15. Discrimination against stateless persons has become entrenched in all spheres of public life in Russia. All stateless persons experience difficulties exercising their rights due to their lack of citizenship and, accordingly, valid identity documents. Without these, it is virtually impossible to document ownership, register a marriage, be legally employed, or get medical insurance. Moreover, since they do not have these documents, they are viewed as violators of current migration laws and the Code of Administrative Offences. In other words, the law perceives them as ‘illegal immigrants’ even though they have lived their entire lives in Russia. Despite constitutional and treaty provisions which guarantee equality, nondiscrimination and the enjoyment of human rights, in practice, government authorities are not guided by these constitutional and treaty protections of human rights and freedoms. They instead draw on various subordinate acts and formal requirements, which discriminate against stateless persons and restrict their access to basic human rights. 16. In some cases discrimination against stateless persons is aggravated by the factor of ethnicity. For example, creating barriers to accessing personal documents is a form of structural discrimination against Roma in ex-Soviet countries. The peoples repressed during Soviet times have become more vulnerable to discrimination in the post-Soviet period in terms of access to citizenship and passports. These include peoples of the Crimea (Crimean Tatars and others) and the Caucasus (Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachai, Ahiska (or Meskhetian Turks), Hemshin, Kurmanjis (Batumi Turks)), as well as Koreans, Greeks, so called Russian Germans and others. Many persons from these groups were deported from their places of residence to Soviet Republics that became independent states after the breakup of the Soviet Union (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan).11 17. Ahiska Turks (known also as Meskhetian Turks), who were citizens of the Soviet Union, are a group who en masse have been denied legal status for decades. The Ahiska moved to South Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and pogroms against them in Fergana (Uzbekistan). They have faced serious challenges in obtaining documents recognising their right to live and work legally in Russia.12 The situation is aggravated due to interethnic tensions, xenophobia and aggression by Kazak nationalist organisations. There are reports of segregation of Ahiska children in schools and the denial of freedom to practice their religion (Ahiska are Sunni Muslims) by the local administration, special services and Kazak organisations. Civil and Human Rights NGOs and activists who try to defend the rights of Ahiska are persecuted by the state.13 The Lack of an Effective Regularisation Procedure for Stateless Persons in Russia 18. A key problem for stateless persons (ex-USSR citizens) living in the Russian Federation remains their inability to participate in the legalisation process. Current RF laws on the possibilities for and paths to legalisation (the Federal law “On the citizenship of the Russian Federation, Chapter VIII.1, Articles 13 and 14) categorise stateless persons who are former Soviet citizens into two groups depending on when they entered Russia or when they received an RF passport that was later found to be illegally issued. This refers to many people who, between 1992 and 2002, after following legal processes received RF passports, which were later found to be have been issued illegally (as of the end of 2011, there were 11 Stalin’s Deportations. 1928-1953.Database of the Aleksandr Yakovlev Fund. (In Russian) http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues/62150 12 Around 80 000-100 000 Ahiska live in Rostov Oblast, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkesia, Kalmykia and other parts of the South Federal Okrug of Russia. 13 The Life without Right: The situation of Ahiska Turks in the South of Russia in 2015. Report by Moscow Helsinki Group and SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (2015). http://mhg-main.org/sites/default/files/files/akhyska_report_2015.pdf 4