who have to queue for hours to hand in their documents, to waste time waiting
for their turn, to be humiliated in migration services and even in courts. For
example, Ms. Makarova, federal judge of the Meshchansky Court in Moscow, called
those present “persons of Caucasian extraction” and added that she 'could not
tolerate more than four of them in the courtroom'. People from Chechnya all the
time hear that 'they have come in great numbers,” that “they kill our sons in
Chechnya' etc.
This
shows that to get the status by a court decision is the only one way but a poor
chance to get it at all. In Moscow and the Moscow province, there were several
positive court decisions. In the Briansk province, where the migration service
denies all Chechen families of the forced migrant status the families of
Khasnevs, Inderbievs, Gudievs, and Didaevs managed to get their application
registered through a court. From September 1999 to this day 496 people arrived
to the Kurgan province from Chechnya; 46 of them got the status only after a
court decision.
Registration at a place of
residence or stay
If a Russian citizen comes from one
region of Russia to another one and does not has a residence or sojourn
registration, he or she appears in a situation similar to a state of an illegal
migrant in a foreign country.
Contrary to the federal legislation,
restrictive regulations of registration are still in force in Moscow and the
Moscow province. Besides, there is a tacit agreement about a special
registration order applied to the Chechens in order to make registration for
them as difficult as possible. The police or house management offices usually
reject applications for registration orally. As a rule people do not come back
- they go to dealers or firms that have made registration their business. This
business is illegal yet it is flourishing for everybody to see; the firms run
adverts in the press and the Internet and are never persecuted. At the same
time those who buy registration documents (more often than not they are false)
from them run a risk of punishment for the use of false documents or their
manufacture.
In
many cases precinct police officers often intimidate those Moscow people who
want to rent out their flats to Chechens or are willing to register them. In
violation of the registration rules they put their visas on applications for
registration. Malkan Avturkhanova, a Chechen refugee and a cancer patient who
undergoes chemotherapy in Moscow, demonstrated to the 'Civic Assistance'
Committee her application on which a precinct police officer had written “Shall
be rejected” without any explanations. While her compliant was being considered
in the Main City Administration of the Interior the owner of the flat became
too frightened to register Malkan.
Precinct
officers are obliged to visit the homes where people are registered to check
whether they live there indeed. If they find that the registered do not live by
the address they are registered at they may insist in the registration
annulment. This happened to a student from Chechnya who during holidays left
the dormitory she was registered in to live with her mother who arrived to
Moscow to see her daughter in a rented flat.
Precinct
officers also make rounds of the flats where, according to their information,
unregistered Chechens are living. They either regularly return for bribes or
intimidate them with threats of forced evictions. Sometimes they come together
with two or three armed police officers and behave aggressively. This happened
quite often in fall 1999 and winter 2000 and turned into a nightmare of many
Chechen families. Early in 2002 police officers of the 'Sokolinaia Gora' police
department (Moscow) tried to evict Baret Suleimanova and her three small children,
one of them a baby, from a factory hostel without any legal grounds. She has a
permission of the hostel room owner but the factory administration refused to
register her.
Even
if Chechens' registration is processed they are subjected to various humiliations
that include: getting permission from the chief, checking their past with an
aim of detecting criminal behaviour, compulsory finger printing, rough
treatment, insults and accusations of murders of Russian soldiers and of
terrorism. Khava Torshkhoeva who works at the 'Civic Assistance' Committee was
photographed en face, in profile, in three quarters and full length in the
'Zhulebino' police department where they compiled a list of her distinguishing
features. On the initiative of the Civic Assistance Committee, a State Duma
deputy Viacheslav Igrunov asked the police department for the relevant
documents allowing them to behave in this way. The department refused because,
the police chief explained, the instructions of the Head Department of the
Interior of Moscow of how to treat migrants from the North Caucasus were
designed for internal use only.
Similar
information comes from other regions. The Network lawyer from Chuvashia reports
that the passport sections of the Interior Ministry were instructed, in a
secret way, to deny registration to the Chechens under any pretext, even to
those who want to live in remote villages. Even there the structures of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs intimidate dwelling owners to limit registration
for people from Chechnya.
The
governor of the Vologda province issued an instruction (No. 616 of 17.09.99) of
temporary registration of those who come to the region. People seeking
registration in Vologda should first obtain a permission of the chief of the
city Department of Interior. Chechens are no longer registered there. The RF
Ministry of Internal Affairs answered to the inquiry of a State Duma deputy
that this act had not been applied for some time. Nevetheless, the newcomers
still have to get permission from police officers, in particular, from the
precinct policemen.
Malika
Tagaeva who had come to Belozersk in the Vologda province from Grozny, was
denied the status in all instances. She and her family could not register by
the address they were living at for varied reasons: too small living space and
an absence of discontinuation of registration in Chechnya. The court accused
her of absence of registration that she simply could not get. Being
unregistered she was not eligible to child allowances.
Sabigula
Dzhabrailov who had been living in Vologda for eleven years had to give shelter
to 12 relatives who escaped from Grozny. None of them was registered at the
place of residence or stay though all had the necessary documents.
