Human Rights 365 in Crimea Commentary
Human Rights 365 in Crimea
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JURIST Guest Columnist Anastasiia Shtanieva, a practicing lawyer and trained mediator, discusses the current situation in Crimea and focuses on legal mechanisms to fight human rights violations on the peninsula…

The Human Rights Day is observed annually on the 10th of December (commemorating the date of adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [PDF]). This year’s official slogan is “Human Rights 365,” which symbolizes that every day is the Human Rights Day. In the view of this the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the states “to honor their obligation to protect human rights everyday of the year” and people “to hold their governments to account.”

Launching new human rights protection campaigns, organizing demonstrations and protests would be popular ways for people to answer such a call. In the past, actions like these were often scheduled on Human Rights Day. However, it seems that this 10th of December in Crimea will pass without any special events, since the local authorities denied [Ukrainian] the motion of the Committee on Protection of Rights of the Crimean Tatars to hold a Human Rights Day demonstration in Simferopol (capital of the peninsula).

In their response, the authorities explained the refusal due to the New Year Eve’s festivities, which shall take place in the city center starting December 1, as well as possible impediments to the citizens and public transport. Moreover, the Crimean prosecutor’s office presented a warning [Ukrainian] to the leaders of the Committee that any extremist activity will be not acceptable with regard to conduction of public demonstrations. Similar anti-extremist warnings were issued to Mejlis (the representative body of the Crimean Tatar People) and several media outlets earlier this year. It means that the respective authorities found the media was engaged in extremist activity. The media source will face liquidation unless they stop publishing materials designated in the warnings as dangerous.

Governmental methods to fight extremism raised concerns before (e.g. UK application of the term “domestic extremist“). Such methods should not be used as a pretext for abuse of power and human rights violations. The Russian Federal 2002 law [Russian] “On Counteracting Extremist Activity” gives a considerably broad definition to extremism, which can be extended to all individuals and organizations that provided any assistance in the activity of persons accused of extremism. This law also provides for creation of a list of extremist literature [Russian], which currently contains over 2,500 titles. According to Russian activists [PDF], misuse of this law is becoming a repressive instrument against very different groups in Russia.

The introduction of the notion of “extremism” is not the only new thing resulting from the change in effective control over the Crimean peninsula. Human Rights Watch (HRW) report [PDF] “Rights in Retreat: Abuses in Crimea”, published in November 2014 raised a number of concerns such as imposition of Russian citizenship on residents of Crimea, failure to investigate forced disappearances of people, unwarranted searches, persecution of groups and individuals opposed to Russian occupation. The human rights activists also stress that the de-facto authorities allow the ‘self-defense forces’ to conduct the searches and that the percentage of the Crimean Tatars in the local authorities declined [Russian] from about 15% to 3% after this autumn’s elections. Another violation is limitation of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages in public education despite that the new “constitution” of the Crimea declared three state languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar). According to the “minister” of education of the Crimea the number of school with classes taught in Ukrainian decreased [Ukrainian] to 20 as of October 10, 2014 (before the occupation there were more than 150 such schools).

All in all, the HRW report as well as the report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights allow to draw a conclusion that there are three groups rendered vulnerable by the current state of affairs: the indigenous Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians and all those who have refused Russian citizenship.

In such situation not only the state, which has effective control, but also the state of citizenship of the Crimea residents shall put all efforts for the protection of human rights. As Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Niels Muižnieks [JURIST] underlined during his recent visit to Kyiv, Ukrainian citizens living in the Crimea should not be isolated and Ukraine needs to do everything in its power to protect their rights. Starting from late February only a few steps have been taken in this direction.

According to the Ukrainian Justice Minister, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is considering three cases filed by Ukraine against Russia [Russian]. The applications were based on article 33 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [PDF], which allows any contracting state to file an application against another state for violation of the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Convention.

The first inter-state application was filed on 13 March 2014 (after the foreign military troops appeared in Crimea but before the so-called ‘referendum’). Due to increasing concerns about possible human rights infringements the Ukrainian government requested the imposition of interim measures based on Article 39 of the ECHR Rules. This request was satisfied and the President of the Third Section of the ECHR called upon both Contracting Parties to “refrain from taking any measures, which might entail breaches of the Convention rights of the civilian population and to comply with their engagements under the Convention, notably in respect for Articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). This interim measure remains in force.

In this case (application no. 20958/14) the Government of Ukraine maintains that Russia, by having effective control over the respective territory, exercised jurisdiction and failed to prevent various violations of the Convention (Article 2—right to life, Article 3—prohibition of inhumane or degrading treatment), Article 5—right to liberty and security, Article 6—right to a fair trial, Article 8—right to respect for private life, Article 9—freedom of religion, Article 10—freedom of expression, Article 11—freedom of assembly and association, Article 13—right to an effective remedy and Article14—prohibition of discrimination of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) and Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) to the Convention). The Russian government is still to submit its comments on the admissibility of the application. The second case Ukraine v. Russia (no. 43800/14) was lodged on June 13, 2014 and concerned abduction and transportation of orphans from Eastern Ukraine to Russia. The third case (no. 49537/14) seeks protection for Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilov and his son Hayser, who is illegally held in custody in Russia.

The court practice of the ECHR on inter-state cases is rather small with one decision that stands out. In 2001 it decided the merits of Cyprus v. Turkey (no. 25781/94), which concerned the situation in Northern Cyprus after the Turkish invasion in 1974. Awarding the compensation was postponed till 2014, when the court ordered Turkey to pay Cyprus 90,000,000 Euros for 14 violations of the Convention (right to liberty, right to property, right to a fair trial, right to respect of private life and others).

Apart from filing cases with international courts, there are also steps that can be undertaken by Ukraine to protect its citizens’ rights. Among those, on March 20, 2014 the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) adopted a resolution No. 1140-VII [Ukrainian] “On Declaration of the Verkhovna Rada regarding the Guarantees of the Rights of the Crimean Tatar People in the State of Ukraine”. This document recognized the Crimean Tatars as indigenous people, recognized their representative and executive bodies acting in the Crimea and strongly condemned any attempts to limit the rights of all nations in the Crimea caused by the Russian occupation. Unfortunately most actions state in the resolution have not been implemented. Also, there is a lot to improve for the Crimean residents, who maintained Ukrainian citizenship, and, for example, are experiencing difficulties with Ukrainian authorities when crossing the administrative border with the Crimea.

To conclude, both the newly elected Ukrainian government and the Russian government, which claims his citizens’ rights are its priority, have a unique opportunity to adopt a Human Rights 365 approach for the people in Crimea.

Anastasiia Shtanieva is a practicing lawyer and trained mediator. She holds a bachelor degree with honors from National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” (Kyiv, Ukraine). Her areas of expertise are dispute resolution, international commercial arbitration and corporate law. She was also invited to speak on several events on mediation in Ukraine.

Suggested citation: Anastasiia Shtanieva, Human Rights 365 in Crimea, JURIST – Professional Commentary, Dec. 12, 2014, http://jurist.org/professional/2014/11/anastasiia-shtanieva-crimea-rights.php.


This article was prepared for publication by Christina Alam, an Assistant Editor for JURIST Commentary. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org


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