15:54 26.07.2018

Ukraine to petition ECHR over Russia's deportation of Ukrainian citizens from Crimea

2 min read
Ukraine to petition ECHR over Russia's deportation of Ukrainian citizens from Crimea

Ukraine intends to apply to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) with a lawsuit against the Russia for illegally deporting Ukrainian citizens from Crimea, which is under military occupation by Russia, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Justice and European Court of Human Rights Commissioner Ivan Lishchyna has said.

"The Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Court of Human Rights, together with human rights defenders and the Crimean Prosecutor's Office, to which we are very grateful for materials about Ukrainian political prisoners, will prepare another interstate lawsuit to the ECHR against Russia, which will concern the circumstances of this case," he said during a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

Lyshchyna said mass expulsion of foreigners is in itself a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, noting it was "standard practice" for Russia, as evidenced during Russian aggression against Georgia in 2008.

Roman Martynovsky, an expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights NGO, said 9,548 rulings involving migration rights violations were handed down from July 2014 to May 2018 by courts in Crimea. He said the total number of persons expelled was 2,425, with 1,018 being Ukrainian citizens. Citizens from 37 other countries, as well as "four stateless persons whom we manage to identify," were also ordered to leave the peninsula.

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