According
to Rasiat Iasieva, the Network lawyer in Khasaviurt, the Government of
Daghestan issued Instruction No. 257-P of 29.06.1999 according to which
registration of people coming to Khasavuirt from Chechnya was suspended. The
Daghestanians that used to live in Chechnya and who come back home to
Khasaviurt that since times immemorial has been hometown for the Chechens have
to go through a humiliating procedure of explanations why they returned to
Daghestan. They have to provide documents and write an application to chiefs of
the City Department of Interior or of district departments of the interior. The
chiefs send the materials with their visas to the passport and visa service. If
the latter agrees the person can finally register in his or her own home.
Magomed
Aliev from Chechnya who came to Volsk (Saratov province) complained to the
Saratov Network office that the local passport and visa service refused to
register him in his own flat. He was offered only a sojourn but not residence
registration. The refusal was explained by the reference a local instruction
not to register Chechens at the places of permanent residence.
Ms.
Ukhmaeva with a child came to the Rostov province from Chechnya. For a long
time she was denied even temporary registration and had to live secretly with a
friend in a social shelter. The child was deprived of medical assistance and
baby food.
The
Gaitarov family of 11 came to Tambov in August 2000. The passport and visa
service of the October District Department of the Interior refused to register
them by place of sojourn on the ground that the territorial migration service
did not give an agreement to this. They got sojourn registration after a court
decision. According to lawyers from St. Petersburg Olga Osipova and Tamara
Ter-Karapetiants, the police refused to register by the place of sojourn
Birlant Nogamurzaeva and her five small children. She was required to confirm
her Russian citizenship. After numerous complaints lodged by the Network
lawyers she got the sticker confirming her Russian citizenship to her passport of
a Soviet citizen. After that the family was registered.
The
law-enforcement bodies, on the one hand, prevent registration at the places of
residence or stay. On the other hand, the same structures persecute people for
living without registration, impose administrative penalties, and detain the
people. All this is accompanied with threats to deport the Chechens as if they
were not Russian citizens.
In
fact, a genuine registration document cannot protect its holder. On 21 March
2002, Akhmed Arsamakov got a year-long registration at the flat of Elena
Burtina who worked in the 'Civic Assistance' Committee. There are no doubts
that the document is genuine yet on 31 March, he was detained by police
officers of the 'Golitsyno' police department (the Moscow province) where he
went in search of work. Despite his protests he was taken to the precinct where
his registration document was declared to be false. They called the Central
Address Bureau of the Head Department of the Interior of Moscow which denied
any
information of his registration. Akhmed called Burtina, she called the Central
Address Bureau where Ms. Savina, who worked there, explained that information
flow was great while the staff was too small to promptly process it. The time
lag was nearly six months. This says that lack of information about
registration does not prove that the document is false. Savina said that police
officers were well aware of this. The chief of the passport and visa service of
the 'Preobrazhenskoe' police department who had drawn up the document confirmed
this. Still, an absence of information about registration in the Central
Address Bureau is frequently used for extortions and persecutions.
Personal identity papers
Everywhere
in the Russian Federation they cannot get either internal or foreign passports;
in many places they cannot get birth certificates for their newly born
children.
When
the “anti-terrorist campaign” just started in September 1999, the Ministry of
Internal Affairs issued an order that banned to issue passports to people
arriving from Chechnya. In spring 2000, the ban was lifted in relation to
foreign passports; the Chechens were allowed to get passports outside Chechnya
at the places of their temporary registration. Few people have been able to use
this opportunity so far: before issuing a passport the passport and visa
services have to inquire in Chechnya whether the particular person can be
allowed to go abroad. Quite often such inquiries remain unanswered.
The
passport and visa services regularly refuse, without any legal grounds, to
issue foreign passports to those who came from Chechnya. In Chuvashia, for
example, Iakubov and Mairukaeva for a long time were denied issuance of foreign
passports; they got them only when Peter Ayvenov, the Network lawyer
interfered. People working in the passport and visa services and in the
regional Ministry of Internal Affairs directly acknowledged to Ayvenov that
their superiors had ordered them not to issue any papers to Chechens under any
pretext.
From
2001 onwards the structures of the interior flatly refuse to issue internal
passport to the IDPs from Chechnya. The Passport and Visa Department of the RF
Ministry of Internal Affairs explained that since passport service had started
functioning in the Chechen Republic people should go there for getting identity
papers. They deliberately ignore the risk of death for those resolved to get
passports there. The threat of death is not the only obstacle: Chechens, mainly
men, have little chance to go far in the republic without documents. They are
stopped at checkpoints. What is more, they are detained and sent to filtration
camps from which not all of them will return.
There
are numerous cases when IDPs from Chechnya could not get their passports for
lack of registration.
A.
Nogomerzaeva who reached the age of 14, applied to the PVS of the Central
Administration of the Interior of St. Petersburg for a passport. She was
refused on the ground that she had no registration at the place of her factual
residence and was told to go to Chechnya to get a passport. In the Rostov
province, Batukaev, who was a Chechen, could not replace his lost passport - he
was offered a temporary document issued on a condition that he would spent 15
days under arrest while his identity would be verified. Amazingly, he carried a
similar expired document issued under a similar procedure: the police wanted to
identify his personality once more.
The
refusals to issue passports to Chechens who reached the age of 14 under the
pretexts that these people were nor registered at the places of their actual
residence and had formal registration at the places of residence in Chechnya
took place in St. Petersburg, Tambov, the Ryazan and Kurgan provinces.
Employment, health care,
education, social security
Realisation
of the social rights in Russia to a great extent depends on whether people are
registered in places of their residence without which it is next to impossible
to be employed, to admitted to educational establishments, register with an
outpatient clinic, get pensions and child allowances.
The
right to work
Contrary
to the Labour Code absence of local residence registration is an insurmountable
obstacle in employment. According to the Moscow registration regulations,
employment of people without registration by enterprises of all property forms
(!) incurs large penalties.
In
Tver IDPs from the Chechen Republic are not employed because of their
ethnicity. They are thus deprived of any source of income. The same applies to
Briansk where Network lawyer Nikolai Poliakov who tried to find employment for
Chechens was refused on the ground of their nationality. Bureaucrats explained
that they could not trust them and added: 'You should better help the Russians
who suffered in Chechnya, not those…' Khadshit Khatueva arrived to Izhevsk from
Nazran in 1999 where she had come from Chechnya. She managed to get
registration and get the forced migrant status yet she could not find work
because she had no work-record book.
It
is quite often that officials of the interior structures make pressue upon
those businessmen who were going to hire Chechens. In Cheboksary, for example,
the head of an enterprise that employed Chechens in 2001 was invited to the
Regional Department for Combat against Organised Crime and ordered to sack
them. The head of the Migration Service of Chuvashia whom Peter Ayvenov, a
Network lawyer, asked for help stubbornly insisted that the only thing he could
do for the Chechens was to help them buy tickets back to Chechnia.
On
22 March 2001, Aslanbek Beyters applied to the Moscow reception office of the
Network because he had been unlawfully fired. of the Migration Rights of the
Memorial Human Rights Centre for legal assistance. In Moscow he got a job of a
freight handler at Vnukovo airport. On 19 March he tried to find a job there
for his younger brother Ramzan. Having finished their business in the personnel
department the brothers went to get passes to the airport. When the security
learned that the brothers were Chechens they were told that they were no longer
employed. The personnel department returned them their work-record book:
because of the family name not typical among the Chechens they had not been
identified as Chechens.
Health care
In
Moscow medical insurance is issued to those who are registered for the period
of over 6 months while the police, in violation of the changed rules, register
for the period of not more than 6 months. The Moscow City Court ruled that it
was illegal to tie together medical insurance and the registration term yet the
Moscow City Medical Insurance Fund ignores the court ruling.
According
to the rules of compulsory medical insurance in the Volgograd province adopted
by the administration head on 26 June 2001 (Order No. 542) those who have no
registration cannot get free medical insurance or even buy one.
Education
Starting
with the first war in Chechnya the Moscow schools stopped admitting children
from other cities whose parents have no registration. In March 1999 the
Government of Moscow made the ban part of its new registration rules enacted by
Decision No. 241-28 as point 5. It was followed by Order No. 567 of 21.09.99
'On the Reinforcement of Security at Educational Institutions'; its item 1.1
said: 'Children from other cities can be admitted to schools only if their
parents have registration.' In December 2000 the court
overruled
point 5 of the registration instruction as contradicting the law. In September
2001 NGOs in an effort to translate the court decision into practice demanded
that the Moscow Committee for Education informed all school directors about it.
The committee sent a circular letter of 12.10.2001 (No. 2-13-15/20) that
informed the directors that registration was no longer needed and instructed
them to inform the police about parents without registration.
Contrary
to the court decision and the circular letter, heads of educational
institutions still ask parents to present registration documents. The following
children were asked for registration documents in Moscow: in September 2001 -
Akhmed Mukuev and Liza Satueva whose parents fled Chechnya because of military
actions; in December 2001 - Malika
Tashtieva (b. 1988) who arrived from the zone of military actions; in December
2001 — Magomet and Fatima Eltuev (b.1992 and 1993). Zalina Abdurzakova with
hypoacusis, daughter of Aminat from Chechnya, was not admitted into a
specialized school for children with hypoacusis while there are no similar
schools in Chechnya.
The
family of Magomed Aydamirov, a son of a prominent Chechen writer A.Aydamirov
that their home in Chechnya as a result of the military actions, and lives in
Moscow. There are two children in the family. The 6-year-old daughter is
seriously ill and needs to be regularly taken to a clinic for treatment. The
mother has nobody to leave the younger boy with while she is absent.
Kindergartens refuse to admit him. On 18 December 2001, in reply to the request
of admittance in one of the pre-school institutions the
Southeastern
District Department of the Moscow Committee for Education answered: 'The child
can be admitted only if his parents have documents to confirm the family status
(refugees or temporary migrants) and Moscow registration.'
