UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC Press Conference - Situation of human rights in the Russian Federation

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at this press conference.

We have with us today Miss Mariana Katsorova, who is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation.

The Special Rapporteur must attend the Council at 10 AM, so we will go straight to questions this morning.

We have about 30 minutes for that and we'll start with questions in the room and then move on.

To those of you participating online, please state your name and your organisation before asking a question.

Thank you, Nick.

Yeah, good morning, Nick.

I'm Bruce for New York Times.

You made clear in your report and in your presentation to the Council yesterday that Russia not only didn't cooperate with your mandate, but actually obstructed it.

And I wonder if you could just say something about how it obstructed it and the extent to which that affected your ability or the information you were able to correct.

Thank you very much.

And first of all, thank you to all media representatives for being here so early in the morning get such a short notice of my interactive dialogue being split between two days.

Unexpectedly to your question, I have requested several times from the restaurant authorities access to the country engagement with my mandate.

I have also written a letter to the Ombuds Woman for Human Rights, which is a national human rights institution, to solicit information for my report and to the Russian authorities for for a meeting and for access to the Russian Federation to meet various stakeholders.

Of course, to begin with from the government officials, but also victims of human rights violations, civil society, law enforcement, representatives of the legal profession.

And unfortunately, there wasn't any response from the Russian authorities officially.

However, in July, on 20th of July, all special procedure mandate holders and the Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights, including my mandate received and not verbal, in which the Russian Federation declared that they are not only not going to as a principal collaborate with my mandate, they do not recognise it, but also any communication individual or joint with other special procedure mandate holders, other special rapporteurs on cases in the Russian Federation would be automatically ignored.

I really consider these hindrance a very serious one to the performance of my mandate.

It's attempt to isolate the Russian mandate from other special procedure mandate holders and in a way it's undermining the whole machinery of the UN special procedure system, but also the human rights system which cannot be devised.

And governments should not be choosing and picking on which issues or with which mandates.

They should be communicating and collaborating.

So I think it's a very serious issue about the Human Rights Council.

So States and members of the Human Rights Council have to really take it seriously on this Monday.

But on any other really, because I haven't chosen my mandate, I'm the mandate holder.

It has been chosen by peers of the Russian Federation through a vote to create this mandate last year.

Hi Imogen folks, BBC, your mandate is expiring, needs to be renewed.

How much importance do you attach?

How important do you think it is that this mandate is renewed?

You know what work remains to be done and are you seeing active obstruction as the kind you described in your work also towards getting your mandate renewed?

As I said, I'm not the creator of this mandate.

It's member states.

I'm just the independent expert with expertise to chosen to carry out and discharge the duties of this mandate.

So really it's in room 20 are the creators and the voters for this mandate.

But I can tell you, as an expert on the Russian Federation and on this region, why this mandate is important.

The Russian Federation has been, especially since the armed attack on Ukraine a year ago.

In February, the Russian Federation had withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights and this convention and the European Court of Human Rights were one international outlet, judicial one, where victims for human rights violations in Russia could take their grievances and could seek justice.

And there was a huge volume of cases still is waiting of Russian victims since even the Chechen wars, the two Chechen wars decades ago.

So with this Ave for Justice no longer available to the Russian people, I think what's available to them is this mandate.

Apart from, of course, the human rights mechanisms, the other human rights mechanisms and the Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights have already observed a huge volume, maybe tripled, of individual complaints by victims from Russia who are seeking, who are submitting petitions to the Human Rights Committee in of, of the United Nations in order to get any pronouncement or any Ave for Justice even out of court.

Of course, it's the United Nations human rights system.

Why is my mandate important?

Because it's also the bridge to the Russian people, to the victims, to the civil society, to those who dare speak against the war on Ukraine and get really punished for that, to the dissidents, but to anybody really in the Russian Federation that I'm prepared to listen to.

I'm prepared to receive their their submissions or their complaints or their grievances and bring it back to the Russian authorities and to the international community.

It's a voice for the people of the Russian Federation, this mandate.

So I think it's important to continue, especially now in this dark times for human rights in the Russian Federation, but generally dark times in our region, in Europe, where we have for the first time a war in 80 years.

And I would, I would dare say, for the world where observance for human rights is probably getting really lower on the scale of other considerations political.

Thank you, please.

Thank you Stefan Bisal Atone newspaper.

I have two questions.

First, I was wondering if you get got access before writing your report to Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Karamuza, for example, or in terms of did you get news from them?

