Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 29th Feb. UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine on Wednesday published a new report documented serious rights violations and infringements of humanitarian law in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The report indicated the violations have persisted over a decade of occupation by Russian forces, with Moscow unlawfully imposing citizenship requirements, laws and institutions “across all spheres of life, suppressing opposition and dissent”, the mission said in a press release.
It revealed Russian efforts to restrict civic space and limit fundamental freedoms. Crimean Tatar leaders, perceived as opposing occupation or Russian policies, have been particularly impacted.
The report said that those Tatars who fled the peninsula have been barred from returning while many Russians have been resettled in Crimea in a bid to change the demographics of the region.
UN monitoring mission head Danielle Bell said “Over the past decade, we have documented efforts by the Russian Federation to impose the Russian language, culture and institutional framework on Crimea, while at the same time taking actions to erase the peninsula’s rich cultural, linguistic and religious heritage”.
The report said any opposition has been met with harsh reprisals with some subjected to rights violations, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture.
Ms. Bell said that the findings are “not only alarming, but they are also a grim harbinger of the devastating and lasting impact Russian occupation may have on other occupied regions of Ukraine.”
