MOSCOW PRESENTATION

The following text is an adaptation of the transcription of the audio CDs of the Conference 2005.

From the Russian Capital there have been present: Ms. Marina Chibisova, Co-ordinator of the youth project from the Centre for Interethnic Relations, Ms. Yulia Gabidulina, Program Administrator from the Moscow Helsinki Group and Ms. Olga Kolosova, Head of the Department of the Committee of Family and Youth of Moscow.

At first they mentioned the existing discrimination problem in Moscow concerning the work immigrants from the former Soviet Republic. Since there has been no regulation enacted about the status of these immigrants, people live in an environment with no rule of law, where corruption and violation of law come about easily.

Subsequently they presented the network organisation „Young Europe“, which has been active in the field of human rights. The aim of “Young Europe” is the educational work with young people in order to better inform them about their rights. Furthermore the organisation is active in surveying the situation of human rights and their violations. Especially the rights of the ethnic minorities, the right to work and to vote play a central role. It also organises public actions and campaigns in the field of human rights with the support of partner organisations. According to “Young Europe”, the fact that there is insufficient participation of young people in this field is a shortcoming. Due to the fact that there are also partly great information deficiencies, the organisation plans to deal with them by organising well-directed dissemination of information and public relations work (e.g. press conferences).

In conclusion they brought out the lack of co-operation between the municipalities and the human rights organisations, but at the same time they also reported about a positive development in this field. Representatives of the Russian human rights commission attend also events and press conferences of the NGOs. Representatives of the city authorities and of the municipality are being invited on a regular basis as well, to organise further co-operation.

Trainer: Andrey Yurov is Russian; he works as an expert in the field of human rights and is active against racism, intolerance and xenophobia.

Fields of possible cooperation: Participation ideas