Russian Nike accused of discrimination due to the absence of white people in ads

The Investigative Committee received a claim from a resident of Moscow, who was outraged by the fact that there were practically no representatives of the Caucasian race on the Russian-language Nike website.

This was reported by RIA Novosti, referring to the initiator of the complaint himself, a citizen of Moscow Yevgeny Smirnov.  He filed a claim addressed to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastrykin.  Smirnov was not satisfied with the fact that almost all models of the Russian Nike website were representatives of the Mongoloid and Negroid races.

At the same time, the vast majority of citizens of the Russian Federation are Caucasians, which can be called discrimination.

The applicant noted that he tried to solve the problem on his own - he contacted Nike support.  Smirnov offered the company gratuitous assistance in the search for ‘white’ models, but was refused.  Nike also refused to explain the principle of choosing models.

Yevgeny Smirnov believes that the company is imposing Western values   that are alien to the Slavic population.  Due to the fact that Nike refused to eliminate the racial imbalance, the applicant called on the UK to consider the fact of discrimination, as well as disrespect for the inhabitants of the Russian Federation.

It is known that the Investigative Committee accepted the claim on February 10.  It will be considered as a possible violation of the Article 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - violation of the equality of human rights and freedoms.