The U.S. State Department issued its annual report on human rights on March 30.
The 45th edition of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices reflects the unique challenges that nations had to confront as the COVID-19 virus spread throughout the world, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a statement.
“Ongoing rights abuses cause untold damage well beyond the borders of any single country; unchecked human rights abuses anywhere can contribute to a sense of impunity everywhere,” Blinken said.
“Recognizing that there is work to be done at home, we are also striving to live up to our highest ideals and principles and are committed to working toward a fairer and more just society in the United States.”
The State Department identified significant problems in Ukraine, especially abuse by Ukrainian law enforcement.
“The government generally failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity. Human rights groups and the United Nations noted significant deficiencies in investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed by government security forces,” the report says.
Law enforcement
According to the report, Ukraine’s security forces committed arbitrary killings, torture and cruel treatment of detainees, and arbitrary detentions.
Ukrainian law enforcement greatly restricts free expression, the press, and the internet. Some journalists suffer violence, threats of violence, unjustified arrests, prosecution, censorship, and blocking of websites at the hands of the security services.
According to the report, Ukraine has life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers. Judiciary independence is severely lacking. There are serious problems with corruption, lack of investigations of violence against women, violence motivated by anti-Semitism, violence targeting persons with disabilities, members of ethnic minority groups and LGBTQ+ persons, and the worst forms of child labor.
The State Department cites media reports accusing officials of arbitrary or unlawful killings. One case concerns guards who killed an inmate in Vinnytsya Prison.
The report also sounded the alarm about police abuse of detainees. Law enforcement officials torture people in custody to obtain confessions like in Kharkiv Oblast’s Oleksyyivska correctional colony No. 25, where inmates were reportedly tortured and raped.
The report mentions the fate of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent Belarusian-Russian journalist and victim of alleged abuse by law enforcement, who was assassinated with a car bomb in Kyiv in 2016. In 2019, police arrested three suspects in connection with his killing, all of whom had previous military experience as volunteers in the conflict with Russian-led forces.
The report also refers to the fatal acid attack against public activist Kateryna Handziuk in 2018. The attack was allegedly ordered by local authorities, including the Kherson regional legislature, head of the Kherson Oblast Council Vladyslav Manger, and a suspected accomplice, Oleksiy Levin.
According to the report, Ukraine law enforcement achieved little success in investigating the crimes committed during the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to Russian exile on Feb. 22, 2014.
“The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) noted little progress had been made in investigating the killings, and the cases that have reached the courts continued to be delayed,” the report states.
“The HRMMU did not note any progress in the investigation and legal proceedings in connection with the 2014 trade union building fire in Odesa that stemmed from violent clashes between pro-Russian and Ukrainian unity demonstrators. During the clashes and fire, 48 persons died. Pandemic-related restrictions exacerbated trial delays.”
Press freedom
The non-governmental organization Freedom House rated the country’s press as “partly free,” the report says. The authors praised independent media outlets and criticized private TV channels for serving the interests of their oligarchic owners.
“Privately owned media, particularly television channels, the most successful of which were owned by influential oligarchs, often provided readers and viewers a ‘biased pluralism,’ representing the views of their owners and providing favorable coverage of their allies and criticism of political and business rivals,” the report says.
“The 10 most popular television stations were owned by businessmen whose primary business was not in media. Independent media had difficulty competing with major outlets that operated with oligarchic subsidies.”
Violence against journalists remains a problem. According to the authors, “government authorities sometimes participated in and condoned attacks on journalists.”
“Media professionals continued to experience pressure from the Security Service, the military, police, and other officials when reporting on sensitive issues.”
Among the journalists who suffered from the police the report names Bohdan Kutyepov, a journalist with Hromadske media outlet. On April 29, a police officer beat Kutyepov, pushed him to the ground, and broke his media equipment while he was live-streaming anti-quarantine protests taking place in front of a government building.
Investigative journalists from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Schemes program were victims of numerous attacks, according to the report. One of them is Mykhailo Tkach, who found alleged evidence of wiretapping in his apartment.
Shortly after, Schemes’ car was set on fire.
Schemes journalists believe the attacks were in response to their critique of President Zelensky and investigative reporting on high-level corruption. Police started an investigation, and the case gained media attention. As of October, no arrests have been made.
In January, another RFE/RL journalist, Halyna Tereshchuk, was attacked. Her car was set on fire in Lviv. In February the Security Service detained a 19-year-old believed to be responsible for the attack, and in August a police officer was arrested and charged with being complicit in the crime.
“There were allegations the government prosecuted journalists in retaliation for their work,” the report goes on, “Government officials sought to pressure journalists through the law enforcement system, often to reveal their sources in investigations.”
The State Bureau for Investigation summoned television anchor Yanina Sokolova and chief editor of the Censor.Net news platform Yuriy Butusov for questioning. The two reported on a secret operation by the Ukrainian security service that failed due to a leak from the President’s Office.
Other journalists were also threatened for their reporting, according to the State Department.
Kateryna Serhatskova, a journalist and co-founder of the online platform Zaborona (Prohibition), left the country, claiming she received death threats after she had published an article detailing alleged links between leaders of violent radical groups and the directors of Stop-Fake.org, a project by the nonprofit Media Reforms Center, aimed at stopping the dissemination of false information about the country.
“According to Serhatskova, police refused to open an investigation into the threats against her, prompting her lawyer to appeal to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, which opened an investigation in July. As of November, the investigation continued,” the report says.
Corruption
“While the number of reports of government corruption was low, corruption remained pervasive at all levels in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government,” the authors of the report believe.
