Sub-Commission: Item 5 of the agenda - Roma communities in Russia.

Sub-Commission for the protection and promotion of Human rights.
58th session.
7-25 August 2006

Point 5 of the agenda: Prevention of discriminations

NOTE ON THE SITUATION OF ROMA COMMUNITIES IN THE FEDERATION OF RUSSIA

FIDH and Memorial of Saint Petersburg are continuously preoccupied by the dramatic situation of the Roma communities in Russia. Several reports issued in the last years by FIDH and Memorial of Saint Petersburg’s Centre for the Social and Legal Protection of Roma in Northwest Russia show blatant discrimination faced by Roma which adds to the systematic violations of their economic, social and cultural rights and racist violence that goes as far as murder.
In the year 2006, cases of racist and xenophobic violence, mostly by ultra-nationalist groups, including Nazi skinheads and football fans, have increased; and despite the recommendations of Intergouvernemental and non-gouvernemental organisations, these cases mostly remain unpunished.
Acts of harassment, extortion and brutality by the police continue, and in some regions said acts take a more and more systematic and established character.

However, the authorities use the economic climate in the country to excuse or deny that discrimination against these groups is a genuine issue and refuse to adopt the necessary protection and prevention measures that would promote equality. No Action Plan or any kind of measures related to the promotion and protection of the rights of Roma communities, contrary to what is being done in countries of the European Union and by European intergouvernemental organisations, has been set up in Russia.

The problem of law enforcement bodies and local administrations which use the discriminatory sentiments of the population towards Roma for their own interests is widely spread.
Moreover, in some parts of Northwest Russia local politicians use anti-Roma sentiments as a catalyst in their election campaign. They presented their plan for “cleaning” their city from “gypsies” as the biggest promise to be fulfilled after winning the elections. In their propaganda, presented by the mass media, these politicians openly accuse the entire local Roma population of earning a living on drug trade. The problem of growing drug addiction among young Russians is constantly used as a reason to scapegoat Roma. However in order to evict Roma officially, totally different arguments are presented in the courts.

We would like to particularly stress your attention on this point.
A typical example of such campaign are the events in the town of Arkhangelsk starting from 2004. The dispute over “allowing” the Roma to remain in Arkhangelsk began when Mr. Danskoy, at that time a political opponent of a former mayor of the town Mr. Nilov, accused Mr. Nilov of corruption for permitting the Roma to settle there, and accused the Roma themselves of illegally building homes on their land parcels. Indeed, the permit given to the families allowed them to occupy the land, but did not yet grant them permission to build houses, although the necessary legal provisions for them to do so were already in discussion at the time. At the same time Mr. Danskoy explicitly promised that he would do all that was necessary in order to rid Arkhangelsk of its Romani community - and not because of the legality of their homes, but because according to him, all Roma are “beggars, swindlers, and thieves [and] are incapable of doing anything else”. When Danskoy won the election for mayor later that year, he kept true to his promises and began demanding that the courts not only demolish the Roma’s homes, but expel them from their lands completely.

In November 2004 the Roma’s attorneys won the court case by alleging that the construction of illegal houses is not a legal and valid enough reason to evict the Romani families since they were legally granted the right to inhabit on said property. The mayor’s legal team proceeded to declare that the contract which granted lands to the Roma in the first place was not valid because it did not properly adhere to the legal procedures necessary in such an action. Furthermore, they claimed that although the administration itself was to blame for this mistake, it was still necessary for the Roma to abandon their land, since it was not obtained by means of a proper contract.

Finally, on the 20 July 2006, the Roma community was evicted, rounded up and brought to the Arkhangelsk train station. There, they were put on a train to Moscow (although they had no particular reason to go this far away from Arkhangelsk city, a region completely unknown to them). They were kept in two wagons that had been especially reserved for them and were guarded throughout the journey. Once arrived in Moscow, they were left to themselves. The ombudsman of Arkhangelsk, Ms. Okhromenko, labelled this event “a deportation” in her letter of protest to mayor Danskoy.

In 2006, law enforcement forces were deployed for the eviction of Roma from their houses in the village of Dorozhny in the Kaliningrad area. On this occasion humiliating treatment and torture was resorted to against innocent civilians. These evictions were the culmination of local politics that had proclaimed the destruction of that village and carefully prepared it.