The
situation in Kabardino-Balkaria is even worse. The Chechen children who came to
schools in Nalchik on 1 September 2001, carrying, according to tradition,
flowers were stopped at the door. The crowd of parents and children watched
with amazement how weeping children were taken out of school the by teachers
and given back to their parents. Later, in an attempt to justify this behaviour
and in response to a deputy inquiry the officials said that the parents did not
want to register in the republic. The explanation
did
not hold water: first, it was unlawful to keep children out of school because
of their parents were lacking registration, secondly, people from Chechnya were
denied registration in Kabardino-Balkaria in an attempt to force them back.
Falsification of criminal cases
Chechens
are framed-up en masse and this is the most cruel and cynical form of
discrimination. Between autumn 1999 and spring 2000 there was a veritable
campaign of falsification that engulfed the country. The wave returned, on a
lesser scale, in August 2000 after a blast in the passage under the Pushkin
Square in Moscow. It has not yet subsided. The pattern was more or less the
same: the police planted drugs, shells, hand grenades or explosives during
personal searches of Chechens or searches in their flats. The victims were
taken to precincts to extort confessions from them. This was a crude work yet
none of the accused was acquitted. At best defence lawyers managed to insist on
further investigation or suspended sentence. Light or suspended sentences are
sort of an admission that the accusations were false. Still, some of the
accused were sentenced to 7 to 10 years in prison.
M.
Batyrov in September 2001 was put in Investigatory Isolation Ward No. 1 of
Nalchik where he was placed on a false (as he claimed) accusation of keeping
firearms at home (parts of a pistol and hand grenades). This is one of the
circumstances which may confirm innocence of M.Batyrov. There is no sense in
keeping this sorts of things, but such accusations are rubber-stamped in huge
numbers throughout the country.
There
were cases when arms and drugs were planted at flats of those who had already
been victims of criminal persecution of Chechens in 1999–2000. In September
1999, drugs were planted on Sayd-Emin Ismailov who lived in Moscow. He was
persuaded to admit that the drugs belonged to him. The police convinced his
wife Tatiana that possession of drugs was a much lighter crime than possession
of explosives. In 2000 he was forced to bribe officials to clear himself of an
accusation of forging the sticker to his passport confirming Russian
citizenship (Indeed, does a Russian citizen need a to forge this sticker?)
Early in September 2001 he was invited to the police station for an
identification procedure in a criminal case connected with trade in stolen
cars. The victim did not identify Ismailov as the crime perpetrator. Anyway,
the officers kept him under lock in the precinct for three days, then he was
handcuffed, and drugs were planted in his pockets (though his wife had wisely
turned them out) and called attesting witnesses.
Having
registered the crime they let him go under recognisance not to leave. Later on
the same day Sayd-Emin and his wife learned from TV program 'Petrovka 38' that
a certain Chechen had been detained in the street without documents and
registration and heroin was found on him. The police officers were sure that
the detainee was involved in grave crimes in Moscow and the Moscow Region. The
viewers were invited to identify him and call certain phone numbers. This
program saved Sayd-Emin: D. Lomakin, a Network lawyer, got the tape from people
in TV who helped willingly. The lie was exposed and the criminal case closed.
None of the officers was punished.
Marat
Galaev (born in 1976 in Grozny) worked in Moscow and lived in a hostel at Miklukho-Maklay
Street. On 2 August 2001, he was stopped at the hostel by the police officers
from the 'Konkovo' police department. Having checked the documents and having
found no registration they took him to the precinct. On the way there they
tried to plant drugs on him—Marat got rid of the small plastic packet. In the
office on the second floor the officers tried the same trick again with the
same result. Then they announced that his nails should be clipped to be checked
for drug traces. Being sure that there were no drug traces Galaev agreed. The
nail clippings were taken away unsealed. Some time later the officers returned
with two attesting witnesses who were shown two sealed envelopes and told that
one of them contained the nail clippings, the other drugs carried by Galaev.
Then he was offered a glass of water. Having drunk is he felt dizziness and
nausea. Medical examiners found him under effect of drugs. Galaev was charged
and put into the Butyrka prison where he spent 8 months.
Late
in December 2001, Khabibula Minazov, 22 years old, a Moscow student convicted
under a fabricated accusation, died in prison in the Tver province.
Detentions, searches, unlawful
requirements
In
many all regions of Russia the police practices unlawful searches, checks and
detentions of Chechens. At best they are fingerprinted, at worst they are
beaten and locked up. In Daghestan the special task police detachments
regularly raids the villages and districts populated by the Chechens who are
harassed and subjected to violence. In the Kaliningrad Region all Chechens,
including women and children, are subjected to forced fingerprinting in
violation of the document 'On State Fingerprinting in the Russian Federation.'
The same practice is widely spread in Moscow.
In
the city of Cheboksary, local police officers of the district department of
interior without a court decision forced R. Mairukaeva to vacate the flat she
was living in with her 12-month-old baby within in hour an winter. This
occurred after she had complained to the police about a fraud of which she was
a victim.
