Section: Human Rights Watch (USA)
Ukraine: Justice Needed for Former Secret Prison Detainees
(Kyiv) – Victims of arbitrary detention in government-controlled secret prisons in eastern Ukraine face new, serious obstacles to justice, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. At least five detainees held in secret facilities run by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in 2015 and 2016 filed complaints against the...
Ukraine Should Drop Law That Hampers Activists’ Work
Expand Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaks during a joint news conference with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker following the EU-Ukraine summit in Kiev, Ukraine, July 13, 2017. © 2017 Reuters On March 11-12 the European Union’s top diplomat will visit Kyiv. This is an...
Crimea is a Black Hole for Human Rights
Expand OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic, at the Permanent Council in Vienna, 16 January 2014. © 2014 OSCE/Micky Kroell The election of Dunja Mijatović as the new Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights is great news for human rights. Dunja Mijatović served as a special representative on media freedoms with the...
Ukraine Should Drop Bills Which Hamper Activists’ Work
Expand Lawmakers attend a parliament session in Kiev, Ukraine December 21, 2017. © 2017 Reuters A package of draft laws presented by the administration of Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, has lingered since the summer on the desks of Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament. Part of this package would annul a senseless legal provision...
Ukraine: Failing Its Human Rights Commitments
Expand Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk arrive for a joint news conference following the EU-Ukraine summit in Kiev, Ukraine, July 13, 2017. © 2017 REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko (Kyiv) – Ukrainian authorities backtracked on important human rights pledges...
Ukraine’s Misguided Curbs on Freedom of Expression
Update: On January 31, Euromaidanpress published an article pointing out that the banned Russian-language version contains a discrepancy in translation: whereas in one sentence in the book, Antony Beevor attributed the killing of Jewish children in Belaya Tserkov to “Ukrainian militias,” the Russian-language version published in Russia that was...
Another Day, Another Tragedy in Crimea
Expand Vedzhie Kashka, August 2017. © 2017 RFE/RL Vedzhie Kashka, 83, is a powerful name in Crimea for her prominent role in the Crimean Tatar national movement and her work to defend rights of Crimean Tatars. She died in Simferopol on November 23, after Russia’s security services (FSB) raided a café where she was meeting …read more...
“100 Crimean Tatar Kids Who Lost Their Fathers”
Expand Statue of a Russian soldier in Simferopol, Crimea. The plaque reads: “To ‘Polite People’ from grateful residents of Crimea.” Local authorities installed the statue in 2016 to mark the events of February 2014, when Russian soldiers without insignia, referred to by local residents as “polite people,” took control over Crimea. © 2017...
Crimea: Persecution of Crimean Tatars Intensifies
Expand Law enforcement officials during a search in Bakhchysarai, Crimea on January 26, 2017 @ 2017 Anton Naumlyik RFE/RL (Berlin) – Russian authorities in Crimea have intensified persecution of Crimean Tatars, under various pretexts and with the apparent goal of completely silencing dissent on the peninsula, Human Rights Watch said today....
Crimea: Crimean Tatar Leader Convicted on Spurious Charges
(Kyiv) – A Russian court in Crimea on September 27, 2017, convicted a prominent Crimean Tatar leader on bogus separatism charges following an unfair trial, Human Rights Watch said today. The court imposed a two-year prison sentence and banned Ilmi Umerov, the Crimean Tatar leader, from involvement in public activities, which includes contact with...
