November 25, 2013
Director of the Office of International Standards
and Legal Affairs of UNESCO
7 place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP France
Fax : +33(0)1 45 68 55 75
sec.cr@unesco.org
Dear Madam:
Re: Communication No. 1119/2012 (case of Anya Sarang, Russian Federation)
With this letter we would like to draw your attention to new facts regarding Communication No.
1119/2012, which was declared inadmissible in October 2012 as per the UNESCO Letter of November 7,
2012 (Ref.: LA/CCR/2012/175).
We call upon the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations to consider these new facts and reexamine the communication. We note that 104 EX/Decision 3.3 of the UNESCO Executive Board
allows for re-examination of a communication where the Committee receives additional information or
new facts. 1, 2 We submit that there are ample grounds in this case for re-examination and for the
Committee to find this communication admissible, not least of which are the demonstrable factual
inaccuracies and misleading omissions in the reply filed by the Russian Federation. We trust that
UNESCO wishes to ensure that any determinations it makes, whether on admissibility or the merits of
communication, are based on a correct factual underpinning – and in this instance, this is clearly not the
case, as a straightforward examination of the submissions before you reveals.
We wish to draw to your attention new facts falling within two broad categories.
1. The fact of exhaustion of domestic remedies by the applicant
In August 2013, the Court of Appeal in the Russian Federation rendered a judgment and upheld the
order of the Federal Drug Control Service to block the applicant’s website (Annex I). The Government
of the Russian Federation provided no remedy to restore the violations of the rights guaranteed by the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19 and 27). We would like to refer to item 10.3 of the
initial communication to UNESCO of June 2, 2012 (Annex II), wherein we informed UNESCO about
the reasons underlying the ineffectiveness of domestic remedies to address human rights violations in
Russia.
“UNESCO’s Procedure for dealing with alleged violations of human rights,” online:
http://portal.unesco.org/en/files/19096/13324060071Brochure_CR_2012_en.pdf/Brochure%2BCR%2B2012%2Ben.pdf.
2
“The UNESCO Procedures,” in “The UN and Human Rights”, online: http://www.unesco.de/c_humanrights/foreword.php
1
2. The fact of gross misrepresentation by the Federal Drug Control Service of the scientific data
presented to UNESCO
The reply to our original communication by the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation
was transmitted to UNESCO with a letter dated September 10, 2012 from the representative of the
Russian Federation. That reply consisted of numerous inaccurate and misleading statements to have
been principal grounds on which Committee on Conventions and Recommendations decided to declare
our communication inadmissible. Here are just some of these statements and their demonstrable
inaccuracy through with the Russian Federation has misled the Committee:
2.1. Under item (2) of the Russian Federation’s response, reproduced on page 3 of the UNESCO Letter
of November 7, 2012 (Ref.: LA/CCR/2012/175), there is a handful of selective references to numerous
outdated documents and to one single newspaper article (from a different country) in order to create the
patently false impression that opioid substitution therapy is dangerous medical practice.



Specifically, the Russian Federation refers to a report from the UN Commission on Narcotic
Drugs that it claims was considered at the UN General Assembly in 1968, which the Russian
Federation invokes as ostensible evidence that would justify its decision to shut down the Andrey
Rylkov Foundation’s website as supposed “drug propaganda” contrary to Russian law. In our
submission, UNESCO should find it as troubling as we do that the Government seeks to invoke a
report now 45 years old, while disregarding the decades of scientific evidence since accumulated.
Note as well that the Russian Federation’s reply says that “a ban was recommended on the use of
replacement therapy and of methadone for medical purposes,” but in fact no such ban was
recommended or adopted by the UN General Assembly in either of the two short resolutions
adopted on the issue of narcotics or psychotropic substances.3
The Russian Federation also refers to a meeting of the International Narcotics Control Board
(INCB) in 1999, but does not refer to any finding or statement by the INCB. Rather, it simply
paraphrases one statement attributed to one individual INCB member, which cannot be accorded
any significant weight as a supposed justification for Russian legislation criminalizing the ARF
website posting information about methadone or buprenorphine as treatment methods for opioid
addiction that are in fact recommended by UN agencies.
Finally, the Russian Federation cites one article published in 2007 in a US newspaper (cited
incompletely as the Sunday Gazette, but apparently referring to the Charleston Gazette), which
article cites statistics apparently obtained from monitoring conducted by the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Yet methadone and other medications used for opioid assisted
therapy are recommended as treatment options and are used in the US, as the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, within the Executive Office of the US President, recently reaffirmed in a
brief issued in September 2012, partly in response to false, misleading claims by Russian
government authorities that methadone was disfavoured in the US.4
3
The texts of the two resolutions in question from that 23 rd session of the UN General Assembly, Resolution
A/RES/2434(XXIII) and Resolution A/RES/2433(XXIII), are online via http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/resguide/r23_en.shtml.
4
US Office of National Drug Control Policy, “Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Dependence,” online at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/recovery/medication_assisted_treatment_9-21-20121.pdf.
