European Court finds Russia guilty of human rights violations in Crimea

Photo: Marharyta Sokorenko, Commissioner for the European Court of Human Rights at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has announced its judgment in the case of Ukraine vs. Russia concerning human rights violations in the temporarily occupied Crimea, according to the Commissioner for the European Court of Human Rights at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine Marharyta Sokorenko.

The court recognized that Ukraine has proven the existence of systematic human rights violations since the beginning of the occupation of Crimea by Russian terrorists in February 2014.

In particular, the court found unanimously that Ukraine had proved the existence of administrative practices on the part of Russia:

・disappearances and lack of effective investigation

・ill-treatment and unlawful detention

・illegal dissemination of Russian legislation, as a result of which the courts in Crimea cannot be considered as established following the law

・forced change of Ukrainian citizenship to Russian citizenship

・systematic mass searches

・forced transfer of convicts to the territory of Russia

・attacks and persecution of religious leaders who did not belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, searches and confiscation of property

・closure of non-Russian media outlets, including Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar TV stations, and persecution of journalists

・bans on peaceful gatherings and protests

・expropriation of private property

・closure of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar classrooms

・violations of the right to freedom of movement between the occupied territory of Crimea and mainland Ukraine

・discrimination against Crimean Tatars

・violations of the rights of political prisoners, the impossibility of their return to Ukraine, and their ill-treatment.

"This decision is the first in which an international court has recognized Russia as responsible for a policy of large-scale and systematic violations of various human rights and freedoms in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol," Sokorenko adds.

RBC-Ukraine also wrote that Sokorenko told when to expect the ECtHR's decision on the war in Ukraine. In particular, she also told how many rights of Ukrainians Russia has violated since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.