28th session of the UN Human Rights Council
Agenda items 2 and 3 General Debate
Statement by the representative of Ukraine
March 13, 2015
Mr. President,
The delegation of Ukraine thanks the Deputy High Commissioner for the presentation of thematic reports and would like to refer to the document A/HRC/28/29 containing summary of the panel discussion on the protection of the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty held last September.
Participating in this discussion, our delegation brought to the panellists’ attention the case of Nadiya Savchenko, member of the Parliament of Ukraine and Ukrainian delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe who was seized in Ukraine last July and forcibly transferred to the Russian Federation where she has been detained under trumped-up charges.
Regrettably, there are just negative developments since then in relation to Ms. Savchenko who resorted to a hunger strike to protest her continuing detention, as well as to many other Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in Russia, and persecuted as political prisoners in violation of their human rights and fundamental freedoms and in contravention of the norms of international law.
The unacceptable discriminatory policy towards Ukrainians in Russia, inhumane actions of the Russian law-enforcement officials towards Ukrainians including practice of physical intimidation and psychological pressure, denial for Ukrainian consular officers to have access to Ukrainian citizens, have become systemic and therefore compelled the MFA of Ukraine to issue a warning notice for the Ukrainians travelling to the Russian Federation.
We call upon the OHCHR to give due attention to the above alarming trends and contribute to efforts in facilitating the release of abducted and illegally detained Ukrainian citizens who in some cases are forcibly deprived by Russia of Ukrainian citizenship, such as Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov.
I thank you.