BackOn 28 February 2014 the Ombudsman of Ukraine Mrs. Valeriya Lutkovska presented her Special Report on “Violations of human rights and freedoms during events which happened in Ukraine over the period since 21 November 2013 to 22 February 2014” according to paragraph 3 Article 18 of the Law on the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.
In this short period of time there have happened events that have not only been unprecedented in its significance but also very tragic for the Ukrainian people due to the huge number of victims and mass violations of human rights.
Documents and information accumulated by the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) within the framework of the proceedings carried out during this period are presented and analysed in chronological order in this report.
In fact, the Ombudsman of Ukraine became the first official in the state who officially expressed her position on the events of 30 November 2013 in Kyiv when the peaceful protesters – most of whom students – were beaten. On the same day, the Commissioner for Human Rights published an open statement to those who considered themselves as victims of the use of force by the police and asked them to lodge relevant petitions to the Commissioner.
So, from the first day of these tragic events the Ombudsman has launched her monitoring of the situation, operational check of all reports concerning human rights violations, in particular with on-site visits and visits to places of deprivation of liberty and medical facilities, facilitation of the search for missing persons, mediation between protestors and law enforcement bodies, dissemination of the information about international standards in the field of the right to peaceful assembly and use of force and special means by law enforcement bodies in relation to the protesters.
Based on the results of the monitoring the Commissioner for Human Rights has submitted a number of recommendations to public authorities of Ukraine aimed at solving all discovered systemic problems in this sphere and prevention of such human rights violations in the future.
The Ombudsman of Ukraine hopes that these recommendations will be duly considered by the Parliament of Ukraine as well as by the other public authorities and expresses her conviction that the Ukrainian society will make appropriate conclusions from the events of the past three months, that will allow to change for better the state of observance of rights of every individual.
Source: Office of the Parliament Commissioner (Ombudsman), Ukraine
