Human Rights Watch Recommendations in advance of EU-Russia Human Rights Consultations

Human Rights Watch appreciates the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing preparations for the May 25-26 EU-Russia human rights consultations.

As the European Union and Russia continue to work towards a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, we would like to draw your attention to a number of pressing human rights concerns we hope to see raised in the context of the human rights consultations and beyond. Active EU engagement with the Russian authorities at all levels is essential to ensuring the consultations are effective, lest they become an isolated dialogue with little, if any, resonance in the overall EU-Russia relationship and little or no bearing on the human rights situation in Russia.

While we continue to believe that the human rights consultations are an important process that should be given the highest priority, we are concerned about the continued distancing of the consultations from the larger summit process and the sharp reduction of the substantive agenda for the consultations. The exclusion of implementation of European Court rulings and the North Caucasus as separate agenda items during the consultations represents a particularly disappointing step backward, which we hope to see addressed as a matter of urgent priority. 

We believe this is a uniquely opportune time for the EU to work with its Russian partners to achieve concrete, urgently-needed human rights reforms in Russia. Although Russia continues to face many serious human rights challenges, President Dmitri Medvedev has made several statements underscoring the importance of democracy and human rights and acknowledging areas where change is needed. These statements signal a new willingness to take on some of these challenges.

On 15 April, President Medvedev met with the members of the presidential Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights. At the meeting, Medvedev acknowledged the difficulties faced by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including "restrictions...without sufficient justification," and the fact that many government officials view NGOs as a threat. Medvedev stated his willingness to review the law. In an interview on the same day with Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper, Mr. Medvedev articulated a commitment to democracy and political rights and freedoms, stating that they cannot be traded for prosperity.

Despite these overtures, the human rights situation in Russia has continued to deteriorate in the months since the October 2008 EU-Russia human rights consultations. In particular, human rights organizations, lawyers, and others who work for justice and accountability or express dissent have come under increasing attack. In the starkest examples, on January 19, Stanislav Markelov, a prominent human rights lawyer, and Anastasiya Baburova, a journalist, were shot dead on the street in central Moscow. Markelov was well known particularly for representing victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya. In March, Lev Ponomarev, leader of the nongovernmental group Za Prava Cheloveka ("For Human Rights"), was violently attacked by several unidentified assailants on his way home from a meeting with a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

President Medvedev's statements fell short of committing to specific reforms. But they are symbolically significant and provide an important window of opportunity for change. We urge you to seize on this opening by encouraging specific action on human rights reform. By urging specific steps and underscoring the importance of human rights in the EU-Russian relationship, EU leadership can help build momentum for reform.

This memorandum provides an overview and detailed action points on priority areas of Human Rights Watch's research on Russia, including: civil society, the conflict with Georgia, North Caucasus, labor migrants, and access to pain treatment .

Restrictions on Russian Civil Society

Russia's NGO law subjects Russian and foreign nongovernmental organizations to excessive government scrutiny and undue government interference, and places onerous documentation requirements and unreasonable bureaucratic hurdles on Russia's 240,000 NGOs. Organizations can be audited excessively and are required to submit detailed activity reports annually. During audits and reports, the law gives the authorities unlimited discretion to request documents for inspection and to interpret them, including for compliance with the constitution, laws, and "interests" of Russia in the broadest terms. NGOs spend inordinate amounts of time and resources complying with these two aspects of the law.

Compounding the problem, authorities implement the NGO law selectively to harass organizations that work on issues that are considered controversial, that may be capable of galvanizing public dissent, or that receive foreign funding. For example, the Tyumen affiliate of Za Prava Cheloveka was dissolved for minor infractions in September 2008, not long after it submitted a complaint to the prosecutor alleging corruption within the office at the Registration Service in Tyumen that registers real estate transactions.

The authorities also use tax inspections, inspections for fire code or labor code compliance, police raids, and politically-motivated criminal charges to harass and intimidate such organizations. Many NGOs are vulnerable to being targeted under the 2002 Law on Countering Extremist Activity, which designates certain forms of defamation of public officials as extremist and allows any politically or ideologically motivated crime to be designated as extremist; NGOs and activists that are outspoken on controversial topics of Russian government policy, such as human rights violations in Chechnya or human rights more broadly, or are perceived to be affiliated with or viewed as supportive of the political opposition, are at risk of being targeted under the 2002 Extremism Law. An investigation of extremism was used as the pretext for a commando-style raid on Memorial in Saint Petersburg, an organization that holds vast archives on Soviet political repression. In the raid, the organization's archives were confiscated and its work severely disrupted. The archives were returned only six months later, after Memorial pursued the matter through the courts.

