In June 28, 2018 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted the Resolution 2231 (2018) “Ukrainian Citizens Detained as Political Prisoners by the Russian Federation”. This document is based on previous resolutions relating to the situation in Ukraine (PACE Resolutions 1990 (2014), 2034 (2015), 2063 (2015), 2112 (2016), 2132 (2016), 2133 (2016) и 2198 (2018)). 

Once again it is noted by the Council of Europe in the Resolution 2231 (2018) that the Russian Federation is obliged to secure the Human Rights of everyone in Crimea through its armed occupation the peninsula and the Human Rights situation in Crimea has deteriorated, with deaths and disappearances of political activists who were critical of the Russian occupation and annexation, threats and actions against critical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media outlets, and harassment and repression of the indigenous Crimean Tatar community

The Resolution states that the inhabitants of Crimea have been placed under immense pressure to obtain Russian passports and the numerous Ukrainian citizens have been detained in Crimea or the Russian Federation on politically motivated or otherwise fabricated charges. It was pointed out in the Resolution that as many as 70 of such cases paying particular attention the cases of Mr Oleh Sentsov, Mr Volodymyr Balukh and Mr Pavlo Hryb in particular meet the Assembly’s definition of political prisoners, as set out in its Resolution 1900 (2012) on the definition of political prisoner.

The Resolution highlighted the hunger strike of political prisoners and expressed gravely concern of inhuman treatment in the cases of them and denial of access to essential health care, pointed out the denial access of Ombudsman of Ukraine to visit Mr Sentsov. The Assembly committed to follow the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on the violation of the human rights of the people detained in Crimea and detained in Russia.

The Assembly therefore calls on Russia to:

– release without further delay all Ukrainians detained in the Russian Federation and in Crimea on politically motivated or otherwise fabricated charges and make every effort to expedite the release of Ukrainian citizens detained in the territory of Donbass under the effective control of Russia;

– until their release, ensure full respect of their rights, including by respecting the prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and ensuring the right of access to requisite medical assistance in order that health and well-being are adequately secured;

– refrain from force-feeding Mr Sentsov, or any other of the detainees, unless medically necessary in order to save his or their life;

– allow the monitoring of these detainees’ state of health and conditions of detention by independent international monitors, including the Committee on Prevention Tortures and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and allow Ukrainian officials, including the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit them;

– abandon the policy of imposition of Russian citizenship on Ukrainian citizens living in Crimea who do not wish to acquire it and refrain from forcibly transferring such persons from Crimea to the Russian Federation, including those subject to criminal law measures;

– lift the ban on the Mejlis, which is contrary to international standards of freedom of association, and allow entry into Crimea for leaders of the Mejlis: Mustafa Dzhemiliev and Refat Chubarov;

– stop the persecution of, and pressure on, the Crimean Tatar People and the persons who represent them, including lawyers and human rights defenders.

Full text of PACE Resolution is available on a link:

 http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-EN.asp?fileid=24994&lang=en