And and second question, your report does not mention, if I'm not mistaken, the law that prohibits in a way crimes against humanity and crime, war crimes.

Why is that?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

First of all, there is a very strict system of rules how our special procedures mandates operate.

And I cannot bring a communication to the Russian authorities on a particular case without actually having a consent from the victim itself, himself or herself.

If they're reachable from their lawyers, through their lawyers or civil society organisation or a family member that is ready to give a consent on behalf of the particular victim of human rights violations.

So of course, I had communicated with the lawyers, with the family members of these individuals you mentioned Mr Navalny and Mr Kara Murza, and I had that consent after their cases were brought to my attention.

So definitely, absolutely.

And updated information on their health in detention, on their treatment in detention.

I have been receiving these updates constantly and that's why my concern is in particularly I issued communication in the press release.

I invited also other maybe not on this case, I think I did it alone, but on other cases I have been calling for the immediate release of Mr Karamoze from detention in particular.

His health is in a really DARE state and he's facing 25 years imprisonment on arbitrary arbitrarily detained only for his expression of his anti war stance and his dissident voice criticising the Russian authorities.

In terms of your second question, why there are no issues and concerns on war crimes and crimes against humanity, my mandate, if you read the resolution from 7th of October last year, concerns human rights, the human rights situation within the internationally recognised borders of the Russian Federation.

So I'm concerned with every human right that is outlined in the resolution in this report.

I focused on civil and political rights, but I'm also concerned about domestic violence, about violence against women, about social and economic rights.

The poverty if you if you just drive 100 kilometres away from Moscow or Saint Petersburg, the enormous poverty inside the regions, the far reaching regions of the Russian Federation.

It's an enormous country and a multicultural country with ethnic minorities.

I'm concerned about their plight, religious minorities, but also the indigenous people of the Russian Federation who are suffering at my rate of discrimination and persecution against them.

And you know, even within the mobilisation for the Russian army in connection with the war on Ukraine, disproportionately the indigenous people from small nations and the ethnic minorities have suffered from this mobilisation, which has been enforced forcibly in these regions, unlike Moscow and Saint Petersburg and the more central cities.

Yes, there are many issues that didn't really find a place, but it's not for me to to pronounce and observe on the ongoing war on Ukraine.

That's the role of the Commission of inquiry, the independent Commission of inquiry on Ukraine.

So that I was just mentioning the law that has been passed by the Duma.

That's why.

Because since you're mentioning different laws that have been adopted at our counter, to ladies and gentlemen, the rules of the Human Rights Council are 10,700 words.

I'm a former journalist.

You are current journalist.

I have been fighting to squeeze the footnotes and cut them in some kind of readable way in order to get a name of a victim or a law or the number of the law.

And I'm somebody who absolutely love footnotes.

Half of my report would have been footnotes, for example, because I don't like free, free falling opinions.

I like every opinion to be documented and to be based on solid scientific research and knowledge.

Not all issues and all laws are mentioned in this report.

It's 20 pages, it's 10,700 words.

It's a start.

And I think actually the UN Human Rights Council have to to feel lucky that I even delivered the report because my colleagues when assuming their functions with such a limited amount of time.

I started on 1st of May, Usually their first report is called My Vision for the Mandate and then we wait for one year to actually have a substantive report.

And I tried my best with my tiny team to produce a substantive report on the human rights issues overview.

So yes, I apologise if some issues or some loss haven't been footnoted in the report or haven't found a place there hopefully will be next reports if the mandate continues.

Thank you.

We will move to Nina Larson, AFP online.

Yes, hi.

Thank you for taking my question and thank you for doing the press press conference.

Just I had a few questions, but first, I was wondering just to follow up on Stefan's question.

I understand you're not looking at the war in Ukraine, but looking at the abuses that you're seeing within Russia, do you think there's any reason or there's grounds to fear that there could be, for instance, crimes against humanity being committed, for instance, in terms of the the conscripts, for instance, being sent to the the front lines or I don't know if you could mention something about that.

Also, I was wondering if you are gathering information or you're planning to gather information on specific suspected perpetrators to to share, for instance.

And finally, if you could just say something about the general level of repression that you're seeing today.

I mean, it sounds pretty grim from your report.

How would you say it compares to previous times in Russia or the Soviet Union, if you could say, is it comparable to what you saw under selling, for instance?

Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much for these questions.

First of all, crimes against humanity, International Criminal law is actually a mathematics.