In
the Pskov province, the head of the local Chechen diaspora Sharip Okunchaev and
his relatives are persecuted by the structures of the Ministry of the Interior,
the Federal Security Service and tax police. He sent an open letter to
President Putin in which he offered his plan of peace settlement in Chechnya.
People from the Federal Security Service warned him that continued efforts in
this direction would bring troubles to him and his relatives. They also tried
to persuade his commercial partners to disrupt business and personal contacts
with him. S. Okunchaev also publicly addressed via mass media the population of
the Pskov region to help those who had to leave Chechnya. He was then summoned
to the tax police, accused of collecting money for Chechen fighters and warned
that he would be brought to criminal responsibility.
In
the Tver province, Musa Dadaev was detained without legal reasons at a petrol
station, beaten up and locked up for 24 hours in Torzhok. On 29 May 2001, a
group of investigators of the public prosecutor office together with the local
Department for Combat against Organised Crime (about 150 people in all)
searched nine houses where the Chechens who fled from the war were living in
the Lukhovitsy area (Staritsa district, Tver province). One of the officers
threw a boy of 12 on the floor and pretended firing at him. His mother rushed
to him and was hit with a rifle butt. This was an action of intimidation caused
by an application of one of the villagers about a theft of a sewing machine.
A
small group of Chechens settled in an abandoned village of Spirovo (Vyshni
Volochek
district, the Tver province) where they tilled land and used the forest. Still,
the
local police refuses to register the group by the places of residence or stay.
From time to time, the police detains some of the Chechens, beats them up,
threatens and extorts money.
The
'Civic Assistance' Committee has a copy of sojourn registration certificate
issued to Roza Azieva who was living with her friends. The document is marked
with “Chechen” written on top of it for each and everyone to see and act as
they see it fit. She runs the risk of being brought to police offices, locked
up for hours or be subjected to extortion.
The situation after the
hostage-taking on 23-26 October 2002 in Moscow
From 24
October onwards, the number of Chechen appeals to the human rights NGOs has
increased significantly.
The
main reasons of appeals
1. Police
checks of dwellings where Chechen families live permanently or temporarily.
Searches of living premises. The demands of written explanations concerning the
reasons for living in Moscow (even if permanent registration was available) and
the whereabouts during the terrorist
act. Harassment, humiliations. Threats to evict from Moscow.
2. Detentions,
forced conveying to police stations, dactylography, taking photographs en face
and in profile. Sometimes
measuring of weight and height.
IDPs from Chechnia Elita and Khava
have been living in Moscow with their children for several years. Elita has
four minor children. Khava has one, besides, several minor kids of their
relatives also stay with them. On 24 October, in the mid-day, the policemen came from the nearest station and
conveyed there Elita, Khava and four boys. The police took fingerprints,
measured weight and height and made them write explanatory notes on who they
were, why they had come to Moscow, what their occupation and income were etc.
They were kept in the police station for 4 hours and then released without any
claims or accusations.
Two IDPs from Chechnia Isita
Chirgizova and Natasha Umatgerieva who live in the Centre of Temporary
Accommodation 'Serebrianiki' (the Tver province) were detained on 13 November
near the 'Novoslobodskaya' underground station in Moscow. After the
interference of the 'Civil Assistance' Committee and journalists, the women
were released but forced to leave written explanatory notes and fingerprints.
There were no reasons for this detention except for the
ethnicity of the detainees.
On 20
November, Makka Tagaeva and Zura Pashaeva who had an appointment for that date
at the Network consultative office called to the 'Civic Assistance' Committee.
They told that they were detained at the 'Vodny Stadion' underground station
(the 2nd Police Department of the Moscow Underground). Police senior
lieutenant Zhukova who took the telephone during the call from the Committee
told that she was not able to do anything since there was an instruction to
detain all Chechens, both men and women, regardless of registration. Zhukova
said that she was conveying them to the city Police watch department. Later,
the women were released from the watch department after their fingerprints and
explanatory notes had been taken from them.
Adam Ustarkhanov, 30 years old, was
killed in the 'Tsritsino' police department at night of 22/23 November. Late in
the evening Adam went by his car to buy some food. His was found severely
beaten and with handcuff traces near that police department and was brought to
the city hospital No.7 where he died soon.
3. Criminal frame-ups on fabricated accusations of drugs
and arms possession or support to terrorists. At best - threats to plant drugs
and demands to confess guilt.
Islam Gadaev was detained at the
'North Chertanovo' police department on 27 October about 2.00. p.m. A small
packet with drugs was allegedly found in a pocket of his jacket. He went
to the police station on the precinct officer's request from his home, he put
his cloths without any hurry and got to the police station on his car.
Apparently, he wouldn't have taken drugs to the police on himself.
Aslan Kurbanov (born
1980) was arrested on 28 October. In the mid-day, two police officers of a
criminal investigation service came to his flat from the police station No.
