Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's comment on the EU's decision to include the Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad on the sanctions list
21 August 2023 16:49
1618-21-08-2023
Recently, the Westerners waging a sanctions war against Russia took things to the point of absurdity again on humanitarian and human rights issues, areas that should be free from distortion and double standards by definition. We are referring to the EU's decision to include in one of its latest sanctions packages a non-governmental and strictly human rights organisation like the Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo) established this legal mechanism to provide legal assistance to our diaspora abroad in 2011. It is an instrument of emergency legal aid for our compatriots. It provides them with legal, consultative, and, if necessary, humanitarian assistance when they face difficult circumstances for different reasons. What complaints could there possible be about these activities, to say nothing of the political accusations that the EU has now levelled?
It should be emphasised that the Foundation's Charter clearly states that it can pursue its activities only by strictly and scrupulously observing local laws, legal regulations of the countries of residence of our compatriots and, of course, fundamental, universally recognised standards of international law. The Foundation has not departed from this principle even once in the 12 years of its existence. There is no evidence of it ever deviating. The Foundation is completely transparent about its activities. Its documents and reports are publicly available on its website and in social media.
To illustrate our point about the absurdity of the EU's accusations, we will cite some specific examples of the Foundation's human rights activities, at least from its recent practice.
In August 222, the Foundation gave a Russian citizen one-time assistance to pay for the urgent medical evacuation of her seriously ill four-month old child from Malaysia to Russia. In December 2022, another Russian citizen was given a subsidy to pay for the stay of his father, also a Russian citizen, in a medical centre, a fee to the migration police and for air travel from Kuala Lumpur to Moscow.
For a number of years, the Foundation has been paying for the services of lawyers defending the interests of a Russian teenager who was violently attacked by a so-called tourist entertainer during his vacation in Greece. Probably, many people remember this monstrous story. The foundation paid for legal aid in Greece, Türkiye and a number of other countries for Russian citizens accused of crimes on flimsy grounds, as it was later revealed. The Foundation also paid for the services of foreign lawyers to file suits for Russian citizens living abroad with international human rights bodies in connection with illegal actions by some states, primarily in the Baltic region.
We could go on and on citing specific examples of the Foundation's entirely legal human rights activities.
The Foundation is also working in such an important area as legal education. One of its stated priorities that it continuously works on is assistance for enhancing the legal literacy of our compatriots. It supports the work of legal columns in the media and websites of compatriots. They explain the most pressing legal issues in simple terms for practical purposes and conduct legal consultations, including for the younger generation.
It is even difficult to understand what all this has to do with the Foundation's alleged efforts to sow instability and division in many countries neighbouring on Russia, which have scared the EU so much?
I would like to make a separate point. This discriminatory policy of the EU unties the hands of the Russophobes that are aware of their impunity. In effect, by these actions, Brussels continues encouraging the fuelling of hatred and enmity on ethnic and linguistic grounds. The tragic events of World War II graphically showed the world the consequences of misanthropic ideology. It is depressing that EU officials learn nothing from history.
As far as we know, formally, structures and individuals sanctioned by the EU may appeal against these measures in the EU Court. We are not sure if the Foundation will follow this road because it is hardly sensible to appeal for justice from those that are purposefully and cynically trampling it underfoot.
However, the open and essentially politicised persecution of Russian and Russian-speaking public activists for their strictly human rights activities must certainly receive an unbiased assessment from prominent international institutions, primarily, the UN. Or it can come from the OSCE if Vienna is still capable of unbiased and honest actions. No doubt, we will help the Foundation raise these issues in international organisations and before the world public and the media. We will also assist it in its further vigorous efforts to help our compatriots defend their rights and lawful interests as the Foundation has already declared.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
