Statement at 59th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Item 10: Interactive Dialogue on ID on oral presentation of the High Commissioner on Ukraine and interim report of the Secretary-General on human rights in Crimea
Delivered by Oleksandra Matviichuk, Center for Civil Liberties
Mr President,
CIVICUS and the Center for Civil Liberties welcome the report of the Secretary General and the update of the High Commissioner. As civic space conditions continue to deteriorate amid widespread impunity, we remain concerned about the massive and systematic human rights violations in Crimea, including political persecution of dissent, destruction of independent media, censorship, closure of religious organisations, and discrimination against the Crimean Tatar people who are the Indigenous peoples of the peninsula.
Since the occupation, the Center has been keeping records of civil society actors and human rights defenders facing reprisals for their non-violent activities in defence of human rights. Many have been subjected to enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and unlawful imprisonment on fabricated criminal charges, including Crimean Tatar activists, cultural leaders, journalists, and volunteers on the peninsula. Thus far, these victims of human rights violations and abuses have no effective avenues to seek redress.
We also remain gravely concerned about the forced mobilisation of Ukrainian citizens into the Russian army and the relentless militarisation of Crimea, as well as about the forcible displacement policy to substitute the population in Crimea with citizens of the Russian Federation. The war and occupation have also severely exhausted civil society resources, within and outside the occupied territories.
We urge States to make human rights violations and abuses occurring in occupied Crimea more visible, to support civil society with flexible and longer-term funding, and to support the extension and adequate funding of international investigative efforts to ensure accountability for crimes against civil society, including individual accountability for commanders and administrators responsible for enabling repression of civil society and criminal investigations into enforced disappearances and unlawful detention of activists.
We thank you.
