Russia must do more to stop violence against minorities, torture by the police and army, murders of journalists and, recently, the killing of a human rights lawyer, delegates to a UN rights body said on Wednesday.
“We are concerned at the trend of racism and xenophobia which is resulting in a continuing rise in racial attacks,” a delegate from South Africa, which often backs Russia, said during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).
Other issues raised at the first Russian appearance for a review process of the 47-nation council included political abductions in Chechnya and the northern Caucasus, Internet child pornography and limits on independent civil society bodies.
Russian officials agreed racism was a problem but said they were tackling it through education and monitoring of extremist groups, and noted that such violence was not always fatal.
Russia was a democratic state “based on the rule of law,” and its people enjoyed equal rights, a report presented to the HRC by Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov said.
Every effort was being made to combat extremism and ethnic violence, Konovalov said, and a special police unit had been set up to track activities of such groups under a law on fighting extremism and terrorism.
But this was contested at a briefing by independent Russian human rights groups — including the widely respected Memorial set up just before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — who said the law was being used to limit their activities.
All UN members are expected to undergo such a review every four years, though the process has been criticized by rights groups for being superficial and tainted by politics.
China faces a review today, and the US — which is not a member of the council — comes later. A new review process has been billed as a key change in the nearly three-year-old council, which replaced a discredited predecessor in 2006.
But true to form, many Asian and African countries that rely on Russian support to fend off criticism of their own policies generally had little but praise for Russia’s record.
EU countries, backed by New Zealand, urged Moscow to come down hard on racists.
The issue of legal and media freedom — highlighted by the daylight street killing in Moscow two weeks ago of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova — was raised by Australia, Japan and Britain, among others.
Konovalov said interference with the media was barred by law but investigation was hindered “by a lack of witnesses.”
In Moscow meanwhile, two people were gunned down on the street overnight Thursday in what appeared the latest in a spate of contract murders in the capital, Russian news agencies reported.
A former deputy mayor of the Chechen capital Grozny was shot three times in the head outside his home, Interfax quoted a police source as saying.
The man, 36-year-old Gilani Shepiyeva, had survived an assassination attempt in 2006.
Separately, an oil trader of Georgian origin was also shot while walking his dog.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS