26th session of the UN Human Rights Council
Agenda item 9
General Debates
Intervention by the Permanent Representative of Ukraine
Ambassador Yurii Klymenko
18 June, 2014
Mr. President,
The newly elected President and the Government of Ukraine have embarked on the path of comprehensive reforms with human rights in their core, in particular in the sphere of the elimination of racial and other forms of discrimination. One of the last steps in this direction - adoption by the Parliament of amendments to the Law “On Preventing and Countering Discrimination” that bring the definitions of direct and indirect discrimination in line with Ukraine’s obligations under the ICCPR and other international human rights instruments.
Against this background I can not but draw your attention to flagrant manifestations of discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance by the occupation authorities in Crimea towards the ethnic Ukrainians and the Crimean Tatars. They remain the most vulnerable to discrimination and the human rights violations, in particular the rights of speech, media, education, peaceful assembly, religion. These facts are widely reported by the UN and the OSCE human rights experts.
Attacks and beatings of local residents on linguistic grounds are becoming more common.
Since the occupation, persecution of clergy of various religious denominations, violations of religious and conscience freedoms and violations of guarantees of integrity are trending. Crimean priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are not able to perform their services in their churches. The priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church suffered persecution and torture, most of them were forced to leave the peninsula.
Russian authorities on the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea bear sole responsibility for all the cases of discrimination and xenophobia towards Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in Crimea. Ukraine strongly condemns such violations and calls upon the illegal authorities in Crimea to immediately stop them.
Thank you.