172. They checked his passport and certificate of sojourn registration and offered him to come to the police
station for taking fingerprints. In 3 hours his aunt also came to the station
and was told that her nephew had been detained for drug possession. Aslan told
later that the policemen had taken a packet from a drawer and said: 'That will
be yours'. He did not touch the packet himself, but was forced to sign a sheet
of paper. There was nothing about drugs on that paper, the words about drugs
must have been signed in later.
On 6 November, Khusein Ibragimov
(born 1973) who had permanent residence registration in Moscow was detained at
approximately 6.00 p.m. by the policemen from the 'Danilovski' police
department. Policemen from the 'Danilovski' department came to his flat and
offered him to go to the police station for a procedure of personal
identification. That was his second identification procedure since he had
already passed through the same check with taking fingerprints, photographs and
interrogation before, on 23 October. After the procedure he was released but
stopped again on his way home by policemen from the same station and asked for
his identity papers. Khusein said that he was going was the police department
and moved his hand toward a pocket to withdraw his passport. The policemen
stopped him said that they would take the papers themselves. A policeman
searched his pockets, and at that moment Khusein felt that something was put
in. Then a policeman brought him to barber shop nearby, invited witnesses and
pulled everything out from Khusein's pockets. Among the extracted items was a
packet with an unknown substance which did not belong to Khusein. Khusein was
brought back to the police department, and the criminal case under Article 228,
part 1 of the Criminal Code (drugs possession) was opened.
On 25
November Khadisht Khasbulatova addressed the 'Civic Assistance' Committee. She
told that her brother Imran Khasbulatov (born 1977) had come from Chechnia to
Moscow on 23 October for medical treatment. He has bronchial asthma, that's why
he stayed at home for almost a month. He left for the first time on 21 November
and was detained about 7.00 p.m. together with his nephew Aslan Kagirov, a
Moscow higher school student, near the 'Vykhino' underground station. The
policemen conveyed to the police station No. 44, searched and photographed
there and took their fingerprints. They released Aslan who had a registration
soon and offered him to call for Imran the next day. Hadisht came to the police
station at 3.00 a.m., but was told that there was not and had not ever been
that person. She did not leave, and then she was told that Imran had been taken
to the Regional Department for Combat against Organised Crime (RUBOP) at
Volzhski drive. She called to the RUBOP in the morning but was told that there
was not such person there. Later she called her relative, and he learned at
least that Imran was at the RUBOP and that he was accused of drugs possession. The judge ordered arrest by warrant
because Imran did not have a registration. Imran has married recently, at that
time his son was one month old.
On 2 December, Zara Tataeva addressed the 'Civic Assisstance' Committee
and told that her brother Bogdan Tataev had been arrested on 29 November (born
1962). He has permanent residence registration in Grozny, but has actually
resided in Moscow in a hostel with his wife and 12-years old daughter for 12
years. Because the Chechens were chased throughout Moscow, an acquainted
policeman advised him to stay in another place for some time. On 29 November,
he came to call up on his wife and daughter. When he came to a shop on his way
back, policemen arrested and started to beat him up there, in the shop. The
neighbours saw this and told his wife. He was brought to the 'Khamovniki'
police department, his family and relatives started to call there but the
department's police staff denied that they kept Bogdan. On 30 November, already
being in the Butyrskaya prison, Bogdan called from someone's mobile phone and
told that he had been severely beaten up, that's why he had signed a confession
that he had possessed a pistol with a silencer.
4.
Refusals in registration at the place of sojourn to the people coming from
Chechnia, total denial in some police stations and denial for the term more
than 10 days in the others.
A staff member of the 'Civic
Assistance' Committee Khava Torshkhoeva whose registration expired was refused
to be registered for more than 10 days in two police departments of Moscow.
On 6 November, an IDP from Chechnia
Luiza Makhmudova who lived together with her husband and three kids in the
village Rogachevo (Dmitrov district, the Moscow province) called to the 'Civic
Assistance' Committee. She told that she had addressed the passport division of
the Dmitrov district department of the interior on the registration issue. The
head of the passport division refused in a humiliating way and said that he
would launch criminal proceeding against the owners of their house who had
rented it to the Chechens. She also told the 'Civic Assistance' Committee on 13
November that the police insisted that her family must go to Chechnia in 10
days.
On 11 November, the head of the 'Akademicheski'
police department refused to register Zarema Dadaeva with her three kids and
two nephews. Zarema has lived in Moscow for 2 years and repeatedly prolonged
temporary registration. The refusal was overtly motivated by her ethnic
belonging.
5. Refusals
in admittance to school and sending Chechen pupils away from classes.
On 28
October, the director of the school No.266 (Moscow) as a condition of futher
education demanded a registration certificate from the children of the Turluevs
family.
10 years old daughter and 11 years
old son of Maret Saralieva, an IDP from Chechnia study in the school No. 1191
(Moscow). On 25 October, the class teacher invited Maret to the school and
informed her that if she doesn't bring a sojourn registration certificate, her
children will be dismissed. She also took a receipt that Maret was warned about
this.
