Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko said on Saturday that the United Nations'(UN) commission for human rights should drop double standards in human rights, urging reforms to raise its efficiency.

"The UN commission for human rights must be reformed to raise its efficiency and prestige and to eliminate double standards existing in that area," Yakovenko said in connection with the International Human Rights Day.

A detailed discussion on ways to reform the commission is underway at the UN General Assembly, the Itar-Tass news agency quoted Yakovenko as saying.

Yakovenko indicated that Russia is concerned about massive encroachments on the rights of Russian-speaking communities, including in some countries of the European Union.

He mentioned "the hundreds of thousands of native speakers of Russia in Estonia and Latvia, who are deprived of citizenship there."

"Here we have a glaring instance of violation of universal international standards and we can't put up with it," Yakovenko said.

The Russian official reiterated the significance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the UN endorsed on Dec. 10 in 1948.

"The principles the document is based on first laid the foundation for various multilateral agreements and then for national laws in the UN member-nations and methods of implementing them," Yakovenko stressed.

Source: Xinhua