Olha Skrypnyk, Head of Crimean Human Rights Group Board, attended the video meeting of the International Crimea Platform Focal Points Network. This was the fourth meeting held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
When speaking, Ms. Skrypnyk focused on recommendations for our partners, namely:
- Further military support of Ukraine to liberate all occupied territories of Ukraine since this is the only way Ukraine has today to save human rights and defend human rights there;
- Active international consolidation to develop the mechanism for releasing civilians deprived of personal freedom due to the armed aggression against Ukraine, including the political prisoners of Crimea.
Ms. Skrypnyk added that she hoped for cooperating with the Ombudsman’s office and involving human rights organizations that had been working to protect the interests of civilian hostages, including those in Crimea, for 10 years, into the International Platform for the Release of Civilians Illegally Detained by the Russian Federation. The first meeting of this platform took place without the participation of such organizations.
- Strengthened sanction pressure on the Russian Federation and enforcement of effective instruments to monitor the compliance with sanction regimes. As to introducing personal sanctions, the human rights defender proposed a list of “judges’, “prosecutors”, and RF FSB men directly involved into politically reasoned criminal persecution of Crimean journalists: 98 such persons had been identified by the CHRG already.
Taking the opportunity, Olha Skrypnyk expressed her gratitude to the Czech Republic for supporting the activities of the Crimea Platform Expert Network as part of the Second Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform, which was held in Prague in October 2023.
The video meeting was also attended by Emine Dzhaparova, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Colonel Hennadiy Kovalenko, Director of Department of International Defense Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Volodymyr Ilyin, representative of the Security Service of Ukraine, Mariya Tomak, Head of Crimea Platform Operation Support Service, Olha Strepochenko, Director of Department of International Cooperation and European Integration of the Secretariat of Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Ihor Ponochovnyy, Head of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.
To remind: the focal points network of International Crimea Platform was created according to provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Platform Inauguration Summit to exchange promptly the positions on relevant issues of Crimea de-occupation, to communicate essential information on course of events in the temporarily occupied Crimea to the partners, and to initiate their response to Russia’s violations of international law in the peninsula.