It's a tool of mathematics.

You have to observe, you have to investigate and you have to calculate the findings to add up to crimes against humanity.

My mandate or any other special procedure mandate holder, These are not investigative mandates.

We're not commissions of inquiry, we're not the prosecutors of the International Criminal Court.

Our role is different.

Our role is to observe, to monitor, to speak to the victims, to speak to everybody really in the society, to the governments, Inshallah that they communicate with us.

And it should be that way because all changes in society are in the hands of the government of the country concerned.

It cannot just happen by miracle, But in terms of investigations under International Criminal law, these are different genres of the UN system.

And this is, as I mentioned, the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine is tasked with investigative functions, not the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia.

I am reporting, I'm obliged to report to the UN Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly once a year.

So I have two reportings to do, but my reports are not really investigative reports.

I'm not an investigator in this current role.

I'm here to observe, to monitor and to give recommendations to the authorities and to the international community how to introduce change on practical change on concrete violations and issues of concern in terms of whether I collect information, suspected perpetrators.

In my previous role just before this Monday to actually I LED for a year the examination of the human rights situation in Belarus, and that's a mandate of the UN **** Commissioner.

Well, this was an investigative mandate.

So investigating on concrete perpetrators or investigating on under International Criminal law on accountability, that was part of that mandate.

As I said, Special Rapporteur is not an investigator and not a prosecutor and certainly not a judge, but the judge in the moral sense and in the sense of upholding the international law and the convention, the UN conventions and rules that the country in question has signed and adopted.

So that's the role it may change in the future.

The the third question is about the level of repression in comparison to previous times.

I think that really and my my report has outlined and documented these, the level of repression against the civil society, independent media and generally to anybody with a dissenting voice in the Russian society is unprecedented in recent history.

Yes, the previous times of repression that we all know from the Russian history was the times of the Stalinist repressions during the 1930s, when I think it's up to 30 million people who perished in gulags for being perceived as enemies of the state or dissidents at the time.

I think it's not that bad yet, but now it's the opportunity really through this mandate, through our report, through your reporting and through the international community's action to not let the situation in in Russia itself deteriorate to the level of the previous historical Stalinist repressions in this country.

But the repression level is ****.

And, as I said yesterday in my statement to the UN Human Rights Council, I consider the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation to be grave.

And it's extremely serious.

For example, the media freedom, I think it's called the Global index.

The the World Press Freedom Index has listed, I mean has listed the level of the situation with freedom of expression in the Russian Federation before and after the armed attack on Ukraine.

And the level has of the Russian Federation.

The place has fallen by 9 places.

So now the Russian Federation in 2023 was 164th place out of 180.

Categorising the press freedom situation is very serious.

This is just one example for you as representatives of the free media of the world.

I think there is a serious place for concern and also of course, as documented by my report, an enormous crackdown on civil society, around 600 civil society organisations from big like Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize winner for for last year to tiny organisations in the regions of indigenous people of ethnic minorities of L GB TIQ.

Representative organisations that represent these people have been closed down, has been forced to close down by the authorities by introducing draconic laws.

One of them is the law on foreign agent, which was introduced actually in 2012.

But since the armed attack on Ukraine, the invasion of Ukraine, there has been more restrictive additions to this law, introducing people affiliated with foreign agents or undesirable organisations.

And many civil society, international and local, have been pronounced as either foreign agents or undesirable organisations.

I mean, Dmitry Muratov, the editor in chief of Nova Gazeta, again a Nobel Peace Prize winner of I think it was 2021 a few days ago, has been pronounced a foreign agent himself.

So which carries a lot of restrictions on freedom of expression of these individuals and eventually and eventually it could carry criminal prosecution.

So yes, the level of repression I could categorise as first of all, the Civic Society in Russia has been closed by the authorities by now.

There is no independent media, no independent organisations officially functioning, very little facing extreme danger.

So I think, and the repression is very sophisticated.

Every week the Russian legislature is passing new restrictive laws or additions to existing laws to stifle civil society, to stifle independent media and any dissidents.

Anybody who criticises the Russian authorities, even on issues like the indigenous people were telling me on environmental issues or when they're trying to protect their sacred grounds from draconian business companies that are trying to extract their oil or other, you know, other extractions on their sacred lands.

But in a country like Russia, when businesses and big business is connected to the powerful of the day, to the government, it's actually, you know, a really serious issue of concern.

