Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Kremlin.
It is a pleasure to greet you all here at this meeting, which, by tradition, takes place on the eve of Human Rights Day.
As you know, two new national awards were just presented. I want to express once more my gratitude to the winners, and I want to thank everyone who gives their strength and energy to charity, volunteer and human rights work.
We spoke at past meetings about the need for additional measures to support NGOs with a social focus. The Council’s representatives played a very active part in drafting proposals in this area. The authorities have now approved the needed decisions. I remind you that, starting on January 1, 2017, NGOs providing services of social use will gain access to budget-funded service provision in the social sector for a period of at least two years. This will give such NGOs guarantees for stable activity and, I believe, will have a positive impact on the quality of social sector services around the country in general. Of course, we will need to monitor closely the way these new rules are implemented in practice. I hope the Council will give this matter its particular attention.
Overall, the Council’s work concerns a very broad range of areas in public life, from issues concerning migrants to the environment, protecting people’s rights in labor disputes, and concrete urban development policy issues. There cannot and should not be restrictions of any sort here. People must be able to continue raising the issues of greatest concern to them. We must respond rapidly and sensitively to situations in which people encounter injustice, indifference, formalism, or infringements of their rights in all different areas.
The state authorities and civil society are natural allies in achieving these common goals, the most important of which is our people’s prosperity. A constructive, substantive and respectful dialogue between the authorities at the various levels and civil society representatives is always needed and is without question very useful.
The regional dimension of the Council’s work is particularly important. It is essential to know the real human rights situation in the regions, where problems crop up most frequently in this area. I know that in some cases, the Council acts as an arbitrator in conflict situations, when disputes and differences arise, and in this way helps to restore social justice.
I note too the extensive work of the Council and its monitoring groups during the recent election campaign. Your work together with the Central Election Commission was most certainly very important indeed. There is no doubt that any violations during elections or any attempts to distort the results of voting must be prevented.
Public oversight has a tremendous role to play here. It raises elections’ legitimacy and bolsters public trust in their results. It also helps to identify aspects that require additional legal regulation.
I hope that you will continue your work to protect people’s electoral rights and your cooperation with the Central Election Commission during the election campaigns ahead, including in the regions.
I must mention another aspect of the Council’s work – your efforts to immortalize the memory of victims of political repression. We must learn to accept our country’s past as it is, remember the glorious pages, and not forget the tragic pages in our history. You might have noticed that I spoke about this in my Address [to the Federal Assembly], and I repeat it now: history’s lessons should not divide us, but should unite us and help us to preserve civil peace and harmony.
I hope very much that today, as in the past, we will hold a substantive discussion of the matters that require additional attention from the state authorities and require measures. As always, I am sure that you have your own initiatives and proposals on these many issues.
0 Comment to "Meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights"