07.04.2011

Conference on discrimination organised by Memorial

 

On April, 2-3 a conference devoted to the main activities of the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial took place in Saint Petersburg. Representatives of Roma settlements and Saint Petersburg human rights organisations, lawyers from various regions participated in the conference.

The first day of the conference was devoted to the discussions of the main problems of Roma compact settlements in Russia. The ADC Memorial has been working on this issue for many years expending the territory of work and spheres of legal assistance. This year representatives of Roma settlements from the Tyumen, Krasnodar, Vladimir, Pskov, Penza, Tula and Leningrad regions took part in the conference. The issues of defence against ethnic discrimination, protection of children’s rights, and realisation of socio-economic rights by the residents of Roma settlements have been discussed. The lawyers gave practical consultations how to behave in a concrete situation.

The second day of the conference involved more participants interested in struggle against discrimination of any form, including ethnic, health and sexual discrimination. The lawyers of Saint Petersburg working in the sphere of defence from discrimination, representatives of LGBT-organisations participated in the discussion. The lawyers successfully defending from discrimination in the European Court of Human Rights shared the experience. Olga Tseitlina told about her work with stateless people, non-citizens or ethnic minorities; Dmitry Bartenev told about defending LGBT rights (including recent decision on the case Alekseyev v. Russia) and disabled people. The participants discussed possible perspectives to bring national law into accordance with international standards of prohibition of any kind of discrimination.

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