WASHINGTON – The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, held a briefing on “Human Rights Violations in Russian-Occupied Crimea” on December 12, 2015.
The discussion featured a panel of activists who are working to keep the world’s attention focused on the troubling human rights dimensions of the illegal annexation by Russia of the Ukrainian peninsula and was chaired by Orest Deychakiwsky, a policy advisor at the Helsinki Commission.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Deychakiwsky emphasized that: “Russia’s forcible and illegal occupation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory of Crimea in March 2014 resulted in a deplorable human rights situation and other serious consequences that continue to this day. Changes in government and the legal framework in Crimea following the attempted annexation have had a toxic impact on human rights and fundamental freedoms. Violations of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights are widespread, especially against those who oppose the Russian occupation, including Crimean Tatars and other ethnic, political and religious groups.”
Mr. Deychakiwsky noted that Russia’s takeover of Crimea is not internationally recognized and “both the [U.S.] administration and Congress have addressed the Russian occupation of Crimea in various ways, including through legislation and through concrete sanctions against Russia, including Crimea-specific sanctions.”
In an effort to address the international legal obligations of Russia as an occupying power in Crimea, a group of experts, researchers and activists recently released a report titled “Human Rights on Occupied Territory: Case of Crimea.” The report, published by the VOLYA Institute for Contemporary Law and Society and the Ukrainian American organization Razom, emphasizes that “according to the international law on occupation, the Russian Federation as an occupying power is obliged to ensure that everyone is treated humanely and without discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or any other basis.”
Ivanna Bilych, a New York attorney and one of the co-authors of the report, explained at the Helsinki Commission briefing: “The purpose of the report is to assist individuals in Crimea, Ukraine, as well as around the world, working in academia, governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, businesses and media to understand the nature of the human rights violations in the occupied territory, so that they are better equipped to defend and protect the internationally recognized expression of human rights.”
Furthermore, Ms. Bilych said: “What is very clear, however, is that practice of human rights in occupied Crimea is dire and continues to deteriorate. Every day, Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea face unprecedented oppression and limitations of their rights. Serious and consistent violations of the civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of Crimeans have been well-documented by a variety of organizations, including the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, international media outlets, reports from the undercover journalists within Crimea and various local organizations over the previous year. The illegitimate self-proclaimed Crimean and Russian authorities target those ethnic, religious and national groups that oppose the occupation. Indigenous Crimean Tatars are frequently suspected of this sort of broadly defined ‘anti-Russian activity’ [and the] Russian Federation’s illegal occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea has created a continuous stream of human rights violations encroaching on or even prohibiting basic individual rights and freedoms.”
The “Human Rights on Occupied Territory: Case of Crimea” report includes a list of recommendations for the Ukrainian government, the international community, NGOs and individuals. For example, it recommends that the Ukrainian government create an electronic database dedicated to storing information and made available to Crimean citizens to “secure documents and information in their possession that testifies to their holdings and property, to human rights violations, and other legal matters.”
Kyiv should “provide Crimean citizens with the means to report crimes and other violations of human rights to the Ukrainian authorities, establish a telephone and Internet ‘hotlines’ for Crimean citizens to report crimes and human rights violations committed in Crimea [and] ensure the proper investigation of crimes committed on the territory of Crimea, especially those against citizens of Ukraine,” the report says.
The authors also recommend that the Ukrainian government, “in cooperation with the U.N., create a Special Court for Ukraine with jurisdiction over crimes and other human rights violations committed in Crimea during the Russian occupation. Such a court can also have jurisdiction over crimes and human rights violations committed during the Euro-Maidan protests between November 2013 and February 2014, as well as crimes committed in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.”
The report calls on the Ukrainian government, the international community and NGOs to keep the issue of human rights abuses in Crimea in the spotlight and to ensure that residents of Crimea have access to independent media in the Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar and Russian languages.
In his presentation, Bohdan Yaremenko, a leader of the Ukrainian NGO Maidan of Foreign Affairs and a former diplomat, tied the occupation of Crimea to other military moves by Vladimir Putin in the region: “We are convinced that situation in Crimea and eastern Ukraine is directly connected and should be kept in the same frame for political analysis. Honestly speaking, the picture will still be incomplete without analyzing the Russian intervention into Ukraine aside of what is happening in Transdniestria in Moldova, Abkhazia and Ossetia in Georgia.”