And I know of 1 shaman in the Katamansi region of Russia, and he's from the Katamansi people.

He's staging an individual protest to defend the sacred lake of his ancestors from the Surgut Neft Neft and gas Company, which wants to extract a powerful business in Russia.

And now this shaman is under criminal charges and no lawyers in this distant Siberian region of Russia dares to defend him because they're afraid that they will be persecuted as lawyers if they defend the rights of this shaman.

Sorry, Nina, you have a follow up very quickly because we have two more questions.

Yeah, sorry, I, I just wanted to go back to, you mentioned obviously that your, your mandate isn't an investigation.

Do you think that an investigation would be merited in this case?

I see that the the resolution that they're running is, is to renew your mandate.

Do you think that they should also have been asking for an investigation?

Thank you.

Are you asking whether they should be asking the resolution that the special rapporteur has the function to investigate?

I think it's the system of special procedures.

I'm not the first special rapporteur on the planet, although sometimes it feels like that.

But there are up to I think around 6030 individuals and then there are working groups, their colleagues, thematic and country mandates.

So I think it's a matter of looking in the entire system, not just changing the rules for one special rapporteur and tasking them to become an arch investigator into crimes inside the country.

There are other tools of the UN Human Rights Council.

So I think again, the resolution is not something I comment on, it's not something that I produced or I drafted.

It's member States and it's their will to, you know, to include one thing or another.

So the question should be to them, not to me.

I think even as it is, there is a lot of work to be done and my mandate is really overwhelmed.

I think mandates like mine, working on an enormous country like Russia with 150 million people, have to be adequately supported and all other mandates, of course, adequately supported with resources.

The Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights has to be supported with resources in order to be able to support me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have only one human rights officer supporting my mandate on the enormity of the issues that are at hand, even with the resolution of last year as it stands.

So again, this is not a question to me.

I'm on the receiving end of the desires and requirements of the Member States of the UN Human Rights Council.

Thank you.

Gabrielle, you had a question.

Yes, special, I had a question regarding a comment that was made during the discussion yesterday.

The one of the ambassadors said that Russia was not fit to serve on the Human Rights Council, having been suspended last year.

Do you think Russia is fit to serve on the Human Rights Council right now?

Thank you.

Again, it's not my place as an expert, independent expert on the Russian Federation to comment which government should be a member of the Human Rights Council?

And I'm sure, you know, you know, there are a lot of different member states in this Human Rights Council with variety of levels of performance on their human rights obligations.

It's not for me to comment on the membership of the Russian Federation to the Human Rights Council.

Russia was a member before.

Now, of course, it's running again for a seat on the council.

I only hope, as I said before, that the Russian government honours its obligations as a member of the United Nations and as one of the big B fives, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

That's what's at stake here because Russia and the other permanent members of the Security Council are the ones that should be the beacon of of hope for other states.

They should be an example for how the UN system operates.

Nobody is above the law and nobody is above the rules of the human rights.

Nobody is above the rules of the United Nations.

So I very much hope that the Russian Federation government sits down and starts a dialogue with my mandate, that I'm given access to the country to perform my the important work of this mandate and engage with the people of their country.

Because in the end of the day, it's all for the benefit of the Russian people.

And this mandate is for the benefit of the Russian people to begin to begin with.

So I think whether they become a member of the Human Rights Council or not, they're already a very serious country and a very important country in our multilateral architecture.

The five permanent members of the Security Council often decide, and they have the right to a veto.

They decide sometimes the life and death of people around the world, they decide on peace and war, they decide on the future, our future, whether it will be peaceful or whether there'll be a conflict.

So I think it's extremely important to be an example to the other states in the world because the responsibility is huge on the members of the Security Council of this organisation.

Thank you.

Lauren, a question, this will be our last question because the special rapporteur really has to go.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks for the briefing and I'll try to to get the questions brief first.

You mentioned yesterday that you don't want to disclose the name of your interlocutors in order to avoid retaliations.

Have you had any indication on someone that had collaborated with you and might have faced afterwards some retail retaliation?

That's number one.

Then on the election at the at the GA for the seat, you're a Bulgarian citizen and Bulgaria will compete against Russia for that seat.

Has there been any smear campaign against you because of that instrumentalization by by Russia?

And then lastly, just a comment, because one week ago the security forces reinstalled the statue of Felix Judzinski.

So you mentioned the Stalinian era, they reinstalled that statue on the square in Moscow.

What kind of sign does that give to to the situation of human rights in Russia?

