from. whom. resistance is not of politics but a culture. is couldn't. see its own.

cultures of resistance on the march. at five thirty pm moscow time these are the top stories on our t.v. the un general assembly prepares to vote on an arab resolution putting blame for violence in syria solely on the government position claims hundreds have been

killed in recent days during an intensified assault on the city of homes while the authorities and says they're finding armed terrorists operating in the city. a fresh wave of downgrade sweeps across the struggling euro zone as six nations get their debt rating to cut by moody's all this while greece faces further ballot hurdles from the e.u. despite its latest harsh austerity plan that calls public outrage and mouse riots. and russia's military predicts the west might decide on a strike against iran before the summer and here rainy and rhetoric in the world intensified after israel accused the state of being behind monday's attacks on diplomatic personnel. up next artie's interview show spotlight today al gore nov in his guest focus on the report on human rights abuses around the world issued by the russian foreign ministry.

hello again a welcome to spotlight show our team i'll bring in our voting today my guest in the studio is constrained. the russian foreign ministry spurstow have a report on injustice in other countries has caused this third slammed the. human rights record during some fierce criticism mainly critics say the report is biased and just another round of the russian american battle yet the foreign ministry plans to publish such reports every year just like the u.s. department so can the russian rights watch out for it really become common practice and all of these kind of reports reliable source of information war and mere diplomatic trick. the foreign ministry's commissioner for human rights democracy

and the rule of law. the world's most well known governmental human rights report is the us department of state it covers the record of most united nations members except the us and usually criticizes many governments for injustice and violations the first country to respond to the american criticism was china which has been reporting on human rights us since nine hundred ninety eight the russian report focuses on the us today mentioning the one tunnel bay prison and violation of the rights of american muslims it also covers the european union nato members and georgia. i want to thank you very much for being with us hello thanks well first of all. the question. about your current position about. john burey here are keeping the position of the spur of a special envoy within the foreign ministry was established just this year or so or

pleasure last year last year. i didn't hear a couple of months ago right so whose decision was it why was it decided in the kremlin in the foreign ministry or. well. has been established as you put it last year it was. more than a couple of months it was established last april actually and this almost a year time flies and the decision has been taken by the russian leadership obviously and of course. by the leadership of the foreign minister mr weber and the idea was kind of. multifold to profile even more our country russia in the field of human rights democracy and rule of law and those are very much interconnected in the interlinked elements obviously and spheres. to provide for additional opportunities for dialogue with our partners and when i say partners i mean they're quite the broad spectrum of

those. countries are international going to lesions and institutions non-governmental institutions. and also of course to monitor the first and foremost they will see to monitor the situation in the field of human rights democracy and rule of law. abroad and it means in the world where the underlying idea is their. human rights are universal this is the general recognition of the common recognition it's rained in the universal declaration and in many other documents in common and some on human rights it means that human rights are for everybody. all people have the right to enjoy his liberty to enjoy human race on the on the other hand all states have to. implement certain sort of standard what a. why your day to day activities i mean other than writing this annual report will

we be hearing from you some comments and major world events considering human rights and well i believe they're. already hearing it's not my first name on the russia today and it was great to be back and i have already had an opportunity to provide some of my assessments on russia today and said he and spotlight there is absolutely and hopefully the first but not last time but yes i've been commenting on different issues and situations in the humanitarian and human red fields on a regular basis sometimes on a daily basis but on a regular basis and we. putting some of the. commons on the ministers websites or they're easy to access and. also obviously dissipating in there in the drafting. of

reactions by the foreign ministry to do on the different issues which are within my my my scope and. you mentioned reports the report to hopefully to become annual. but it doesn't mean that we will wait for another year or two to. share some of our assessments and i'm sorry asians on how the human race situation develops in the world and we have different channels have been in there and this is my part of my job description i've been there and i am in the regular touch with the russian and then foreign journalists and. with a definitely. with our media. journalists who read and journalists who are now on t.v. definitely are a different channel so we. think that it is absolutely important to

monitor how the situation develops because quite a number of issues in the field of human rights in the field of human rights are common issues. i would say even ubiquitous sometimes and not a single country in the world today is immune to those issues let's mention some of them for instance racism racial discrimination. discrimination of ethnic minorities . for their intolerance in the broad sounds so it provides a great opportunity for cooperation well let's take a look at the history of international human rights reports here's a story from spotlight again. one of the first ever reports and human rights was produced fifty years ago by amnesty international the named in sixty's so thank you one commission on human rights becoming active in condemning human violations which were also documented in an annual report ten years later

another international organization joined in it was human rights watch despite so many international bodies doing the job the u.s. state department decided on the issue in its own human rights from. inventin seventy six and document often contain scathing and now it says on abuses originally in the u.s.s.r. and later russia another country highly criticized in the u.s. state department reports china decided to strike back and came up with its own account of human rights violations in one to ninety eight russia has always alleged the u.s. state department report was biased and question the right of any nation to bear. however december two thousand and eleven so russia's foreign ministry issued its own report on human rights.

