Human rights update on Ukraine

37th session of the Human Rights Council

ID on Ukraine

Addresses by Ms. Kate Gilmore, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

Geneva, 21 March 2018
Salle XX, Palais des Nations

Excellencies,

The conference room paper before you is our 21st report on the situation of human rights in Ukraine since 2014, and it covers the period 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018. 

From the outset I must stress that inevitably this report is a reflection of our current level of access, which differs across the country. 

Nonetheless, we are pleased to report that this three-month period registered one of the lowest rates of civilian casualties since the onset of the conflict, which has claimed over 3,000 civilian lives thus far. 

This demonstrates that the ceasefire when observed by the parties to the conflict does protect lives. Full compliance with the ceasefire and other provisions of the Minsk Agreements would ensure further protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.  

Generally good access was provided to us in Government-controlled areas, while no access was provided to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea - nor to individuals detained by armed groups in the two self-proclaimed republics in Eastern Ukraine.  It is high time that independent international observers were given full and unimpeded access in all areas. 

Within this context, our report further draws on 276 in-depth interviews with victims and witnesses of human rights violations conducted during visits by human rights officers in both Government-controlled and where access was provided, in armed group-controlled territory. 

Based on the access we have, we identified 70 cases in which human rights violations were perpetrated including abuses of the right to life, deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, fair trial rights, fundamental freedoms (including assaults on democratic space), economic and social rights. 

During the reporting period, we also undertook 546 activities for strengthening of the protection of human rights, including technical assistance with duty-bearers, humanitarian organizations and NGOs and advocacy; trial monitoring; detention visits, and cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms, and held 12 capacity building and awareness raising events.

In line with the Secretary-General’s vision on prevention, we also engaged in human rights based confidence-building measures. In December and January, a simultaneous release of detainees took place as part of the implementation of the “all for all” release envisaged by the Minsk agreements: 234 detainees by the Government of Ukraine; and 75 by the armed groups.   Our team interviewed 64 of those released. They, as well as 57 other detainees interviewed during the reporting period, revealed to us a pattern of ongoing violations and abuses of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, as well as lack of due process on both sides of the contact line. 

Mr. President,

When our human rights officers cross the contact line, they are able to monitor what are the arduous conditions that people face.  We speak to the families queuing in sub-zero temperatures as they wait for their chance to cross to see their loved ones, separated from them by an arbitrary line. Over one million such crossings are registered each month, and they occur across the third most mine-contaminated area in the world. 

We encourage the parties to further facilitate the movement of people across the contact line. We also encourage the development of an administrative procedure to facilitate civil registration for residents living in armed groups-controlled territory, and for pensions to be de-linked to IDP registration. These are important initial building blocks for social cohesion, peace and reconciliation.

Ahead of the 2019 parliamentary and presidential elections, there are material risks that civic and political space will further contract.  Any and all associated hate crimes or assaults on fundamental freedoms must be promptly and effectively investigated and publicly condemned. 

We have also observed undue pressure on, and intimidation of, judges by law enforcement and right wing groups, as well as unknown persons.  Attacks on individual judges constitute attacks on the independence of the judiciary as a whole. In territory controlled by armed groups, residents have no access to justice, so-called trials are often in closed sessions, with those accused having no real chance to defend themselves.

Excellencies, 

I now turn to our work in monitoring the human rights situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.  Our work is guided by three United Nations General Assembly resolutions, including resolution 72/190, which requested us to provide an update on the situation. Monitoring has been conducted remotely from mainland Ukraine, as we have still not been granted access to the peninsula. 

In the last six months, several opponents to the occupation were convicted or arrested in highly questionable proceedings:

• Ten Crimean Tatar men were arrested and criminally charged under terrorism or extremism-related offences - despite there being little evidence that they posed any actual threat.
• Eighty Muslim men, mostly Crimean Tatars were sentenced and fined, having protested against the alleged portrayal of Crimean Tatars as terrorists.
• A freelance journalist received a suspended sentence for an article calling for a blockade of the Crimean peninsula following a trial that violated his fair trial rights.
• A Mejlis leader was sentenced to prison for acts committed before the occupation, in clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
• A Crimean Tatar man was abducted by the Federal Security Service and held incommunicado, tortured and threatened with sexual violence - the latest case in a pattern documented by OHCHR since 2014.

In another violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits compelling protected persons to undergo military service, 4,800 Crimean residents were sent to serve in the Russian Federation Armed Forces in 2017.  

Civil society groups who are not affiliated to Russian authorities in Crimea continued to be denied the space to undertake their activities. They cannot be registered, have no legal existence, and often have to operate semi-clandestinely. The right to express one’s views, national identity, culture and tradition seems largely denied to groups and individuals considered to hold pro-Ukrainian convictions.  

The activities of the Mejlis, a self-governing institution of the Crimean Tatar people, remain prohibited in the Russian Federation and Crimea - despite the fact that the International Court of Justice in 2017 ordered Russia to “refrain from maintaining or imposing limitations on the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions, including the Mejlis”.

In the same order concerning provisional measures, the International Court of Justice requested Russia to “ensure the availability of education in the Ukrainian language in Crimea” - a critical measure in the wake of a sharp decrease in the number of children educated in Ukrainian. In this regard it is encouraging that the Ministry of Education of Crimea three months ago outlined a new “Road map on the choice of language in education”, which aims at increasing access to education in one’s mother tongue.

OHCHR remains fully committed to conducting direct human rights monitoring in Crimea and will continue to seek access.
Thank you.