11:49 30.10.2017

Deputy PM calls on UN to back resolution on human rights in Crimea

3 min read
Deputy PM calls on UN to back resolution on human rights in Crimea

Ukraine will in the next few days submit a resolution on the situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol for consideration by the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly and requests support for this document, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said.

"We call on the international community to consistently respond to cynical violations of human rights in Crimea and increase political and diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin with a view to ensuring the return of the aggressor state to respect for the provisions of international law," she said during an event dedicated to the situation with human rights in Crimea at UN headquarters in New York (the United States) on October 29.

Klympush-Tsintsadze noted that the vote for adoption of the resolution was expected in the period between the middle and the end of November this year.

She said that in accordance with the UN Charter, ensuring fundamental human rights and freedoms was an absolute priority of the international community. Despite occupation by Russia and the forced introduction of its legal framework, residents of Crimea remain Ukrainian citizens, so the Ukrainian government intends to provide all possible means of protecting their fundamental rights and freedoms in the temporarily occupied territory of the peninsula.

"Today I want to reiterate Ukraine's position. We do not trade territory and our citizens for money, oil or gas. Therefore, de-occupation of Crimea, as well as of other temporarily occupied territories, is our absolute priority," Klympush-Tsintsadze said.

She also welcomed a September 25 report "Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)" and expressed regret that access to Crimea for the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine had been banned by the Russian occupation administration.

"Unfortunately, the scale of crimes and violations committed by the occupation authorities in Crimea after this decision shows that Russia is clearly ignoring its international legal obligations," she said.

Klympush-Tsintsadze noted that systematic repressions had turned the Crimean peninsula into a territory without freedom, where Russia applies the worst practices of the Soviet repressive machine.

"Anyone who dares to reject the so-called 'reunification with Russia' becomes a victim of willful detention, harassment and torture," she said.

During the event, Ukrainian human rights activists spoke about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Crimea and drew the attention of those gathered to increasing politically motivated persecution, illegal methods of investigation, torture and psychological pressure, militarization of the peninsula, illegal mobilization of Ukrainian citizens for service in the Russian army, and persecution of Crimean residents for participation in peaceful assemblies.

Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Volodymyr Yelchenko noted that the International Court of Justice had ordered Russia to stop harassment of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people in the occupied peninsula and to ensure education in the Ukrainian language.

"We believe that cases of non-fulfillment of the decisions of the International Court of Justice should be thoroughly studied by the UN system in order to finally find a way to force the state to implement these decisions in good faith," he said.

Yelchenko added that Ukraine called on the UN to react to Russia's failure to comply with the decision of the International Court of Justice on the situation with the rights of ethnic minorities in the occupied Crimea and oblige Russia to comply with this decision.

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