well the us department of say the united states was criticized criticized by the soviet union by rochelle a later for these reports of this kind we said i remember that an american has been positioning itself as a judge for other country for their situation human rights so why did russia decide to follow this example well first of all. i'm working in the in the foreign ministry of the russian federation and definitely as our minister sergey lavrov actually put it so yesterday during his press conference on the. year two thousand and eleven. our foreign policy is not an ideological foreign policy and it is. very much preventing one and. that's why when we criticize we do not criticize our way the logical. for their logical reasons we have we do. observe and one of their how the situation

stands in the united states and some other countries we do. i would lie on certain issues which they have and they do have certain certain problems. we and it's very important we be using ourselves not just on some conjectures we're basing l. cells on the assessments given by pretty much authority if international is admitted of but russia as we remember it the foreign ministry for one has reacted pretty angrily every time we were sharply criticized in reports of this kind especially in the united states report for the situation human rights in russia we did give them and their angry reaction so what kind of reaction do you expect it to your report which is also pretty critical. well first of all where. you mentioned. anger reaction will we react in

a negative sense sometimes maybe you can say angrily when a criticism of our foreign policy we're going to see you know well we're practices in situation in russia in the field of human rights these are biased one when it is a strange one and unfortunately in the in the state department's reports. quite a number of. assessments and conclusions are falling into this category that's why we have to react but we do not react angrily to any criticism which is a constructive one because the issues do exist and i would country the problems do exist and we are we are now leadership is absolutely right to do it need it but efforts are being done and will be to take a leadership when efforts are not when efforts are underestimated then definitely we have we have to point to point to it and the reaction to our report.

let's. maybe distinguish between two sorts of reactions or reactions one is official reaction and we have heard official reaction from. department of state which you mentioned the from the united states. from finland from some other countries and i must say that there was a reaction there as official it would have been pretty much. i can see. the way constructive or maybe a reserve not definitive negative. although i would expect some of those countries which have been mentioned in our report maybe not to be governments not to be very much happy with some. provisions of the report well you talking about the official initial reaction we'll talk about the other factional reaction to your particular in the minute after we take a break just a reminder that. there's i guess.

if you.

welcome back to spotlight i'm al green of in just a reminder that my guest in the studio today is constantin they'll go off russian foreign ministry special envoy for human rights democracy and the rule of law must talk of you just told us about the official reaction to your human rights report which you call constructive what was the i mean by show you enjoy the day and general what about the unofficial reaction what kinds of unofficial reactions have you got of what the angry well official reaction was i will say that the reactions for instance in some media yes there has been critical reaction to. the reports it depends upon. upon the media upon the newspaper and by the way in some newspapers reaction once again was quite. acceptable and even quite positive in some other of

the years they have been criticisms while what are you to judge of this including this rings a bell and with those rings in buildings it is the move to the point that the. we felt he had the target because the idea behind the report was to once again it was it is based on objective sources and objective information from international human rights organizations human rights council the un and so on and so forth but they deal was to point out to underline the existence of problems even in those countries which count themselves as the developed democracies you know what sources of information do you use when you prepare your report. i would say why the variety of i mentioned some of them for instance. assessments and conclusions from the universal periodic review of the un human rights council.

also the assessments given by such i was well known non-governmental organizations as for instance amnesty international or human rights watch or someone here also we also used definitely some of the some of the national sources not only russian sources. and also quite a number of open sources by the way in serbia information to be. very much in the in the open to mean so. you said something about who is too general or maybe a who has the monopoly to judge nobody has the monopoly to judge others and does everybody have the right to judge. well i would say that. well we all have sort of the right says states and it's not too probably to judge use of judges not be the right word to. underline the existence of problems yes i

think every every country has this right and we will he just did this very important struggles you don't consider. your paper to to to be judging we are not our judges we're here you're trying to highlight the problem with highlight that in our lives and we are a we are making it clear clear that problems do exist many of them are trans border as we call them problems or common issues and problems and a very important message you know report and i hope that this message has been taken and we heard that it is taken by many the we invited to broader and more intensive international catering why is your report so selective because it's mainly situation in the united states and in major western western countries. as we call them countries of europe why are you so selective doesn't that make you biased when you become selective because we're not judging. the u.s.

so this is what you care about well the u.s. report well the u.s. report it did big say describes the situation in all other countries of the world with one exception yes which is the united states of course the. you can guess way but. we do not follow this pattern we we do not want to mention a country only for the sake of mentioning it but we wanted to show once again bit easier and problems exist everywhere including in the most developed code and call democracies and it is and it is not just to criticize for the sake of criticizing it is to invite those countries and others to more cooperation are you biased. well to be to be frank do you feel that you are sort of biased i don't i don't think we're biased i mean if you if you look and if you read the report and i believe you did it. there is nothing in that report which is not altogether

which is altogether unknown to the international community or which isn't been mentioned by those as it was this is another what's the point what's the point of making a report based on papers already published by international organization like you mention the amnesty international midsole software and the others they're all already open figures what's the point of putting them together in hit another point of the point is to give a different angle a different attitude of well we do generalize we do systematize a little bit definitely we're not just to come piling. we. we're not cooking it went we're we're not just compiling and the idea is to. express our views on just to make it clear that we do observe certain issues and problems in number in a number of countries and there are quite a number of countries i mentioned in our report and the. video. that scoop of the

report not necessarily will remain unchanged because it develops i mean it depends upon big developments in the field of human rights which we can. i mean we don't exclude that maybe some other countries can be can be mentioned next time so we'll see well about other countries and this is a nerve the thing that makes me think i think when i read your first report of some wise you you mentioned you speak a lot about the united states about europe but this report does mention some countries where the situation in the field of human rights is well. worse or at least not better than in the united states and some european countries some of the russian neighbors why aren't you mentioning them why aren't you interested in the situation there will be better or worse you know i always remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder you know you never you never know what it is if you have difficult to say better or worse but. i tried to

describe the logic which we followed when we prepared the first and. i would like to underline this is the first report and the first experience in russia but the countries which you mentioned well there are certainly issues obviously i mean even though he was the kremlin says once in a while that they are concerned with the human rights situation for example in belarus right and the foreign minister has said right on the on one occasion yeah it does not the absence of. the sort of country our first report doesn't mean you are happy does not mean that we do not know and good morning to the situation we're going to do this of course and we do not. underestimate the problems which exist there but are we. as i said what is not be warmly channel through which we can can we are with us so there are other channels including in the russian foreign minister. the russian policy of russian foreign policy is becoming

more and more problematic which is good the reason why i've started talking about a bill the rooster countries like syria which are more dependent russia is there i think that that the criticism coming from moscow towards countries like belarus and syria would be more effective than criticizing the red states don't you don't you agree why do you think we're not criticizing them. we are definitely we do express our views including. those countries which you mentioned and not only but once again there are different channels and we are doing. speaking of syria we are doing a lot as a russia to. promote the political process to which would result definitely obviously in bettering the situation in the field of human rights but political process not the external external interference in the syrian matter so we are contributing and we are of course frankly telling our friends and

partners when we see certain things which are wrong i mean in the field of human rights we don't hit it could you give us an example of the human rights violation that there is cited in your report that wasn't common knowledge i mean for for for for the white audiences in some country before you published it before you made it meaningful. it will have for me probably to my to guess what was not known to the wider. public but i would like to i would lend one issue which we unfortunately face and witness on their more and more regular basis which is not good you know and it means i'm speaking about territorial. proliferation you know or projection of the u.s. law. i would say that the united states and the. we have seen

a number of instances when the russian citizens have been illegally extradited to the united states from the third countries without without junot if occasion of the russian or of the russian government and under the consular convention under the international law in general. this is a very worrisome trend and we have been underlying it. constantly to our american partners and. i can different refer to a number of cases but. here's one we just say mr boot has one of yes there. is another case where the recently just a few days ago another russian citizen has been extradited from switzerland to the united states misters that i mean and once again it is very important that all the necessary. for mellitus and provisions of international law are followed by the u.s. government all these cases all these cases i mean russian citizens rights abused

abroad are they your priority or you're mainly concerned about for example the the rights. of the citizens of other countries being violated finitely it is a huge priority definite so you go north the other russians abroad well i am i am working. for the russian foreign ministry and i'm a russian diplomat obviously the legitimate rights and freedoms of russian citizens this is a big concern for me for my government for the russian foreign ministry but i am also i am also. monitoring a lot of the implementation of human rights in general you know in general thank you thank you very much for being with us and just to remind you that my guest today was constrained to russian foreign ministry special envoy human rights and that's it for now from all of the spotlight will be back with more comments on what's going on and outside russia until then our team take it. as.