8. File an application with the European Court of Human Rights once domestic remedies have been exhausted, if you do not obtain success in a national court.
9. File a petition with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, if your country has ratified the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, once domestic remedies have been exhausted. A list of countries which have ratified the Protocol is given in the Appendix.
10. Petition the European Parliament Petitions Committee.
11. If faced with a situation such as in Russia, where a regressive anti-religious law virtually breeds discrimination, oppression and religious intolerance, the remedy is to form alliances with like-minded groups equally oppressed and discriminated against. Publicise the intolerance, contact MPs known to have strong pro-democracy views and to be defenders of religious freedom and human rights, and ask them to initiate a human rights campaign to rescind the oppressive law.
Continuously collect and document the abuses committed as a result of this law, submitting the documentation to international human rights organisations and intergovernmental human rights bodies.
12. Contact the media. They may or may not take up your case. This is more likely to be effective if your case is individual and not part of a governmental pattern of discrimination.
It is always best to try the simplest and least expensive remedies first. If you immediately call up your attorney, without first trying to dialogue, then the government official who is abusing your rights will contact his attorney, and the conflict will immediately escalate. You may spend years in litigation over a dispute that could have been settled in a matter of hours.
On the other hand, if you are facing a severe instance of religious discrimination and the simple remedies have not resolved it, do not hesitate to obtain expert assistance to fully defend your rights.
Do not despair or become apathetic because there seems to be no remedy for the injustice you are experiencing. There is recourse. A belief that no solution exists to repeated injustices against ethnic, racial and religious minorities is probably the cause of riots and revolutions. Since these solve nothing, and create in turn fresh injustices, it is both more democratic and more effective to use available remedies.
Most important: Know your rights, demand that they are enforced, and defend them to the hilt.
Tips for Filing Complaints
When making a complaint:
List the specific human rights articles that are violated. If there is no relevant convention or treaty to which the State is a party, refer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
State the facts, as far as possible in chronological order.
Include the date, time and place of the incident(s); name and position of the government official responsible; alleged authority, if any, used to justify the human rights violation; place of detention if applicable and names and addresses of any witnesses.
It is always helpful to include documentation supporting your statements, if possible.
Continued...
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