2
This is highly selective quoting of long outdated or dubious sources as a basis for defending the Russian
Federation’s actions in infringing freedom of expression and information, and in denying access to the
benefits of scientific progress and thereby impeding the realization of the right to the highest attainable
standard of health. It contradicts an extensive body of scientific evidence that is well accepted
internationally, including by UN specialised agencies responsible for health. The Russian government
completely ignores the fact that, ever since 2009, opioid substitution therapy has been recommended by
the World Health Organization as one of the most effective methods of treatment of opioid dependence
(World Health Organization, Guidelines for the Psychosocially Assisted Pharmacological Treatment of
Opioid Dependence (2009), pp. X, XI). Methadone and buprenorphine are listed by WHO as the
essential medicines to be used as opioid substitution therapy in substance dependence programmes
(WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, 18th edition, April 2013, last updated October 2013).5
It also ignores that the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has previously
expressed its concern about Russia’s continued prohibition on methadone and called for this prohibition
to be lifted – recommendations which the ARF website had posted before it was shut down by the
Russian Federal Drug Control Service.6
We submit that UNESCO cannot simply accept this highly inaccurate and misleading recitation by the
Russian Federation’s representative of a few dated and insubstantial assertions – never adopted or
endorsed by any official body and in fact contradicted by the recommendations and evidence from
others with the relevant expertise – as providing any basis for deeming our communication inadmissible.
2.2. Also under item (2) of the Russian Federation’s response, reproduced on page 4 of the UNESCO
Letter of November 7, 2012 (Ref.: LA/CCR/2012/175), there is a statement that “methadone programs
not only have no medical effect on addicts but also not solve the problem of the spread of HIV.” This
bald assertion was made by the Russian Federation’s representative without a single reference to any
scientific literature. This statement flies into the face of ample scientific evidence that has led to the fact
that opioid substitution therapy is strongly recommended by the key UN agencies as a core intervention
for evidence-based HIV prevention among people who inject drugs, 7 and indeed this is the position
across the UN agencies and has been officially so for almost a decade. 8 Opioid substitution therapy has
been recently endorsed by the UN General Assembly and the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs,9 as
well as the International Narcotics Control Board.10 Note that these are contrary to the few, paltry and
decades-old sources that the Russian Federation’s representative selectively quoted to you in an attempt
to suggest the government’s position somehow had a veneer of respectability or approval from UN or
scientific sources.
5
See the WHO model list at http://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/en/.
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights: the Russian Federation,” E/C.12/RUS/CO/5, May 20, 2011, para 29.
7
WHO, UNODC and UNAIDS, Technical Guide for countries to set targets for universal access to HIV prevention,
treatment and care for injecting drug users (WHO, 2009).
8
WHO/UNODC/UNODC Position Paper, Substitution maintenance therapy in the management of opioid dependence and
HIV/AIDS prevention (2004), online: http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/PositionPaper_English.pdf.
9
High Level Segment of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, “Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International
Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem,” para 20, March 2009,
adopted by the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 64/182 of December 18, 2009
10
International Narcotics Control Board, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2008 (New York: INCB,
2009), E/INCB/2008/1, paras. 24 and 25, and 26
6
3
2.3. Finally, under item (2) of the Russian Federation’s response, reproduced on page 5 of the
UNESCO Letter of November 7, 2012 (Ref.: LA/CCR/2012/175), there is a statement suggesting that, in
submitting our original communication, we had invited UNESCO to intervene into a “highly specialized
discussion.” However, the true fact is that the author of the communication requested UNESCO to
address the violation by the Russian Federation of the right to impart scientific information without
interfering into the substance of the discussion – information which, as we have outlined, has already
been reviewed and formed the basis of recommendations by both the UN’s specialized health agencies
(as well as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime) and by the human rights treaty body tasked with
assisting countries in fulfilling their obligations with respect to the right to health.
The right to information is at the core of any discussion, including those which ostensibly are “highly
specialized.” It is exactly within the UNESCO’s mandate to consider complaints regarding the violation
of the right to impart or receive information in conjunction with the right to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits. We do not see how it is possible for the Committee to conclude that the
communication is inadmissible “since it did not fall within the fields of competence of UNESCO.”
Mindful of your time we do not want to reiterate the legal argument regarding multiple violations of the
Russian and international laws by the decision of the Federal Drug Control Service to block the website.
These arguments can be found in the initial complaint annexed here. Should the Committee on
Conventions and Recommendations decide to re-examine the communication based on the
aforementioned new facts, we would like to offer a visit to testify before the Committee on Conventions
and Recommendations at no cost for UNESCO.
______________________________
Anya Sarang
President
Andrey Rylkov Foundation For
Health and Social Justice
Marshala Birusova str, 17-82
Moscow 123060
Russian Federation
Email: anyasarang@gmail.com
__________________________
Richard Elliott
Executive Director
Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
600-1240 Bay St.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2A7
Tel: +1 416 595 1666 ext 229
Fax: +1 416 595 0094
Email: relliott@aidslaw.ca
Web: www.aidslaw.ca
Annex I – Complaint to the Russian district court; judgment of the district court; complaint to the
Court of Appeal of the Russian Federation; judgment of the Court of Appeal
Annex II – Original communication to UNESCO of May 11, 2012
Annex III – UNESCO Letter of November 7, 2012 (Ref.: LA/CCR/2012/175)
4