 As mentioned in several cases above, human rights defenders and journalists have been targeted with threats, violence, and harassment, in an unmistakable effort to weaken-in some cases beyond recognition-the checks and balances needed for an accountable government.

It is important that the EU make clear that several of the NGO law's provisions and their implementation clearly violate international human rights standards, are more restrictive than NGO regulatory practices in Europe despite Moscow's statements to the contrary, and are intended to prevent the effective exercise of basic civil and political rights such as freedom of expression and association. A recent report on NGO registration by the Council of Europe's Expert Council on NGO Law concluded that Russia's NGO law "needs to be seriously simplified and built on straightforward base," and highlighted "a number of incompatibilities" with international guidelines on NGO regulation.

The EU should call on the Russian government to adhere to its commitments to uphold freedom of expression and association. We furthermore encourage the European Union to urge the Russian authorities to ensure that any process to modify the NGO law is transparent, consultative, and inclusive, and to offer technical and other assistance in bringing Russia's NGO policy into accordance with international standards.

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Condemn, unequivocally, attacks on human rights defenders and journalists, and investigate and prosecute those crimes to the fullest extent allowed by the law;
• Establish a transparent process to reform the NGO law that involves meaningful consultations with NGOs, legal experts, and other stakeholders;
• Foster an environment in which civil society can operate freely by imposing only those regulations on NGOs that are strictly compatible with international standards and absolutely necessary, and narrowly defining the terms under which the government can interfere in legitimate private citizen activity;
• Amend the 2006 NGO law to streamline the registration process so that NGOs can register in a prompt and straightforward manner, remove the most restrictive and intrusive provisions of the law such as those that allow the authorities to conduct unlimited inspections and attend all NGO events, and provide remedies, other than liquidation, for violations of the NGO law that can compel or help noncompliant NGOs to come into compliance.
• Facilitate the work of, and issue standing invitations to all UN special procedures and immediately agree to visits by the Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, and on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

For more information on civil society and the NGO law, please see Human Rights Watch press release "Revise NGO Law to Protect Rights;" Human Rights Watch Proposals on Changes to the Russian Federal Laws on Regulating NGOs; and Human Rights Watch's report Choking on Bureaucracy: State Curbs on Independent Civil Society Activism.

The August 2008 Conflict with Georgia

Human Rights Watch documented serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by Russian forces as well as Russian-backed South Ossetian militias during the August 2008 conflict with Georgia.^[1] Our research found that Russian forces' indiscriminate attacks during the conflict killed and injured civilians and left many homeless. Russian cluster munitions attacks killed and injured civilians, putting additional civilians at risk by leaving behind unstable "minefields" of unexploded bomblets.

Russian forces fired at convoys transporting civilians, killing and wounding them as they attempted to flee the conflict zones. Russian forces also failed to fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure civilian protection in areas where they exercised effective control. Russian-backed Ossetian militias attacked, abducted and, in some instances, killed ethnic Georgian civilians and looted and burned Georgian villages. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes, particularly as Ossetian forces attempted to conduct an ethnic cleansing at Tbilisi-backed Georgian villages in the territory of South Ossetia. Twenty two thousands IDPs from South Ossetia still remain in uncontested Georgia territories and cannot implement their right to return due to the lack of security guarantees. Ossetian forces, at times with Russian forces, arbitrarily detained over 150 ethnic Georgians, subjecting nearly all of them to inhuman and degrading treatment and detention conditions. They also tortured at least four Georgian prisoners of war and executed at least three.

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Publicly promote and implement the right of all persons displaced by the conflict, including ethnic Georgians, to return and live in their homes in South Ossetia in safety and dignity, and take measures to ensure that they may return;
• Ensure a transparent and effective investigation into all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by Russian and Ossetian forces and hold perpetrators accountable;
• Publicly undertake not to use, produce or trade in cluster munitions in the future and join the Convention on Cluster Munitions;
• Cooperate fully with the international inquiry commissioned by the European Union, including by providing full, unimpeded access to South Ossetia and access to all relevant persons and information for all of the inquiry's experts and staff;
• Reconsider the objections to OSCE activities in Georgia and facilitate OSCE monitoring in South Ossetia and undisputed parts of Georgia. Provide full and unimpeded access to the OSCE, EU Monitoring Mission and other international monitoring bodies to the territories under Russia's effective control.

For more information on the August 2008 conflict with Georgia, please see Human Rights Watch's report Up in Flames: Humanitarian Law Violations and Civilian Victims in the Conflict over South Ossetia.

North Caucasus

Implementation of European Court of Human Rights Judgments on Chechnya

In more than 100 rulings to date, the ECtHR has repeatedly found Russia responsible for serious human rights violations in Chechnya, including torture, "disappearances," and extrajudicial executions. Russia has generally paid court-ordered monetary compensation to the victims. But it has failed to implement the individual and general measures that follow from the rulings - rectifying violations in individual cases by undertaking effective investigations, and addressing the underlying causes of abuse in order to prevent similar violations in the future. The European Court judgments highlight Moscow's failure to hold accountable those responsible for grave human rights abuses in Chechnya. This climate of impunity has allowed violations to persist.

The recent decision by the Kremlin to end counterterrorism operations in Chechnya has profound symbolic meaning to people in Chechnya, signaling an end to the 10-year war. But the counterterrorism operation has left behind a legacy of abuse that still demands justice. Full implementation of ECtHR judgments is critical to providing meaningful justice to the victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya and preventing similar abuses from recurring, thereby helping to put to rest the legacy of the decade-long abusive "counterterrorism operation."

The court's judgments provide a unique platform for the EU to engage effectively with Russia on the necessary changes in policy and practice that are required from Russia in order to fully comply with the court's rulings. Russia's effective implementation of these judgments will also help guarantee the integrity and efficacy of the ECtHR, which is the leading mechanism in Europe for ensuring that states respect their human rights obligations.

Russia's failure to ratify Protocol 14, which would help streamline admissibility decisions as well as strengthen the capacity of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers to oversee the implementation of judgments, has impeded efforts to reform the ECtHR. Recent proposals for a simplified Protocol 14 bis would help the court reduce its backlog but leave the Committee of Ministers' oversight role unchanged. Although improving the court's ability to process cases is clearly a priority, in all interactions with the Russian authorities regarding the European Court, the European Union should focus on the need for full implementation of judgments.

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Ratify the full Protocol 14;
• Pay in full the compensation and expenses as directed by the court;
• Re-open investigations in those cases where the court has determined that prior investigations were inadequate and conduct them in a manner that ensures they are meaningful and effective, resulting in those responsible for violations being brought to justice;
• Undertake a thorough review and revision of domestic legislation and regulations regarding the use of force by military or security forces to ensure their compliance with human rights law;
• Carry out an in-depth inquiry into the conduct of investigations into abuses committed by Russian military servicemen, police and intelligence officials and other forces in the Chechen Republic to establish why these investigations are so ineffective;
• Undertake an investigation to determine how secret detention has been allowed to occur routinely an on a large scale in Chechnya.

For more information on European Court of Human Rights judgments on Chechnya, please see Human Rights Watch memorandum "Update on European Court of Human Rights Judgments against Russia regarding Cases from Chechnya," and Human Rights Watch brochure, "Justice for Chechnya: The European Court of Human Rights Rules against Russia."

Ongoing Human Rights Violations with Impunity

In Chechnya, the armed conflict has subsided and parts of the capital, Grozny, have been rebuilt; however, security forces continue to use torture and illegal detention, and impunity for abuses is rampant. The failure to implement fully the ECtHR rulings on Chechnya contributes to this persistent climate of impunity. As a consequence, law enforcement and security servicemen receive the message that they will not be held accountable for human rights violations they commit. The August 2008 disappearance of Mokhmadsalakh Masaev, who publicly spoke about his ill-treatment in a secret prison in Chechnya, and other cases of attacks and harassment highlight the risk to those who speak out about abuses or work for justice.

The Chechen authorities use collective punishment practices against people with suspected rebel ties. Families of active or alleged insurgents are subjected to persecution, including in particular punitive ‘house-burning'. Human Rights Watch is aware of 25 cases in which houses belonging to particular families have been deliberately targeted and burned apparently by Chechen law-enforcement officers between July 2008 and March 2009. All the families in question have alleged insurgents, usually sons or nephews, among their close relations. Prior to the actual house-burning, they all came under strong pressure from law-enforcement and administration officials to return their relatives "from the woods" and were threatened with severe repercussion for failure to do so. In some cases, the decision to burn a specific house appeared to be triggered by an insurgent attack in the vicinity and the burning was apparently carried out as an act of revenge. No one has been held responsible for any of the house burnings.

Notably, in 2007-2008 high-level Chechen officials, including the president, Ramzan Kadyrov, made numerous public statements stressing that insurgents' families should expect to be punished unless they convince their relatives to surrender. The officials openly undermined Russian law but invoked and misused Chechen custom law to justify their threats. Such statements, while falling short of direct instructions to law-enforcement to destroy houses of insurgents' families, encourage lawless punitive actions by police and security personnel.

