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Briefing to the Human Rights Committee, October 2009

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Briefing to the Human Rights Committee, October 2009 Public AI Index: EUR 46/025/2009 Amnesty International Russian Federation Briefing to the Human Rights Committee October 2009 Introduction Amnesty International submits this summary of concerns for the consideration of the Human Rights Committee, in advance of its examination of Russia’s sixth periodic report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The briefing outlines some of Amnesty International’s concerns about the failure of the Russian authorities to fulfil their obligations under the ICCPR. It highlights, in particular, concerns in relation to the following issues: Equal rights of men and women, violence against women (Articles 2,3, 7 and 26) Non-discrimination, prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred (Articles 2 and 26) Indiscriminate attacks / killings of civilians during the Georgia-Russia conflict (Article 6 and 7) Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions in the North Caucasus (Articles 6,7 and 9) Torture and other ill-treatment / treatment of persons deprived of their liberty / right to a fair trial (Articles 7, 10 and 14) Attacks, including killings, of human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists (Articles 6 and 19) Freedoms of expression, assembly and association (Articles 19, 21 and 22) More detailed information published by Amnesty International on these and other concerns about ongoing human rights violations in the Russian Federation can be found in a number of recent reports by Amnesty International – including: Russian Federation: Rule without law. Human rights violations in the North Caucasus, AI Index: EUR 46/012/2009, 1 July 2009, www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR46/012/2009/en. Field Code Changed Russian Federation: Freedom limited. The right to freedom of expression in the Russian Federation. AI Index: EUR 46/008/2008, 26 February 2008, www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR46/008/2008/en. Field Code Changed Georgia/Russia: Civilians in the line of fire. The Georgia – Russia conflict, AI Index: EUR 04/005/2008, 18 November 2008, www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR04/005/2008/en. Field Code Changed Georgia/Russia: Civilians in the aftermath of war – The Georgia – Russia conflict one year on, AI Index: EUR 04/001/2009, 7 August 2009, www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR04/001/2009/en. Field Code Changed Equal rights of men and women, violence against women (Articles 2, 3, 7 and 26) When it last examined Russia’s implementation of the Covenant in 2003, the Human Rights Committee expressed concern about the prevalence of domestic violence against women, and recommended that the authorities take effective measures to ensure the rights of women under the Covenant.1 Amnesty International is not aware of any significant steps that the Russian authorities have taken in recent years in order to address domestic violence. In an interview in January 2008 with the newspaper Shchit i mech (Shield and Sword) the executive director of the Department for the Protection of Public Order of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation stated that 40 per cent of violent, serious crimes are committed in the family and that about 14,000 women are killed every year by their partner or another close relative, while 3,000 women kill their partner, and of these 3,000 women, nine out of 10 had been previously subjected to systematic beatings and violence by the victim.2 However, no coherent plan to combat domestic violence has been initiated and government support for crisis centres and hotlines remains inadequate. There are about 20 shelters in the entire country for women suffering from domestic violence (although there are other shelters and hotlines specifically for victims of other crimes, such as human trafficking). While the authorities in the city of Moscow, who have long been criticized for their failure to open a shelter for victims of domestic violence, have indicated that premises for a shelter will be sought, this has yet to be realized. Elements of a campaign by the authorities in the Chechen Republic, reportedly aimed at encouraging the spiritual and moral education of the Chechen population, amounted to an unjustified interference in women’s freedom of conscience and religion. In November 2007 Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov called for women and girls to dress modestly, in line with supposedly Chechen traditions, and to wear a headscarf. Following this statement, it became mandatory for schoolgirls over the age of 10 and female students at higher educational establishments to wear headscarves. Those refusing to wear headscarves risked expulsion. Signs outside official buildings in Grozny state that only women wearing a headscarf will be permitted to enter, and security guards reportedly enforce this policy. Amnesty International is also concerned by a statement reportedly made by President Kadyrov which appeared to condone