The annexation of Crimea, Mr. Yaremenko noted, “calls into question the existence or the effectiveness of international law and the international security guarantees, thus threatening the existing world order.”
He also talked about the dangers of the militarization of Crimea: “The occupying authorities are developing Crimea mainly as a military base. The number of troops is about 50,000 people, not including the members of the security agencies. The development process and increase of the military grouping has not yet been completed; however, according to the objectives defined by the minister of defense of Russia, the number of Russian troops in Crimea can be increased to 100,000 to 200,000 people.”
Crimea is a training ground for Russian mercenaries in the Donbas, Mr. Yaremenko said, and “by forming a powerful military base in Crimea, Russia threatens both the southern regions of Ukraine and the existing Black Sea naval communications, as well as the European countries – NATO member-states – Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.”
Andriy Klymenko, chief editor of Black Sea News and a prominent economist, is originally from Crimea, but was forced to leave the peninsula. Speaking through an interpreter, he talked about the thousands of people who have had to flee Crimea to avoid persecution by the self-proclaimed Crimean and Russian authorities: “First of all, I want to emphasize that we do not call ourselves refugees. The law calls us temporarily displaced persons. And although this may be incorrect, but we call ourselves political immigrants, Crimean political immigrants. And this is exactly so.”
Mr. Klymenko added: “Those people who left Crimea were those who understood that they could not continue their either professional or civic activities or simply… pretend like nothing is going on. …There are about 40,000 to 50,000 such individuals in different parts of Ukraine. And perhaps you know that we also have about a million refugees from the Donbas… Those Ukrainian patriots from Crimea and Donbas, as a rule, understand that Ukraine is undergoing very hard times right now. And they are trying not to only help themselves, but also to do something to improve the situation in Ukraine. And at the same time… we all of a sudden just have become poor. I’ve lost my home and I’ve lost all my property in Crimea. And at my age I am now a homeless person. And you know, the only way for me to deal with this is just to try to forget it.”
The final panelist from Ukraine was Yuriy Yatsenko, an activist of the Revolution of Dignity. He was illegally imprisoned in Russia on political grounds in May 2014. After his refusal to cooperate with the Russian FSB (security service), he suffered brutal torture and criminal prosecution. He was released after a year of imprisonment, thanks to the efforts of committed supporters. After his release, Mr. Yatsenko became involved with the LetMyPeopleGo campaign to raise awareness about the Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in the Russian Federation on political grounds.
“The fact I am free now is a testament to the efforts of the publicity campaigns, international pressure and coordinated work of human rights advocates and lawyers,” he said.
Mr. Yatsenko continued: “As of today, at least 13 Ukrainians [including Nadia Savchenko, Oleksandr Kolchenko and Oleh Sentsov] are detained illegally somewhere in the Russian Federation, and at least eight such prisoners are being held in occupied Crimea, both Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. The criminal cases against them are fabricated. Most of them have been brutally tortured. Some of them have been deprived for over a year of their right to meet with an attorney or Ukrainian consul.
“These are people of various ages, professional backgrounds and political views, but they share one thing: their lives have become an instrument of the Russian state-sponsored propaganda that has created the image of Ukraine as a mortal enemy of Russia. The Kremlin officials constantly look for the means and the reasons to justify their hybrid war against Ukraine. That is why innocent Ukrainian citizens are proclaimed to be terrorists, spies and fascists. It is a miracle that I managed to escape imprisonment and can tell you my story personally. I prayed for this all the time in prison.”
After the presentations of the panelists, Yaroslav Brisiuck, the deputy chief of mission of the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S., thanked the Helsinki Commission for holding the briefing: “There’s nothing more important to Ukraine, to the government, to civil society, the NGOs, to all citizens of Ukraine than stopping Russian aggression, the continued occupation of Crimea and egregious human rights abuses. We must not allow this topic to fall off the radar and be out-shadowed by other crises of today.”
“And we’re grateful for the tremendous… bipartisan support here in Washington, in Congress, …the Ukrainian Freedom Support Act passed last year, the Crimea-specific resolutions both in the Senate and in the House,” he continued. “There’s executive orders imposing sanctions, Crimea-related sanctions, as well as numerous statements, including by Vice-President [Joe] Biden at the [Verkhovna] Rada just a couple of days ago.”
Despite all this support, Mr. Brisiuck stated emphatically that sanctions must be “racheted up” in order to push back Russia’s aggression and end its illegal occupation of Crimea.
Adrian Karmazyn is a special advisor, strategic communications and development, at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation.