White Book On Violations Of Human Rights And The Rule Of Law In Ukraine (April 2014 To Middle June 2014)

Introduction

After the publication of the first edition of the ‘White Book’ which summarized multiple factual violations of human rights and of the rule of law in Ukraine from the end of November 2013 to the end of March 2014, the political crisis in that country has gained momentum. A lack of willingness from the de-facto Kiev authorities to respect the legitimate interests of south-eastern Ukraine, and their tendency to speak with local people who come up with legitimate demands from a position of force, resulted in the further escalation of the intra-Ukrainian crisis. Carrying out a so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ — a retaliatory operation in fact — announced by the self-proclaimed Kiev authorities was followed by a dramatic increase in the number of serious human rights violations. As well as ‘post-Maidan’ human rights violations in Ukraine (violating the right to freedom of expression and restrictions on the freedom of the media, manifestations of extremist, ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi sentiments, religious intolerance and xenophobia, the intimidation of political opponents, their ‘cleansings’ and arrests, repressions and physical violence), there are new problems such as the violation of the norms of international humanitarian law by Kiev, reflected by the use of heavy weaponry and military aircraft during the retaliatory operation in the east of the country that resulted in a large number of victims among civilians, the problem of internally-displaced persons and refugees, including children, and a difficult humanitarian situation in general.

We could not turn a blind eye to the horrible tragedy in Odessa on May 2 when, under the watch of local authorities, dozens of people were brutally murdered by Ukrainian ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi militants. The only guilt these people had was that they had different political views on the future of Ukraine. Still, none of the people who committed this insidious crime has been punished yet.

We would like to hope that the investigation initiated by the Kiev authorities would not be protracted or politicized as happened with the so-called ‘sniper case’, when destructive fire in Kiev in February 2014 resulted in the same unidentified snipers killing both protesters and law-enforcement officers.

All these issues were reflected in the second edition of the ‘White Book’ on Ukraine. However, we did not set a difficult task of reflecting all the tragic events that happened in this country. Nevertheless, the facts cited are enough to come to the discouraging conclusion that Ukraine has faced the gravest human rights challenges to which Ukrainian authorities cannot yet provide adequate responses.

This study covers the period from April to mid-June 2014. Just as in the first edition, the results of a thorough monitoring of Ukrainian, Russian and some Western media; remarks and statements made by the Kiev authorities and their supporters; numerous evidences, including those posted on the Internet, as well as the materials collected by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, the Information Group of Crimes against the Person and the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, were used as a factual basis.

Excerpts from the fundamental international instruments on human rights, whose universal provisions and norms have been violated in Ukraine during the indicated period, precede each section of this study.

As before, we believe that the main task of the second edition of the ‘White Book’ is to focus attention on the facts of the international community and key international human rights bodies, as well as relevant non-governmental organizations which have not yet shown proper and impartial attention to these issues.

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EuroMaiden, Ukraine, Norman-AmericanEmpire, Russia

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