GENERAL RESOLUTION OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN RIGHTS æONGRESS

Moscow, January 21, 2001

The Constitution in force proclaims Russia to be a federative, social, secular, democratic and governed by the rule state. However, today the situation with democratic freedoms and human rights in our country has become extraordinary: we witness the process of erosion of democratic bases of the Constitution, last months this process seems to be a "creeping" constitutional coup-d'etat. Limitations and violations of human and civil rights and freedoms in various spheres form a distinct tendency towards authoritarianism. Hystorical experience shows that the regimes of such kind lead to mass repressions and provoke large-scale armed hostilities.

A special danger for human and civil rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation represent:

- anticonstitutional military operations in Chechnya that resulted in death of thousands of people, human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity;

- practice of ethnic and racial discrimination encouraged by the representatives of the authorities, increase of intolerance and violence in respect of ethnic minorities and migrants, implantation by the state of the image of enemy in the person of people originating from the Caucasus and other regions;

- intolerable situation of the people deprived of housing and registration - refugees and forced migrants as well as people who became homeless in Russia itself in peace-time; the state practically strikes them out from the life - they are deprived nor only of social rights (to housing, to medical assistance) but also of civil and political rights and sometimes of the right to life;

- urge of the bureaucracy to regulate private initiative of the citizens and to limit activities of public associations, making thus the citizens powerless, intimidated and rightless;

- mass violations of social and labour rights of the citizens, threats to introduce even more strict legal limitations;

- spreading attack of the authorities on the right of the citizens to a favourable environment, pressure over public ecological organizations, demonstrative disregard of the will of millions citizens who supported the ecological referendum;

- urge of president's administration to assume extraordinary powers and to create a manageable nomenclature Constitutional assembly in order to have possibility of allegedly legal change of constitutional system;

- policy of submission of legislative and judicial powers to the administrations of different levels;

- demonstrative disregard displayed by all the branches of power in respect of international obligations concerning human rights that Russia undertook to perform;

- increasing unlawful practice of substitution of the Constitution and laws of Russia by subsidiary acts violating human rights;

- monopolization by the power of informational, public, financial and economic spheres;

- pressure on independent mass-media, urge to introduce censorship and revival of state ideological propaganda;

- numerous violations of electoral rights of the citizens, manipulation with election laws at all levels, use by the power of the mass-media, election commissions and courts to remove unfavourable candidates;

- actual cessation of judicial reform, lack of efficient judicial protection from human rights violations and lawlessness of the power, general non-fulfilment of judicial decisions;

- inefficiency of human rights protection carried out by the law-enforcement bodies, moreover - transformation of force agencies into one of the main sources of human rights violations;

- excessive reinforcement of the role of secret services in the society and in the state, close character of the power structures, limitation of the access of the citizens to information;

- transformation of the General Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Security Service and other force agencies into instruments of political struggle, inspiration of "spy trials";

- militarization of the power and the society, dangerous intervention of force agencies in questions of internal and foreign policy of the country.

The All-Russian extraordinary human rights æongress regards this situation as threatening the stability and security of our society, the peaceful, democratic development of our country.

We call all structures of Russian civil society for consolidation and concerted actions to defend human and civil rights and freedoms.

Increasing threats to the bases of constitutional system and civil society, priority of law and human rights demand that we come out as a constructive civil non-political opposition to this regime. The consolidation of the state must be counterbalanced by a consolidated and efficient civil society.

The All-Russian extraordinary human rights æongress decides:

1. To form permanent working groups on folllowing directions:

- anti-war actions;

- civil control;

- judicial reform;

- penitentiary reform and protection of the rights of prisoners;

- social and economic rights of the citizens;

- military reform and protection of the rights of the servicemen and their families;

- right of the citizens to free enterprise;

- protection of the electoral rights of the citizens;

- protection of the ecological rights of the citizens;

- protection of the freedom of expression and independence of the mass-media;

- protection of the right to intellectual property;

- protection of the rights of children.

2. To form a special working group for preparation of legislative basis ensuring human rights in Russia and package of drafts of federal laws aimed at protection of human and civil rights and freedoms in the Russian Federation. To charge the initiative group "Common Action" with the coordination of the activities of the group.

3. To organize the monitoring of the political and legal basis ensuring human rights which would include the analysis of:

- voting in the State Duma on drafts of laws and other questions connected with human rights;

- drafts of laws introduced by the factions and by other entities of legislative initiative;

- reaction of the political figures to the proposals coming from human rights organizations.

According to the results of the monitoring the human rights community must decide what political forces could count on its support and what recommendations it would be expedient to propose to the structures of civil society and to the electors.

The Congress charges the initiative group "Common Action" with the coordination of implementation of this resolution and the organization of the monitoring of political and legal basis ensuring human rights.