[WCAR] ECRI publishes reports on racism in Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg and the Russian Federation

Strasbourg, 16.05.2006 -- The Council of Europe’s expert body on combating
racism, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI),
today released five new reports examining racism, xenophobia, antisemitism
and intolerance in Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg and the Russian
Federation. ECRI recognises that positive developments have occurred in
all five of these Council of Europe member countries. At the same time,
however, the reports detail continuing grounds for concern for the
Commission:

In Cyprus, the legal and institutional framework against racial
discrimination has been considerably strengthened. However, the continuing
lack of a comprehensive immigration and integration policy has resulted in
a particular vulnerability of immigrants to human rights violations,
exploitation and discrimination. New opportunities for actively promoting
dialogue and reconciliation between the members of the Greek and Turkish
Cypriot communities still remain to be seized.

Denmark adopted an Act on Ethnic Equal Treatment and created a Complaints
Committee for Ethnic Equal Treatment, whose mandate is to examine
complaints of discrimination in all areas, including employment. However,
the Nationality Act, the Integration Act and the Aliens’ Act have been
further modified in a manner which disproportionately restricts the
ability of members of minority groups to acquire Danish citizenship, to
benefit from spousal and family reunification and to have access to social
protection on par with the rest of society.

In Italy, the authorities have established a specialised body to combat
racial discrimination, which assists victims and raise awareness of this
phenomenon among the general public. However, immigration legislation has
made the situation of many non-EU citizens more precarious, and its
implementation, notably in respect of immigrants without legal status, has
resulted in the exposure of these persons to a higher risk of human rights
violations.

Luxembourg has adopted a new law easing the requirements for foreigners’
participation in local elections. However, housing conditions for asylum
seekers and refugees still leave much to be desired, and no policy has
been introduced to integrate communities from an immigrant background in
matters such as employment and housing.

In the Russian Federation, the criminal law provisions aimed at combating
racism, racial discrimination and extremism have been reinforced and there
have been some prosecutions of hate speech. However, there needs to be
greater urgency at both local and national level in tackling the problem.
The existing provisions are not adequately implemented particularly
because the racist motive of an offence is not taken sufficiently into
account. Visible minorities and members of minority religious groups are
the main targets of racially motivated attacks.

These new reports form part of a third monitoring cycle of Council of
Europe member states’ laws, policies and practices aimed at combating
racism. ECRI’s country-specific reports are available in English, French
and the national language of the country concerned at
http://www.coe.int/ecri. They cover all member states on an equal footing,
from the perspective of protecting human rights. They examine whether
ECRI’s main recommendations from previous reports have been followed and,
if so, to what degree of success and effectiveness.

Division de la Presse du Conseil de l’Europe 
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 25 60 
Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 39 11 
pressunit@coe.int
www.coe.int/press





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