the killing of women whose behaviour was considered immoral. On 27 November 2008, the bodies of eight women were discovered in different parts of Chechnya. Each had been shot at point blank range in the head and chest. Shortly after that, Chechen Ombudsperson Nurdi Nukhadziev said that he did not exclude the possibility that the women were killed by their relatives as punishment for ‘immoral behaviour’.3 According to some media reports, President Kadyrov had stated the women had been rightfully shot by male relatives because they were of ‘loose morals’.4 While federal prosecutors in Moscow have, according to reports, concluded that relatives were not involved, there had been no outcome to the investigation as of July 2009, and no arrests had been made. Non-discrimination, prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred (Articles 2 and 26) Amnesty International notes that a number of steps have been taken in recent years to combat racism and discrimination in the Russian Federation. The problem of racist violence has been recognized as an important issue at the highest level of government, including by Prime Minister Putin and President 1 Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee, 6 November 2003, UN Doc: CCPR/CO/79/RUS, at para 9. 2 Mayor General Mikhail Artamoshkin in conversation with Bogdana Lagutina, 24 January 2008, Profilaktika nepogody v dome, Shchit i mech No. 03/1115, http://www.ormvd.ru/press/np/133/137/10690. Field Code Changed 3 Sergei Mashkin, Musa Muradov, ‘V Chechne kaznili zhenshchin’, Kommersant, 27 November 2008. 4 Kadyrov Defends Honor Killings’, The Moscow Times, 2 March 2009. 2 Medvedev.5 A unit to combat extremism has been created within the Ministry of Interior, in addition to similar departments set up within the Prosecutor General’s office and the offices of regional prosecutors. The Ministry of Interior also makes available, upon request, statistics about race crimes.6 Racist violence and hate crimes committed by non-state actors remain at a high level. According to the SOVA Information Analytical Center, the Ministry of Interior registered 17 murders in 2008 as racially motivated murders. Between January and July 2008, the police opened 333 criminal cases into suspected crimes that appeared to have an ‘extremist’ element to them, a category which includes race hate crimes. It appears that police and prosecutors now recognize racist elements as an aspect of violent crime more often than they had done in the past, and that there are more sentences handed down for hate crimes. However, the authorities still recognize only a small number of killings as racially motivated. Human rights organizations monitoring the reporting of hate crimes in Russia put the number of such crimes which lead to the death of the victim substantially higher than recorded in the official statistics.7 Discrimination against individuals of non-Slavic appearance by members of the law enforcement agencies has been an additional issue of concern. In recent years, the number of identity-based document checks at large underground and train stations in Moscow, which according to research done by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations often lead to arbitrary arrests, extortion and other abuses, has reportedly declined. However, Amnesty International is not aware of current statistics analysing the frequency of such document checks8 and continues to receive information that undocumented migrants remain at risk of becoming victims of harassment, extortion, arbitrary arrests and other human rights violations. Death penalty (Article 6) Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases; the organization considers it to be a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The Russian Federation issued a moratorium on the death penalty after becoming a member state of the Council of Europe in 1996. However, to date it has yet to fully abolish the death penalty. The Constitutional Court ordered that the moratorium should be upheld until all regions of the Russian Federation have introduced jury trials. Currently, the moratorium is to expire in January 2010. In January 2009 changes to the Criminal Code were introduced, limiting the use of jury trial. Crimes against the state, such as terrorism-related crimes, can no longer be considered by a jury. Amnesty International is not yet in a position to explain how these changes to the Criminal Code might affect the moratorium on the death penalty, since the Constitutional Court ruling made the reintroduction of the death penalty dependent on the existence of trial by jury in all of Russia’s regions. In September 2009, the representative of the office of President Medvedev announced that Russia would ‘observe its obligations’ under international law [i.e. presumably not to make use of the death penalty], but 5 Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has condemned racist crimes, for example, in a speech in December 2008, but he has also called for the expulsion of unemployed migrants, suggesting they might be responsible for a possible increase in crime in times of economic crisis.
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