UN GA Approves Updated Resolution on Human Rights in Russian-Occupied Crimea

Following the resolution against the Russian-occupied Crimea, the Black and Azov Seas militarisation, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new version of the “Human Rights Situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, Ukraine” resolution. It condemns human rights violations by the aggressor country, Crimea annexation, and occupation.

That is the fifth resolution of the UN General Assembly on human rights issues in the occupied Crimea and the ninth one within the international response to the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian Peninsula.

As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine noted, the resolution will promote the creation of the Crimean Platform, initiated by the Ukrainian authorities.

According to Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, the document shows numerous human rights violations on the peninsula and states that:

• Russian officials and bodies in Crimea are illegitimate. At the UN level, it has been recorded for the first time that these officials are “Russia’s occupying power;”
• Russia does not fulfil its international obligations in the field of human rights and international humanitarian law;
• Russia uses the coronavirus pandemic to impose unjustified restrictive measures in Crimea;
• Russia depletes the natural resources of Crimea and conducts subversive economic activities;
• Russia does not give Crimean residents access to the Ukrainian education system and violates their religious rights;
• Russia hinders the preservation of Ukrainian’s national identity in Crimea.

Also, for the first time, the term “civilian journalists” was included in the resolution. Kuleba stressed that this is a significant result of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s campaign to protect journalists and activists working under occupation.

In addition, the UN General Assembly called on Russia to provide monitoring missions with unhindered and full access to Crimea, as well as to release all Ukrainian Kremlin political prisoners, including Emir-Usein Kuku and Server Mustafayev.

Bohdan Marusyak