42nd session of the Human Rights Council
Item 3
Interactive dialogue with the Working Group on arbitrary detention
Intervention by the Representative of Ukraine
(Geneva, September 13, 2019)
Mr.President,
We welcome the interactive dialogue with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
We thank members of the Working Group for examining the issue of deprivation of liberty in the context of conscientious objection to military service. I would like to draw your attention to another aspect of this important theme – deprivation of liberty for refusing to perform military service of an occupying power.
This year, the so-called courts in the temporarily occupied Crimea issued 17 unlawful sentences to local residents for "evading draft" in the armed forces of the Russian Federation. As part of the spring conscription campaign, occupation authorities drafted over 3 thousand locals. 20 new criminal cases were initiated under Art. 328 of the Russian Criminal Code ("evading military service"). In July alone, five persons were sentenced, while at least 69 similar criminal proceedings have been initiated against Crimeans. Since the beginning of the Russian occupation, nearly 19 thousand inhabitants of occupied Crimea were compelled for military service in the Russian army.
Russia should be reminded that the occupying power must not compel residents of the occupied territories to swear allegiance or serve in its armed forces. The forced conscription of Crimeans gravely breaches IHL norms. This, and the ongoing propaganda aimed at securing enlistment on the territory of Crimea violate Article 45 of the 1907 Hague Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, while the transfer of drafted citizens of Ukraine from the occupied territory to the territory of the Russian Federation violates Article 49 of the Convention.
We strongly condemn Russia’s numerous gross human rights and IHL violations in the occupied territory of Crimea and urge it to reverse the illegal occupation and return to the tenets of international law.
I thank you.