The United Nations Office at Geneva
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HRC53 - Turk on Ukraine 12 July 2023
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10:45
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MP4
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692.9 MB
Statement by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Oral presentation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, of the findings of the periodic report of OHCHR and on the report of the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on the situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine.
Teleprompter
Excellence.
The conclusion?
Republic autonomy on Ukraine.
Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Levis, President Excellences, distinguished delegates.
The Russian Federation's senseless war on Ukraine continues to generate severe and far reaching violations of human rights.
Last Friday, on the 5th 100th day of this conflict, our Human Rights Monitoring Mission outlined the horrendous civilian cost of the war in Ukraine.
More than 9000 civilians, including over 500 children, have been killed since the war began on on the 24th of February of last year.
The real figures are very likely to be much higher.
Report a Stroke HRC Stroke 53 Stroke CRP 3, which is before you, examines the situation of civilians who have been detained in the context of the war.
It's sources include 274 site visits by my colleagues, including 70 visits to official detention facilities and interviews with 1136 people.
Before addressing further this particular report, I would again underline that the monitoring of our office, which is core to our mandate, follows the highest standards of impartiality, professionalism, objectivity and non selectivity.
These principles have guided the collection of the data set out in this report, as in all other reports that are produced by my office.
It is through rigour and painstaking care in the collection of data and analysis and evidence that we make the strongest case for establishing the facts and for accountability.
In the report before you, we have documented the arbitrary detention of more than 900 individual civilians, including eight children, between 24 February 2022 and 23 May 2023.
The Russian Federation gave no access to places of detention, which leads inevitably to undercounting.
Even so, we were able to interview 178 detainees who had been held by the Russian Federation after their release.
In total, 864 of the cases that we documented were perpetrated by the Russian Federation.
Many of them were incommunicado detentions, tantamount to enforce disappearances.
We also documented the summary executions of 77 civilians while they were arbitrary arbitrarily detained by the Russian Federation.
Over 90% of detainees held by the Russian Federation, whom we were able to interview stated that they had been subjected to torture and I'll treatment, including sexual violence, in some cases by Russian security personnel.
The civilians detained by the Russian Federation whom we interviewed included local public officials, humanitarian volunteers, former soldiers, perceived political opponents, priests and teachers.
In 26% of cases, they were transferred to other locations in occupied Ukraine or the Russian Federation without information provided to their families.
We have also documented several cases that suggest detained civilians have been used by Russian armed forces as human Shields in order to render certain areas immune from military attacks.
These findings are shocking.
They call for concrete measures by the Russian Federation to instruct and ensure their Russian personnel comply with international human rights and humanitarian law.
My office was given extensive and unimpeded access to places of detention under the control of the Ukrainian authorities.
I acknowledge and thank the government for this cooperation occurring in a context of national crisis and survival.
We documented 75 cases of arbitrary detention, most of them people suspected of criminal offences related to the war, and many arbitrary detentions arose from excessively broad amendments to criminal legislation under martial law.
We also found that Ukrainian personnel in unofficial places of detention or to a much less extent in official pretrial detention facilities, engaged in torture and treatment, including sexual violence, mostly involving threats.
In particular, I am concerned that the so-called Law on collaboration activities, adopted in March 2022, criminalises a wide range of conduct, including conduct that may be permitted under international humanitarian law and has led to cases of arbitrary detention.
Mr.
President, the Secretary General's report.
A stroke.
HRC Stroke 53.
Stroke 64 outlines human rights violations in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as Russian occupied areas of Hirson, Sapolitia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
From one July to 31 December 22, my office has documented 60 arbitrary arrests in these areas by Russian security personnel, as well as enforced disappearances and torture.
Regarding forced transcription, Russian officials have announced that 2500 men from Crimea were conscripted during the reporting period and the office has documented 112 criminal prosecutions for so-called draught evasion in 2022.
I'm also deeply concerned about population transfers of civilians.
During the reporting period, my office collected information about 23 residents who were arrested by Russian security forces and transferred across the administrative boundary line to Crimea, reportedly handcuffed and blindfolded.
In parallel, the Russian authorities have continued transferring Ukrainian citizens, whom they consider so-called foreigners, out of Crimea.
In Crimea and occupied areas of Ukraine, we have documented extensive violations of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association, including new sanctions for publicly voicing opinions that discredit the Russian armed forces and a further deterioration of the operating environment for human rights defenders.
Teachers were pressured actively to endorse the Russian invasion and encourage a positive attitudes attitude towards it among children.
Denial of the rights to due process and fair trial remain A systematic issue in Crimea.
My office verified 16 cases where where courts convicted Ukrainian citizens following proceedings that disregarded fair trial guarantees.
Mr Vice President, accountability for the violations and abuses committed in this war continues to be conspicuous by its absence.
I'm aware of no ongoing investigations by the Russian Federation in relation to arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture or I'll treatment perpetrated by its forces in Ukraine against civilians.
I'm deeply concerned that the Parliament of the Russian Federation recently adopted a federal law that would potentially exempt from criminal liability the perpetrators of International Criminal offences committed in occupied regions of Ukraine.
International law prohibits the granting of such amnesty in relation to serious violations of international humanitarian law or gross violations of international human rights law in Ukraine.
While numerous proceedings have been initiated, I'm aware of no completed criminal investigations of Ukrainian personnel for arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance or torture against civilians.
I welcome that Ukraine has created a mechanism to compensate victims of conflict related arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.
These issues outlined in our reports are profoundly harmful to the human rights of Ukrainians and must be addressed with urgency.
I also sympathise deeply with all those affected by last month's destruction of the dam at the Khakkova hydroelectric power plant in occupied Kherson region, whose rights will be affected long into this future by this cruel act of war.
The environmental damage more generally is one of the horrific byproducts of this war, which will have grave repercussions for generations to come.
I continue to be deeply disturbed by the potentially enormous human rights implications of the precarious situation at Saporitia and other nuclear plants.
These and other human rights issues have very far reaching impacts across the region and the world, given not least Ukraine's essential role in global food supplies and other key trade sectors.
There's only one solution to this immense tragedy, that all those with influence on the situation work to ensure a just peace in line with the United Nations Charter and international law.
Thank you.