In the village Dorozhny near Kaliningrad, Roma were officially accused of building illegal dwellings. Quick legal decisions were made to declare Roma housing illegal and to force Roma to leave their homes. However, Roma had been forced to settle in Dorozhny long ago in accordance with the decree of 1956 “ On involving vagrant Roma in labour activities”. It was the first place for many of them to get official homes and registration. The Kaliningrad administration created the Dorozhny village especially for Roma and since 1956 only Roma have lived there, some already for three generations.

After state owned houses could be privatized, according to the new Russian economic system, the Roma of Dorozhny tried to privatize their homes. In 2000 and 2001 most of them sent applications to the court to get their houses recognized as private property and they received positive answers from the court. However, soon after a demand originating from the general prosecutor of the Kaliningrad province to stop the registration of Roma houses in Dorozhny followed, motivated by what he called the “criminogen” situation over there. As a result, all social development stopped and the majority of Roma did not receive a property certificate for the privately owned houses, though most of them hold the decision of the court of 2001 and official technical certificates of their houses. In their passports Roma also had official stamps proving registration in their village. Nevertheless, at the end of 2005, the Governor of the Kaliningrad province, Georgi Boos, and the local state drug enforcement agency declared a real “state of war” with the village Dorozhny. Dozens of publications in the media appeared describing Dorozhny as a notorious place for drug dealing and it was proposed to destroy a number of houses in the village, as a measure of an anti-drug campaign.

In response, the local authorities made a series of quick court cases proving the illegality of more and more houses in Dorozhny, thus gaining permission to demolish them. Officially, this time, drugs were never mentioned. Most of the decisions were made in the absence of the defendants and none of the court cases was postponed though some of the people charged had not received any summons and some of the people got informed about the demolition plans for their houses when the bulldozers had already arrived in the village.

On 7 June 2006, the local authorities publicly presented the end of what they called the first round in the “fight against drug dealing” in Dorozhny. Both Governor Georgi Boos and the chief executive for the operation Mikhail Karabakin argued that the demolition of houses would put an end to drug dealing effectively. All houses except one (that belonged to a Russian family) had been demolished by then. Most Roma continued to live among the ruins in tents and primitive shelters. At the moment, the residents of the demolished houses camp out in the backyard in unsanitary conditions without having necessary medical and other social aid.

A lawyer from the Memorial of Saint Petersburg’s Centre for the Social and Legal Protection of Roma in Northwest Russia monitored numerous cases involving cruelty, violence and humiliating treatment against Roma throughout the whole process of eviction. People were beaten, threatened and badly treated by the law enforcement armed forces which did not hesitate to shoot on the legs of running people to make them move from their homes. Children and old people were treated likewise. Memorial of Saint Petersburg has sent the detailed description of these facts to the Committee against Torture which will examine the fourth periodic report of the Russian Federation in November 2006.

Considering all these facts, FIDH and Memorial of Saint Petersburg believe that
Russia does not abide by the international instruments it has ratified, in particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading treatment or punishment, and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities;
Russia does not implement the recommendations made to the Russian Federation by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (June 2003); by the UN Human Rights Committee (November 2003); by the UN Committee against Torture (June 2002); by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (December 2003); by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (May 2002); nor the recommendations of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).

FIDH and Memorial of Saint Petersburg urge the Sub-Commission to work closely on the complex issue of the Roma minority in Russia in the framework of its Working Group on Minorities and in the course of the plenary.

Our organisations also ask the Sub-Commission to attract the attention of the competent authorities of the United Nations on these issues in order to request the Russian Government to stop discrimination practices towards Roma in general, and within local administrations and law enforcement bodies in particular. A special anti-discrimination law should be also prepared in order to fight effectively any type of discrimination, in particular in access to employment, healthcare, and all federal services. And, finally, a special Action plan on Roma should be adopted at the Russian federal level in order to prevent and fight discrimination faced by the Roma community in its everyday life. Such national action plan could be worked through gaining on the positive experience and support of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union in Roma related initiatives.

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