39^th session of the Human Rights Council

Item 3

Clustered interactive dialogue with the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance and Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Intervention by the Representative of Ukraine

(Geneva, September 12, 2018)

Mr President,

We would like to thank members of the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances for conducting the monitoring visit to my country last June.

Let me inform that the Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Status of Missing Persons” addressing the situation of individuals who are unaccounted for as a result of armed conflict, armed hostilities, public disturbances and natural or man-made disasters entered into force on 2 August 2018.

We share the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s opinion that consular assistance is a preventive mechanism and an important component in securing a fair trial for foreign nationals detainees, as well as a crucial instrument for protecting such detainees from torture and ill-treatment.

It is particularly disturbing that the number of arbitrary and groundless detentions of Ukrainian citizens has increased in the Russian Federation. Ukraine nationals are frequently treated in an inhumane and humiliating manner and have experienced repeated beatings, ethnic discrimination and psychological pressure at the hands of the Russian law-enforcement.

Russian authorities systematically refuse to grant permission to Ukrainian consular officials as well as lawyers to meet with Ukrainian citizens Oleg Sentsov, Olexandr Kolchenko, Rustam Vaitov and others illegally detained in Russia. Conscious disregard for the right of consuls to visit compatriots in detention facilities is an ominous indication of Russia‘s attempt to conceal the facts of lawlessness and political persecution of Ukrainians. Apart from that, by denying the right of a consular official to visit illegally imprisoned Ukrainians, the Russian Federation is violating its own international human rights obligations as well as the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963.

I thank you.