A/75/329 in Montreal were vandalized in February. Also in Montreal, a worker from the Republic of Korea was stabbed on the street in mid-March; the consulate of the Republic of Korea issued a warning to nationals of the Republic of Korea in the city. According to the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, “Montreal residents of Asian descent reported that, while microaggressions and racist remarks were commonplace, this incident marked the first time that they felt unsafe, fearful or unwelcomed.” On 26 April, on the Vancouver rapid transit system, a man punched a woman, grabbed her hair and slammed her face repeatedly into the seats. He pushed her out of the train at the next station, yelling, “you people are why my daughter is sick!”. 23 64. The Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels submitted a report documenting that during the first phase of the epidemic in the Russian Federation, people of Chinese descent, or associated with China, were the primary target of discrimination. 24 Moscow officials ordered police raids of hotels, dormitories, apartment buildings and businesses to track down the shrinking number of Chinese people remaining in the city. In some cases, the police forced Chinese people into quarantine regardless of when they had arrived in the Russian Federation. Moscow officials authorized the use of facial recognition technology to find those suspected of evading a 14-day self-quarantine period upon their arrival in the Russian Federation. Raids on markets in Chinese neighbourhoods were organized by Cossack patrols. The State-owned public transport company Mosgortrans instructed employees to call the police if any Chinese person tried to board. Attention eventually expanded to migrants, especially from Central Asia (e.g. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). While xenophobia towards these groups has long been a problem in the Russian Federation, the pandemic made it even more widespread. 65. In its submission for the present report, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee described a Chinese student in Pécs, Hungary, assaulted by several people who hit her and shouted insults at her. Concerning the decision to close university campuses and transfer courses online, the Prime Minister explained on State media that this was reasonable, as foreigners had brought the epidemic into Hungary and it was impossible to separate foreign from Hungarian students. Iranian medical students, in particular, were targeted for collective expulsion. 25 A group of Iranian students released from hospital quarantine (where they had been detained regardless of whether they had symptoms or had tested positive) were immediately required to report to the police. According to the submission, a total of 27 Iranian students were deported in April 2020; all the charging documents were identical. None of the accused students was sentenced by a court, and all criminal investigations are still pending. 26 66. As already noted, such racist tropes and disinformation feed into pre-existing and underlying biases or prejudices, and has not been limited to East Asians and Jews. In Sri Lanka, the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism noted that widespread hostility towards Tamil Muslims had been further exploited with COVID-19. The derogatory term “Beruwala people” has been used for anyone suspected of having COVID-19 or having been quarantined (Beruwala is a predominantly Muslim area). 27 The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism reported that the Government of Sri Lanka had issued a rule on 27 March 2020 requiring the cremation of all persons who had died from __________________ 23 24 25 26 27 14/23 Joint submission by the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic and the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice. Submission from the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels. Hungarian Helsinki Committee submission. Ibid. Submission from the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism. 20-11206