Shadow Report to the UN Human Rights Committee in relation to the review of the 7th Periodic Report of the Russian Federation

Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice together with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network submitted a Shadow Report to the UN Human Rights Committee in relation to the review of the 7th Periodic Report of the Russian Federation.

The focus of the Shadow Report is violation by Russian Federation of the rights and freedoms of people who use drugs. The authors say that RF systematically violates many of the rights and freedoms of IDUs as enumerated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), including: freedom from discrimination; the right to life; freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; the right to liberty and security of person; humane treatment of persons deprived of liberty; the right to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial; freedom of expression including the right to freedom of information. These violations stem primarily from the government’s use of punitive approaches, based on absolutely no scientific evidence, to address what the international community classifies as a health problem, namely drug dependence, a condition with globally sanctioned and effective evidence- and human rights-based responses.

Every fifth inmate is in prison for drug crime in Russia. Up to two-thirds of all people who use drugs (PWUD) have been in custody at least once in their life.

According to the report “the underlying drug policy document of the Russian Federation — the Strategy of State Drug Policy until 2020, which was approved by Decree of thePresident — makes zero mention of human rights. Aimed at punishing people for using drugs and coercing people into abstinence, Russia’s official drug policy disregards the health nature of drug dependence”.

The report includes the statistics, facts of the human right violations of drug users and also recommendations to the government of RF, particularly: “the government of the Russian Federation should develop and adopt a human rights-based federal law regulating drug-demand reduction and drug-related harm reduction through social and medical measures, rather than through law enforcement”.

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