Thank you.

I think I will be late for the government, but because I need to actually slap to the other building from here.

But let me be brief.

I don't remember your first question.

I missed to record it.

What was that, Sally?

Lauren, can you repeat the first question very quickly?

Potential potential retaliation?

Yes, sorry.

Now I remember.

Yes, I, I have chosen not to reveal the victims, the civil society representatives, lawyers that I have received information from and I have met one way or another from inside Russia or outside because I expect, you know, a possible retaliation against them or a possible persecution by default for them speaking to my mandate.

That's true.

There is a very stringent system at the United Nations on the level of the Secretary General and of course the Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights through the Assistant **** Commissioner for Human Rights.

Every year reports are written about reprisals against people and organisations that suffer because of communication to the UN and trust me, if there are any indications, I will be channelling this information through these channels to the highest level of the United Nations.

So far, I must say there hasn't been such case that has been brought to my attention.

Hopefully the Russian authorities, and one of my recommendations in the report towards them is about that, to eradicate, to end all reprisals against human rights activists or victims, any other people from Russia or rights outside Russia who are communicating with the United Nations, including with my mandate.

The second one was about whether there is a smear campaign against me as a Bulgarian because Bulgaria is applying.

I do not represent my country as a special rapporteur.

I'm I applied for this job in a competition with Health of the World as an independent expert, not as a Bulgarian.

So I actually haven't lived in my country for the past permanently in the past many years because I had an international career as a human rights advocate.

But I haven't really experienced any smear campaign as a Bulgarian, thank God.

But also it's it's wonderful that my country is running for a seat at the Human Rights Council.

It's wonderful that they're vocal on human rights.

And I hope again that they will be an example for human rights performance among other states.

Like we speak about Russia, I could speak about my own country in terms of any sentiments from the Russian government.

There was an interview given by the Russian ambassador in Geneva to Russia 24 television channel.

This was in June, and he said that the Russian Federation is not going to collaborate with my mandate.

And he allowed himself to say that.

And look, the special rapporteur is an active Russophobe.

And when the journalist asked well, why, you know, what do you base your qualification on, he said, well look where she worked in throughout her career and where I worked in my career was Amnesty International for 10 years, it was the UN Office of the **** Commissioner for Human Rights on three different assignments.

So I think if these organisations and many others, OSC or the European Bank for Reconstruction in development, if these organisations are considered Russophobic, I think the ambassador is really misguided in his qualification.

These are international human rights bodies, including the UNOHCHR.

So that was the only comment that I have received in the public space, the statue of Dzerzinski.

This has been an aspiration of the authorities in Moscow for a very long time, for the past 30 years, probably to restore on the Lublanca Square in front of the former KGB headquarters, the statue of Mr Dzerzinski.

And I think I remember Elena Bonner, the widow of Sakharov and a prominent human rights defender, now deceased, Elena Gorgyevna.

I remember a conversation with her with the idea that we need to actually lobby for instead of the monument of Derzhinsky on the Lubyanka Square, to erect a monument of the wife of the political prisoner.

Because that's a very interesting role in the Russian society for the past, I don't know, 100 years probably.

And now it's becoming even more relevant.

At 1:00, I'm speaking at the side event where Evgenia Karamurza, the mother of three that ended up as a human rights activist only because her husband Vladimir received 25 years imprisonment and she is now fighting for his release.

And she became a human rights activist.

But all the wives and all the relatives of people persecuted became the next generation of human rights activists in Russia because the dissidents in prison persecuted are so many at the moment.

I think it's a very worrying sign.

It's a worrying sign about the society that hasn't really looked properly in its history and hasn't really properly reflected on the accountability for past crimes.

We mentioned Mr Stalin and up to 30 million people, Russian people that perished in the gulags.

So now perpetrators of human rights violations from the past are being glorified.

Unfortunately, this is not the only country in the world, but it's very, very worrying.

And I think we should have monuments to women more and to women human rights defenders, to the wives of political prisoners, not just in Russia, everywhere.

And that's, and not just monuments, a living monuments supporting them, supporting the activists and the journalists and the human rights defenders, now that they're alive.

And this is, I think we need to turn this negative rhetoric into a +1 all over the world, including in the Russian Federation.

Thank you very much.

I have 5 minutes.

I'll be late and I'll be grilled by the government.

So I need to really run.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for joining us.

HRC Press Conference - Situation of human rights in the Russian Federation - 22 September 2023