The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has extended the mandate of their Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia. The mandate will now continue for an additional year. Mariana Katzarova, the inaugural and current mandate holder, will persist in her duty of observing and reporting on the human rights situation in Russia, a role she has held since her appointment in May 2023.
The Special Rapporteur’s mandate was initially established in October 2022 following a multitude of reports denoting Russia’s use of propaganda, restrictive legislation, and violence to stifle civil society, as well as crackdowns on human rights organizations and independent media. The resolution also raised global alarm over arbitrary arrests and detentions, the shutdown of civil society organizations, and restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. Its primary goal is to encourage Russia to adhere to human rights obligations and uphold fundamental freedoms; to this end, it fashioned the independent office of the Special Rapporteur.
At the fifty-fourth session of the UNHRC in September 2023, the Special Rapporteur presented the report on the state of human rights within the Russian Federation. The report condemned the foreign agents law, the fake news law, persecution of sexual and gender minorities, censorship laws, treatment of political opposition, detention of journalists, and violations of fair trial standards. It concluded that the human rights climate in Russia has markedly deteriorated following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Hence, approaching domestic laws in a way that resonates with Russia’s international engagement with human rights organizations, revoking repressive legislations, and demanding political opposition’s release were among the recommendations offered. It also called for the prosecution of those responsible for human rights violations along with reparations for violation victims.
Russia ceased to be a high contracting party to the European Convention on Human Rights in September 2022. Currently, there are over 17,000 applications against the Russian Federation still pending.