Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report on Monday bringing to light increased hate speech, violence, and legislative and administrative harassment towards Central Asian migrants in the Russian Federation, following the tragic Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow in March 2024.
The HRW report highlighted the anti-migrant legislature that has been continuously implemented in Russia since the attack. Among this legislature was an amendment to the Code of Administrative Offences that grants officials a right to carry out the expulsion of migrants without judicial oversight. HRW report shared a worry among experts that lack of oversight will lead to further corruption.
Notably, the law that prevents children of foreign nationals from having access to schools if they fail language proficiency tests will come into effect next month.
In addition to legislative changes, at least 12 regions in Russia enacted restrictions on migrants that mainly focus on prohibiting migrants from working a broad spectrum of jobs. HRW pointed out that “the extraordinary scope of these bans are disproportionate and unjustified as necessary to pursue a legitimate aim and so violate international legal standards prohibiting discrimination”.
Similar to the legislative and regulatory crackdowns, HRW reported an increase in administrative harassment towards Central Asian migrants. The report included accounts of hate speech, a general increase in ethnic profiling, and physically and verbally abusive conditions during detention by police and immigration services in Russia.
HRW noted an increase in physical violence towards Central Asian migrants. The report uses independent Russian NGO and research organizations’ information and states that there were 232 cases of serious injury resulting from hate-motivated attacks recorded in Russia in the first 10 months of 2024.
The report also highlighted the increased activity of nationalist groups in Russia, such as Severnyy Chelovek (Northern Man), Russkaya Obshchina (Russian Community), and Obyknovenny Tsarizm (Ordinary tsarism), that collaborate with law enforcement in anti-migrant operations and organize xenophobic campaigns.
Central Asian migrants are also affected by Russian illegal aggression in Ukraine. While Russia started to offer citizenship to migrants enlisted in military service, the government signed a law and started removing citizenships from naturalized citizens who failed to register for military service. HRW also reported cases of deception in “forced military recruitment and labor exploitation in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories” towards migrants.
Russia is a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Article 2 of which obligates states to pursue all appropriate means of eliminating racial discrimination.
HRW report called on Russia to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families and implement changes to battle discrimination towards Central Asian migrants.
