OHCHR reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine

Published On: Apr 29 2014

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has published a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine in the context of the country’s ongoing political turmoil and security crisis.

The Report warns that, although allegations of human rights violations have decreased since the Government took power at the end of February 2014, there is evidence that the new Government is failing to take the rights of minorities to participate in political life into account. In February 2014, the new Parliament attempted to repeal the Law on Principles of State Language Policy, which would have had the effect of making Ukrainian the country’s only official language despite the fact that over one third of Ukraine’s population speaks Russian in their daily lives. Although the acting President of the Ukraine declined to sign this repeal into effect, new legislation on the subject is being prepared.

Further concerns about the rights of Ukraine’s Russian minority are raised by information on harassment and attacks against Russian speakers, but the report considers these incidents to be isolated rather than widespread or systematic.

A law passed on 8 April 2014 by the Ukrainian Parliament significantly undermines the independence of the country’s judiciary by instituting a lustration policy, which allows judges to be subjected to review and dismissal outside of normal disciplinary proceedings on various grounds, including making “politically motivated decisions.”

Lustration has commonly been used in post-communist countries to prevent the participation of former communist party officials in public life. According to Human Rights Watch there is a danger that the new policy, which is implemented by a committee comprised predominantly of parliamentarians and officials of the new Government, will be used to mete out political reprisal to judges appointed under the previous Yanukovych Government.

The OHCHR recommends that the Ukrainian Government immediately undertake confidence-building measures, with a view in particular to addressing the concerns of Ukraine’s large ethnic Russian and Tatar minority populations through permissive legislation on minority linguistic rights and a strong stance against hate speech. The Government should also investigate human rights violations related to the Maidan protests.

The report also examines specific human rights challenges in Crimea, highlighting incidences of death threats against journalists covering the 16 March 2014 referendum and the abduction, unlawful arrest and detention by unidentified armed groups of journalists and peaceful demonstrators. Crimean Tatars largely boycotted the referendum, equally concerned about their prospects as part of Ukraine or of Russia. The regional authorities of Crimea have stated to the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights that they will conduct thorough investigations of all human rights violations.

The report is based on findings by the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonovi?, who visited Ukraine during March 2014, and on the work of the newly established United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Underlying human rights violations in Ukraine are recognised as a cause of the Euromaidan protests beginning on 21 November last year, which set off a chain of events leading to Ukraine’s current crisis.

Image: Security Council discusses the situation in Ukraine

Source: UN Photo