Mass Human Rights Violations Occurring in Western Europe - Russian Lawmaker

The chair of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma, Alexei Pushkov, said that Western Europe is currently an area of mass human rights violations.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Human rights are being violated on a mass scale in Western Europe, the chair of the Russian Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma, Alexei Pushkov, said.

"I think that Western Europe is currently an area of mass human rights violations. Look at the situation with refugees and the situation with media outlets, which receive orders not to cover anything that may damage the policy of Western states, especially the European Union regarding, in particular, relations with migrants," Pushkov said.

Europe is struggling to find a solution to a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The EU border agency Frontex detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015, in contrast to some 283,000 in 2014.

In response to the growing number of migrants reaching their territories, some European states, such as Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia have built fences, while other states, including Austria and Germany, have toughened their migration policies.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) considers that its not right to focus only on security issues, but to work out plans for how to face the new realities and to foster the necessary conditions for refugees to successfully integrate.