6. Firings.
A Chechen lady who called herself
Zara came to the 'Civic Assistance' on 1 November and told that she had worked
as a vendor at a vegetable market near the 'Rechnoi Vokzal' underground
station. The owner of the market did not have any grudge against her. On 25
October he came to her and said that she was fired from the next day. Since
then she was seeking a job, all employers were asking about her ethnicity and
refused when heard that she was a Chechen. Zara has to keep the family of five
people (her husband who is a tubercular patient and three kids) all by herself.
Makka Shidaeva addressed
the 'Civic Assistance' on 4 November. Her daughter, Aelita Shidaeva (born 1970)
worked in a cafe in a trade centre near the 'Maryino' underground station
(Moscow). On 30 October at 4.00 p.m. 15 policemen from the 'Maryinski Park'
police department (including the local precinct officer V. Vasiyev) rushed into
the trade centre. They lined all the people including the customers along a wall and forced them keep their hands up. The
police detained Aelita and was looking for another employee of the centre, also
a Chechen, but she did not work on that day. Aelita was brought to the 'Maryinski Park' police department where 7 or 8 officers
in turn headed by the chief of the operative division Kulikov interrogated her.
They demanded to confess that she was acquainted with members of the terrorist
group which had captured the theatre at Melnikov street and that they called on
her cafe. (The cafe is situated near the police department, and many officers
come there and know Aelita in person). They intimidated Aelita and said that if
she does not acknowledge her ties with the terrorists they will plant drugs and
arms upon her. Aelita refused to slander herself. The director of the trade
centre was told that if Aelita and the second Chechen girl work any more the
centre will be closed.
[1] If a particular incident had been widely described and commented on by mass media and human rights NGOs and had become a common knowledge, its description in this report is given without a reference to a particular source.
[2] This statistical data was received the Human Rights Center 'Memorial' from the Krymsk passport and visa service in October 1994; published in: Ossipov A., Cherepova O. The Violation of the Rights of Forced Migrants and Ethnic Discrimination in Krasnodar Territory. The Situation of Meskhetian Turks. Moscow: Memorial, 1996, pp. 23-25.
[3] Article 1, part 1 of the RF Law 'On Forced Migrants' contains the following definition: 'A forced migrant is a citizen of the Russian Federation who has left his place of residence because of violence or other forms of persecutions towards himself or his family members or because of real danger to become subject to persecution on the grounds of racial or national [ethnic] belonging, confession, language as well as belonging to a certain social group or of political convictions, which had become pretexts for the hostile campaigning with regard to a certain person or a group of persons, mass violations of public order'.
[4] This was directly recognised in the official response of the Ministry of Federation, Nationalities and Migration Policy of the Russian Federation to the inquiry of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, official letter dated 9 December 2001, No. 09/1-9317, signed by Deputy Minister A.Blagovidov
- http://refugee.memo.ru/site/zaprossy.nsf/MainFrame1?OpenFrameSet
[5] Until late 1990s, stateless former Soviet citizens coming to Russia from the other former Soviet republics could actually choose between applying for either the status of 'forced migrant' or the refugee status.
[6] The official response of the Krasnodar Krai Migration Service to the inquiry of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, official letter dated 8 January 1998, No. 3/15, signed by the Head of the KK Migration Service V.Ostrozhny; also the official response of the Federal Migration Service to the inquiry of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, official letter dated 11 March 1998, No. 465, signed by the Head of the Federal Migration Service T.Regent
[7] Response of the Head Information Centre of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs from 25 June 2001 No. 34/4-220 to the official inquiry of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov; unfortunately, the Ministry of Justice, Public Prosecutor General and the RF Supreme Court did not provide any information on the requests either of the State Duma deputies or NGOs.
[8] Reported by the Vatan Society of the Meskhetian Turks (Krasnodar Krai), the Novorossiisk Human Rights Committee (Novorossiisk), the Centre for Independent Social Research (Saint-Petersburg).
[9] Any consolidated and reliable criminal statistics are not available; but the sharp tendency is admitted by all human rights NGOs, mass media and after large scale violent actions and pogroms of 2001 - by the government.
[10] These cases are described and documented in the book of the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' Discrimination on the Basis of Place of Residence and Ethnic Origin in Moscow and the Moscow Region [Oblast]. August 1999 - December 2000. Moscow: 'R.Valent', 2002; also in the report: Gannushkina, S.A. The Internally Displaced Persons from Chechnya in the Russian Federation. 2002. - in: http://refugee.memo.ru/For_All/RUPOR.NSF
[11] See, for instance Discrimination on the Basis of Place of Residence and Ethnic Origin in Moscow and the Moscow Region [Oblast]. August 1999 - December 2000. Moscow: 'R.Valent', 2002.
[12] The incident was informally investigated and documented by the Stavropol Human Rights Centre and the Vainakh (Chechen and Ingust) Society 'Barth'; the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' possesses several copies of the victims' statements.
[13] Information on the incident was received by the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' from the victims
[14] The incident was informally investigated and documented by the Legal Advocacy Centre of the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Roma; besides, it was addressed and commented by the local media.
