Reports about the spread of racist stereotypes against Ukrainians in Russia worry the UN, which reveals that there are still serious human rights violations by the invading nation.
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The UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination denounced this Friday, in Geneva, the dissemination of racist stereotypes against Ukrainians in Russia, mainly in Russian state media.
The Committee also denounced that conscription in Russia “disproportionately” affects ethnic minorities.
During its last session, which has been taking place in recent weeks in Geneva, the Committee, made up of 18 independent experts, analyzed the situation in Russia. The 193 member countries of the United Nations are regularly subject to this procedure by the Committee.
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In its conclusions on Russia, the UN Committee said it was “deeply concerned” with “incitement to racial hatred and the dissemination of racist stereotypes against people of Ukrainian ethnicityparticularly on public radio and television, on the Internet and on social networks, as well as by personalities and government officials”.
They also regretted “the lack of information on investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sanctions” that may have been applied for such acts and urges Moscow to take measures to monitor and combat this hate speech.
The Committee also expressed deep concern over reports of “forced mobilization and recruitment”both in Russia and in other territories it controls, “disproportionately affecting members of ethnic minorities, including indigenous peoples.”
UN experts call on Moscow to end these practices. The Committee also considered that the definition of “terrorist activities” in the Russian legislative framework is “excessively broad and vague,” according to a press release.
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Such a vague definition “endangers the legitimate exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association” and “is applied against the operations and activities of civil society organizations, journalists and human rights defenders”, according to the Committee.
The experts also denounced human rights violations, including kidnappings, deportations and enforced disappearances of ethnic minorities in Russian-occupied Crimea, and called on Moscow to do more to protect the rights of Tatars and other populations.
The Committee cited reports of “destruction and damage to Tatar cultural heritage in Crimeaincluding tombstones, monuments, and shrines,” citing a lack of information about efforts to protect these sites from vandalism.
The experts reported on barriers to the use and study of the Ukrainian and Tatar languages in Crimea and called for the reinstatement of the Mejlis, a representative body of Crimean Tatars that was dissolved in 2016.
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The panel of experts cited reports of “numerous and serious human rights violations against members of ethnic minority groups and indigenous peoples in Crimea, including kidnappings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, ill-treatment and forcible transfer or deportation of inhabitants of these territories to the Russian Federation”.
Source: Observadora
