Recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination are published after consideration of the report of the Russian Federation

According to the results of consideration of the RF periodic report, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on 26 and 27 February 2013 formulated recommendations to the RF authorities in its concluding remarks.

Due to alternative reports, provided by NGO (among them joint report of ADC «Memorial» and information analysis center «Sova»(with the assistance of FIDH and IPHR), the Committee experts could get a line on the situation with racial discrimination in Russia and give a critical estimate of the data which was stated by the members of Russia official delegation.

The UN experts’ comprehension of the problems connected with discrimination in Russia was translated into recommendations to the RF authorities. For the first time ever the recommendation concerning the discrimination of migrants and ethnical minorities in the labor field appeared, the recommendations about the closure of persistent practice of Roma houses demolition, about the prohibition of the officials’ hate speeches (particularly, the necessity of auditing on the case of anti-Romany statement by the mayor of Sochi A.N.Pakhomov was marked) were marked separately. The Committee repeatedly recommended to stop the practice of Roma children segregation. The UN experts expressed the solicitude on appearance of Cossacks brigades, which take on the functions of law-enforcement authorities along with police officers, and proposed a relevant recommendation, in which they appealed for the RF authorities to provide law and order only by professionally trained representatives of law-enforcement authorities.

During the next four years Russia must take steps of these recommendations realization, and during the next year – to provide information on measures taken in reference to recommendations concerning to the hate speech of mayor A.N.Pakhomov, the laws «About resistance to the extremism» and «About foreign agents», about execution of comprehensive action plan on socioeconomic and ethnic-cultural development of Roma people in the Russian Federation.

The CERD recommendations for the RF are available in English http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/co/CERD-C-RUS-CO-20-22_en.pdf