[15] The incident was checked and documented by the 'Tadjikistan' Foundation and the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial'.
[16] The incident was checked and documented by the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial' in co-operation with the secretary of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov.
[17] Families of the accused boys and their neighbours - Meskhetians
[18] Documented by the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial', see Ossipov A. Russian Experience of Ethnic Discrimination. Meskhetians in Krasnodar Region. Moscow: 'Zvenya', 2000.
[19] Witnessed and documented by the Vatan society of Meskhetian Turks.
[20] Witnessed and documented by the Vatan society of Meskhetian Turks, Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk) and the Krasnodar Centre for Pontic and Caucasian Studies (Krasnodar).
[21] Decrees of the RF President No. 386 of 10 April 1991 with subsequent amendments and the Ministry of Internal Affairs Order No. 330 of 30 June 1994
[22] Witnessed and documented by the Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk) and the Krasnodar Centre for Pontic and Caucasian Studies (Krasnodar).
[23] Article 105 (murder), article 111 (deliberate infliction of grievous bodily harm), article 112 (deliberate infliction of moderate bodily harm), article 117 (deliberate infliction of physical torment) and article 244 (desecration of mortal remains or places of burial).
[24] This data was received by the Perm Regional Foundation 'Nanook' from the Administration of Perm oblast.
[25] Autonomous districts, where indigenous peoples live, do not enjoy the right to introduce their regional official languages.
[26] Estimated in accordance with the official letter No. 01-23/3783 dated 22 November 1999 signed by the Stavropol Krai Minister of Education Nikolai Butenko and addressed to the RF State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov
[27] The letter No. 1/2447 from 18 June 1990 of the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs Vadim Bakatin addressed to the Chairman of USSR Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov
[28] The data collected by the Memorial's representative in Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh oblasts in July 2000.
[29] Witnessed and documented by the Vatan society of Meskhetian Turks and Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk) and the Krasnodar Centre for Pontic and Caucasian Studies (Krasnodar).
[30] This statistical data was received the Memorial Human Rights Center from the Krymsk passport and visa service in October 1994; published in: Ossipov A., Cherepova O. The Violation of the Rights of Forced Migrants and Ethnic Discrimination in Krasnodar Territory. The Situation of Meskhetian Turks. Moscow: Memorial, 1996, pp. 23-25.
[31] Never made public officially; the first publication in: Ossipov A. Russian Experience of Ethnic Discrimination. Meskhetians in Krasnodar Region. Moscow: 'Zvenya', 2000.
[32] Never made public officially; the first publication in: ibid.
[33] Kubanskiye Novosti. 2002. 6 March.
[34] Witnessed and documented by the Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk).
[35] Systematically witnessed by members of the 'Vatan' society of Meskhetian Turks, public human rights advocacy Association 'Dobroye Delo' (Krasnodar), Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk) and the Krasnodar Centre for Pontic and Caucasian Studies (Krasnodar).
[36] Witnessed and documented by the 'Vatan' society of Meskhetian Turks and Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk).
[37] Witnessed and documented by the Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk) and the Centre for Pontic and Caucasian Studies (Krasnodar).
[38] Witnessed and documented by the 'Vatan' society of Meskhetian Turks and Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights (Novorossiisk).
[39] Recorded by the Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights.
[40] Tape records of the Novorossiisk Committee for Human Rights; Abinsk, 18 March 2002.
[41] Prizyv. 2001. 8 September.
[42] Krayevye Novosti. 2001.13 September.
[43] The 'Troyan Horse' of the Meskhetian problem // Kuban Segodnya. 2002. 1 February.
[44] Ostrogorski V. Blackmail by hunger strike, or why stateless people in the Kuban behave so impudently… // Otechestvo Kubani. 2002. July. No.28.
[45] According to the data of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 4,200 Turks were administratively fined in Krasnodar Krai in 2001; source: the letter No. 41/12 from 4 January 2002 addressed to the chairman of the Krasnodar brach of the Vatan Society S.Tedorov and signed by the first deputy director of the Public Security Service N.Getman.
[46] Report submitted by the Russian
Federation pursuant to Article 25, Paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for
the Protection of National Minorities. - in:
http://www.humanrights.coe.int/Minorities/Eng/
FrameworkConvention/StateReports/2000/russia/russia.html
[47] Actually, the last statement is not true: these acts were neither brought in line with the federal legislation nor abrogated.
[48] The Network, established by the Human Rights Centre 'Memorial', consists of regional legal assistance and consultative offices which operate on the basis of local human rights or migrants NGOs; in Moscow the consultative office is maintained by the 'Civic Assistance' Committee.
[49] http://refugee.memo.ru/For_All/RUPOR.NSF
[50] The official response of the Ministry of Federation, Nationalities and Migration Policy of the Russian Federation to the inquiry of the State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, official letter dated 9 December 2001, No. 09/1-9317, signed by Deputy Minister A.Blagovidov
- in:
http://refugee.memo.ru/site/zaprossy.nsf/MainFrame1?OpenFrameSet