DISINFO: The Council of Europe is silent about discrimination against Russian speakers in neighbouring countries
SUMMARY
The Council of Europe is silent regarding discrimination against Russian people and Russian-speaking people in Ukraine and the three Baltic countries.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation message about the violation of human rights and freedom of speech in Ukraine and the Baltic states. The claim was neither counterbalanced nor critically challenged in the article.
The claim that Ukraine and the Baltic states are discriminating against the Russian language and Russian-speakers is false.
The Council of Europe is not indifferent to discrimination against ethnic minorities in Europe. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the human rights monitoring body under the Council of Europe monitors the situation and issues recommendations to the member states, including Russia. For example, in 2014, the ECRI expressed grave concern at serious allegations of intimidation and discrimination against Ukrainian speakers and Tatars in the Crimean region of Ukraine, under the de facto control of the Russian Federation.
Furthermore, Ukraine and Baltic states are signatories to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. As enshrined in the Convention, people in Ukraine and the Baltic states have the right:
"to use freely and without interference his or her minority language, in private and in public, orally and in writing".
See similar cases alleging that the Council of Europe is indifferent to discrimination of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine and the Baltic states, that the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland revise history for political revenge against Russia, or that Ukrainisation is about political terror and Russophobia in Ukraine.