In Ingushetia, the human rights situation and the security situation have significantly worsened since the summer of 2007, which saw a rise of insurgency attacks on public officials, security and law-enforcement personnel, and civilians. The Russian government's response to these attacks, however, has not been in accordance with Russian and international law. The counterinsurgency practices adopted by the authorities of Ingushetia involve extra-judicial executions, unlawful, abduction-style detentions, and torture and cruel or degrading treatment.  These practices antagonize the local population and serve to further destabilize the situation in the republic. Ingushetia's new president, Yunus-Bek Evkurov, appears to be open to a discussion about the human rights situation in the republic. He has held several meetings with local human rights defenders, protestors against human rights abuses, and relatives of the disappeared. He also created a human rights council to advise him on human rights and invited a number of prominent civic activists to join. In a May 2009 meeting with Human Rights Watch, Evkurov stressed his commitment to ensuring that counter-insurgency operations and measures be carried out in line with Russia's law and international human rights obligations. The EU should seize on this opportunity to underscore the importance of thorough investigations into extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances, abduction-style detentions and acts of torture.

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Ensure access to the region for international monitors, including the UN Working Group on enforced and involuntary disappearances and the Special Rapporteurs on torture, on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and on violence against women in full agreement with the requirements for conducting visits that these procedures' terms or reference set forth;
• Ensure meaningful accountability mechanisms to bring perpetrators of serious abuses to justice and ensure transparency regarding investigations and/or prosecutions undertaken, including their outcome;
• Immediately stop the practice of extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances, abduction-style detentions, and other abuses perpetrated in particular by security services, military, and law-enforcement agencies;
• Sign and Ratify the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance;
• In cases of arrest, ensure that all procedural guidelines are fully observed and family members are provided adequate information on the status and whereabouts of their arrested relatives.

For more information on ongoing abuses in the North Caucasus, please see commentaries, "Dagestan: curse of the sixth department and "Ending Chechnya's counterterrorism operation - or not;" Human Rights Watch press release, "Russia: Torture Victim Abducted in Chechnya;" and Human Rights Watch report Russia: Stop ‘Dirty War' Tactics in Ingushetia.

Migrant Labor in the Construction Sector

Russia has between 4 and 9 million migrant workers, over 80 percent of whom come from other countries of the former Soviet Union. Forty percent of migrant workers are employed in construction. During extensive research on abuses against migrant construction workers in Russia, Human Rights Watch documented abuses including denial of contracts, non-payment or delayed payment of wages, excessively long working hours, and unsafe working conditions. In the worst cases, employers or intermediaries confiscate workers' passports and force them to work without wages. Human Rights Watch also documented numerous cases of trafficking into forced labor in Russia. Some employers threaten or use violence to intimidate workers who protest against non-payment or other violations. Police frequently use document inspections to extort money from minorities, including migrant workers, and may physically abuse them or force them to perform work for free. Migrant workers have few effective options for redress for these abuses.

Russia's human rights obligations require the government to take positive measures to protect migrant workers from abuse and exploitation. Effective, accessible mechanisms for timely redress for abuses are a crucial dimension of rights protection, yet have not received sufficient attention from the Russian authorities. Although a number of entities exist that at least formally should provide avenues for redress for migrant workers, including the Federal Work and Employment Service (Rostrud), the courts, and the prosecutor's office, none of these mechanisms has proven adequate to effectively investigate and ensure prosecution of violations. 

Despite the impact of the global financial crisis on the Russian economy, Russian demographic experts have noted that there has been only a modest decrease in migrant flows in 2009. Poor economic opportunities in migrants' home countries continue to push migrants to seek employment abroad. However, Russia's Ministry of Health and Social Development reduced the quotas for work permits for workers entering under the non-visa regime by fifty percent for 2009. This policy risks increasing irregular migration, as workers continue to come to Russia, in most cases seeking jobs which Russian workers, including those newly unemployed, are unlikely to choose, but are unable to regularize their employment due to expired quotas. 

