Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented serious violations of the human rights by illegal armed formations in Donbas and Crimea.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry noted that the situation is described mostly accurately and impartially in the seventh OHCHR report based on the work of UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine through Sept. 17 – Oct. 31, 2014.
“Thus, authors of the report worriedly note serious human rights violations by illegal armed formations, including tortures, unlawful imprisonments, taking hostages, executions without proper judicial proceedings, forced labor, sexual abuse and destruction or illegal confiscation of property,” reads the statement by the ministry.
According to the mission’s conclusions in the report, continuing presence of a large amount of sophisticated weaponry, as well as foreign fighters that include servicemen from the Russian Federation, directly affects the human rights situation in the east of Ukraine.
The mission also gave the data on hundreds of people wearing military uniforms constantly crossing the Ukrainian border in both directions at Donetsk checkpoint. Weapon supply from Russia into eastern regions of Ukraine through the parts of the border controlled by militants was reported as well.
In addition, the mission drew the attention to the increase in the numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to 436,000 people, who are coming from occupied Crimea and the regions affected by armed conflicts. In addition, the mission welcomes Verkhovna Rada’s adopting the law on IDPs, which guarantees a number of special rights and benefits for refugees, on Oct. 20.
A separate chapter of the report deals with the situation in Crimea, where the number of human rights violations and protection issues, especially for minorities and indigenous people, is growing. “The experts confirmed severe violations of civil, political, economic, social and culture rights of Crimean citizens by occupation authorities; [these violations] had been presented by Ukraine on more than one occasion. They include mass disappearances of people, arrests, closing of Crimean Tatar media and education establishments, violent seizure of property, etc. Ukrainian movie director Oleh Sentsov, who was stripped off Ukrainian citizenship by Russia by force, is still in custody in Moscow. His rights are being regularly violated,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
UN noted that OHCHR kept monitoring the situation with Nadia Savchenko, who’s illegally detained on Russian territory.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also drew the attention of OHCHR to certain drawbacks in its report. Particularly, Ukraine insists that the mission use the phrase “illegal armed formations” in the report, as is clearly established in the resolution A/HRC/27/75 by United Nations Human Rights Council. “We urge the mission to avoid assessing documented violations by Russia-supported terrorists and occupation authorities in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
