On 26 October, Charles University in Prague hosted a lecture entitled "Human Rights and the War in Ukraine: the Role of the International Community". Ukrainian experts - representatives of the coalition "Ukraine. Five in the Morning" coalition told the students about the process of documenting war crimes, the need for a tribunal, the importance of international pressure to return stolen children and international support for political prisoners.
Representatives of the Crimean Platform Expert Network took part in the discussion: Tetyana Pechonchyk, Head of the Board of the ZMINA Human Rights Centre, Arie Mora, Head of Communications at the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG), Daryna Pidhorna, legal expert at the Regional Human Rights Centre, and Maria Sulyalina, Head of the Almenda Centre for Civic Education. The event was moderated by Alina Chubko, Programme Officer of the Prague Civil Society Centre.
The event took place the day after the Crimean Platform's Parliamentary Summit, which brought together representatives of the organisations. Tetyana Pechonchyk spoke in more detail about the work of the Crimean Platform: "We as Ukrainians need to be creative, we need to invent new formats and we need to work for the de-occupation of Crimea with the release of all our prisoners of war, political prisoners, civilian hostages held in Russia, in Russian prisons and in the occupied territories."
Aryeh Mora noted that it is important for Ukraine to adapt its legal system to investigate as many crimes as possible, as institutions such as the International Criminal Court remain an additional tool for establishing justice.
"We want to investigate as many crimes as possible as efficiently as possible. Because if we do it ineffectively, we fail the victims and lose the opportunity to bring the perpetrators to justice. The case will either not be proved, or it will be appealed later, or you simply won't be able to ensure justice in any other possible way," he said.
Lawyer Daryna Pidhorna spoke about the intricacies of working with victims of war crimes and further processing of cases. She also noted that in the almost ten years since the occupation of Crimea, the procedure for documenting crimes has improved: "There are still sometimes misunderstandings between the government, law enforcement agencies and the civil society sector. But now communication is working. It seems that we can communicate, and this communication can lead us to some success at the national level."
Despite the experience gained by experts in documenting crimes, this process is becoming increasingly difficult in the occupied Crimea, especially after the full-scale invasion of Russia. Maria Sulyalina spoke about this problem.
"Nowadays, Crimea is actually a territory where gross human rights violations are taking place. Crimea is being used as a large prison for people from the southern region, from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, because they are taken from their territories to Crimea, where they are held. Therefore, it is difficult for a human rights organisation to even get information about the number of people and where they are being held," said Maria Sulyalina.
The experts also shared with the participants of the lecture their vision of the status of Crimea after de-occupation, their experience of fighting the "expulsion" of Russians from international human rights organisations, as well as their personal experiences of how they overcome emotional burnout in such important but exhausting work.
27.10.2023