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Closely monitor the status of quotas for work permits in Russia's federal subjects to ensure that quotas can be quickly revised upward if necessary, thereby making it possible for migrants entering for the summer employment season to readily obtain work permits;
• Establish an accessible, effective complaint mechanism and rigorously investigate complaints of abuse made by migrant workers, irrespective of a migrant workers' contractual status or migration status. Ensure that migrant workers are aware of their rights under international and Russian law and informed of this complaint mechanism.
• Rigorously investigate and prosecute employers who confiscate passports, deny workers legal contracts, withhold wages, use physical violence against workers or commit other violations of Russian law;
• Cooperate with the nine governments of the former Soviet Union with whom Russia maintains a non-visa regime to facilitate prosecutions and investigations of employers and intermediaries implicated in trafficking, including by facilitating the participation in the investigation of complaints, and any legal proceedings, by victims who have already returned home.
• Establish a clear regulatory framework for state and private employment agencies, individual employment recruiters and other intermediaries, and adequately fund mechanisms for regular monitoring of these entities, including unannounced visits;

For more information on migrant labor in the construction sector, please see Human Rights Watch report "Are You Happy to Cheat Us:" Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in Russia.

Access to Therapeutic Opioids

Poor availability of therapeutic opioids, such as morphine and methadone, causes tremendous suffering for millions of people in the Russian Federation every year. It raises serious questions about Russia's adherence to its obligations under the right to health and the prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

As part of their obligations under the right to health, governments should ensure access to medications included in the World Health Organization's (WHO) List of Essential Medicines. Both methadone and morphine have been included in the WHO's list. The WHO has stated that opioids like morphine are "absolutely necessary" for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, that "there is no substitute for opioids in the therapeutic group of morphine" in cases of moderate to severe pain, and that most pain could be relieved if existing medical knowledge were implemented.^[2] Decades of extensive research have shown that methadone substitution treatment is the most effective treatment of opioid dependence available today. WHO, UNAIDS and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime all recommend the treatment, observing that it "is associated with generally substantial reductions in illicit opioid use, criminal activity, deaths due to overdose, and behaviors with a high risk of HIV transmission."^[3]

Yet, Russia does not guarantee adequate availability of methadone and morphine. In fact, its 1998 Federal Act on Narcotic Drugs and Psychoactive Substances has outright banned the use of methadone in the treatment of drug dependence. As Human Rights Watch research has found, the alternative treatment that is offered is of inferior quality and ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence on most effective form of treatment.

As the UN Special Rapporteur on torture has held, in certain circumstances policies that deliberately deny access to methadone substitute treatment, may amount to torture if "withdrawal symptoms are used for any of the purposes cited in definition of torture enshrined in article 1 of the Convention against Torture."^[4]

Moreover, Russian government officials also deliberately spread misinformation about methadone substitution treatment to the population and healthcare providers, in violation of the right to information under article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While morphine is not banned, its availability is limited as Russia has enacted strict laws and regulations that arbitrarily and unnecessarily impose restrictions on legitimate medical use. This includes rigid restrictions on which doctors can prescribe opioids. Such restrictions are unnecessary and cause tremendous suffering. For example, a Russian AIDS doctor told a 2008 AIDS conference in Moscow that he could not treat a patient who suffered from severe pain because he was not licensed to prescribe morphine. Based on cancer and AIDS mortality figures-between 50 and 80 percent of people dying of these diseases suffer from severe pain-and Russia's annual consumption of morphine, it can be estimated that less than 15 percent of people who suffer from severe pain have access to appropriate treatment. As the aforementioned report by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture concluded, "the de facto denial of access to pain relief, if it causes severe pain and suffering, constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Recommendations for steps the Russian government should be urged to take:

• Lift the ban on methadone for drug dependence treatment;
• Allow for open debate on methadone substitution treatment and end the deliberate spread of misinformation by officials;
• Review and amend laws and regulations that unnecessarily impede availability of pain treatment medications, as recommended by the International Narcotics Control Board and the World Health Organization.

For more information on access to therapeutic opioids, please see Human Rights Watch's report Rehabilitation Required: Russia's Human Rights Obligation to Provide Evidence-based Drug Dependence Treatment, and Human Rights Watch's report Please do not make us suffer anymore..." Access to Pain Treatment as a Human Right.

[1] Human Rights Watch also investigated violations committed by Georgian forces. Please see https://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/01/22/flames-0.

[2] See "Achieving Balance in National Opioids Control Policy: Guidelines for Assessment,"  WHO/EDM/QSM/2000.4, available at http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/publicat/00whoabi/00whoabi.pdf.

[3] See World Health Organization, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS position paper, "Substitution maintenance therapy in the management of opioid dependence and HIV/AIDS prevention," 2004,  available at http://www.unodc.org/docs/treatment/Brochure_E.pdf.

[4] See A/HRC/10/44, January 2009, available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/10session/A.HRC.10.4....