The report acknowledges the creation of the High Anti-Corruption Court, which started its work in September 2019, completing Ukraine’s system of corruption-fighting institutions, which also includes the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Special Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
However, “despite their successes, the new independent anti-corruption bodies faced political pressure from anti-reform elites and oligarchs that undermined public trust, raised concern about the government’s commitment to fighting corruption, and threatened the viability of the institutions.”
“Since the inception of the anti-corruption infrastructure, various political actors attempted to embed loyal agents in the institutions through legislative changes and political leverage over selection procedures or to dissolve them altogether.”
The Constitutional Court crisis, which gained momentum in October 2020, has been very damaging to Ukraine’s anti-corruption infrastructure.
“From August to October, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional certain provisions of the National Anticorruption Bureau law, a presidential decree to appoint the bureau’s director, and certain provisions of the anti-corruption legislation that established the country’s asset declaration system for public officials. The court was also reviewing the constitutionality of the High Anticorruption Court law and several other reform laws,” the report reads.
“The controversial ruling reversed a key anti-corruption reform and led the president and parliament to call for the dissolution of the Constitutional Court, describing it as a threat to the country’s sovereignty and national security. In December parliament passed legislation reinstating the asset declaration system, and President Zelensky later endorsed it.”
Domestic violence
Abuse of women has worsened due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the report.
“In the first six months of the year, police received 101,000 domestic violence complaints, which is a 40 percent increase compared with the same period in 2019. Spousal abuse was common. The HRMMU reported the spread of COVID-19 and the implementation of quarantine measures exacerbated the situation,” the report reads.
“According to the NGO La Strada, quarantine restrictions made it difficult for victims of domestic violence to receive help. From mid-March to early May–the period during which the most severe quarantine restrictions were in place–human rights groups noted a decrease in the responsiveness of police officers to cases of domestic violence. Victims faced increased difficulty in accessing domestic violence shelters due to the requirement to obtain a hospital certificate declaring they were not infected with COVID-19 before the shelters would provide social services.”
The conflict in the Donbas has also “led to a surge in violence against women across the country in recent years,” the report states, citing La Strada.
“Human rights groups attributed the increase in violence to post-traumatic stress experienced by IDPs fleeing the conflict and by soldiers returning from combat. IDPs reported instances of rape and sexual abuse; many said they fled areas controlled by Russia-led forces because they feared sexual abuse.”
The Donbas
The war that Russia unleashed in eastern Ukraine has claimed the lives of over 13,200 people.
“In the Russia-instigated and fueled conflict in the Donbas region, Russia-led forces reportedly engaged in unlawful or arbitrary killings of civilians, including extrajudicial killings; forced disappearances and abductions; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” according to the report.
Other significant human rights issues include harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, problems with judicial independence, and restrictions on free expression, the press and the internet.
Russian-appointed authorities in occupied parts of Donbas impose severe restrictions on freedom of religion, movement and political participation.
‘In the Russia-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported after interviewing 56 released detainees that torture and mistreatment of detainees were systematic during the initial stage of detention, which could last up to a year,” the report reads.
“The vast majority reported being subjected to some form of mistreatment, including beatings; electric shocks; sexual violence; asphyxiation; removal of teeth and nails; mock execution; deprivation of water, food, sleep or sanitation facilities; and threats of violence against family members.”
“The Russian government controlled the level of violence in eastern Ukraine, intensifying it when it suited its political interests. Russia continued to arm, train, lead, and fight alongside forces in the ‘DPR’ and the ‘LPR.’”
Local residents are continuing to disappear.
“According to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Russia-led forces held 235 Ukrainian hostages in the Donbas region as of mid-August. Human rights groups reported that Russia-led forces routinely kidnapped persons for political purposes, to settle vendettas, or for ransom. The HRMMU repeatedly expressed concern about ‘preventive arrest’ procedures used in the ‘LPR’ and ‘DPR’ since 2018, which it assessed amounted to incommunicado detention and “may constitute enforced disappearance,” the report says.
“In the Donbas region, Russia-led forces suppressed freedom of speech and the press through harassment, intimidation, abductions, and assaults on journalists and media outlets. They also prevented the transmission of Ukrainian and independent television and radio programming in areas under their control.”
The authors of the report also note that the Kremlin-sponsored authorities in the occupied Donbas closed almost all of the checkpoints along the contact line, isolating the residents.
“As a result, thousands were separated from their families and lost access to quality health care, pensions, social protection, and employment. Women and elderly persons, who comprised the majority of those crossing before the COVID-19 lockdown, were particularly affected,” the report reads.
Pro-Russian militant forces weren’t the only ones accused of mistreating detainees.
“In government-controlled territory, the HRMMU continued to receive allegations that the Security Service of Ukraine detained and abused individuals in both official and unofficial places of detention in order to obtain information and pressure suspects to confess or cooperate. The HRMMU did not report any cases of conflict-related torture in government-controlled territory that occurred, but suspected such cases were underreported because victims often remained in detention or were afraid to report abuse due to fear of retaliation or lack of trust in the justice system.”
Crimea
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in February 2014. Ever since it has persecuted the population of the peninsula.
Among human rights violations by the occupation authorities, the report cites forced disappearances, torture, and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, including punitive psychiatric incarceration by Russia or Russian-led “authorities.”
The occupants impose arbitrary arrests on nonconformists, political prisoners or detainees and send prisoners to Russia.
Other abuses include serious restrictions on free expression and the press, arrests or prosecutions against journalists, censorship, and website blocking.
Persecution against Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of Crimea, as well as ethnic Ukrainians, are ongoing. Freedoms of religion, peaceful assembly and association are severely restricted, according to the report. Local citizens cannot carry out their right to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections.
The travel between mainland Ukraine and Crimea was also restricted by the occupation authorities due to coronavirus.
