On Friday, April 28, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published a regular Report (Concluding Observations) on Russia’s violations of the requirements of the relevant Convention of 1965, which clearly defines the crimes of the Russian Federation in Crimea:
– racial discrimination;
– repressions against indigenous peoples in Crimea;
– forced mobilization and conscription;
– destruction and damage to the cultural heritage of the Crimean Tatars;
– barriers to the use and study of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages;
– persecution of Mejlis and its members;
– repressions against human rights activists and journalists, and the like.
The lawyer, expert of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Borys Babin noted that the decisions of the Committee are not resolutions of international organizations, they are imperative, binding in nature and must be implemented in this context by all states parties to the Convention.
Borys Babin emphasized that the report directly stated the responsibility of the Russian Federation for violation of the 1965 Convention in all the territories of Ukraine occupied by it, in particular in the context of an armed conflict and including the activities of the Kremlin’s private military companies.
“The report qualified as racial discrimination against Ukrainians war crimes committed in the occupied territories, such as murders, extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detentions, mass and forced displacement and deportation of the population, including children, from the occupied areas. The Report also stated the impunity of these acts on the part of the Russian authorities and the failure of the government of the aggressor to provide assistance to their victims, that is, the systemic nature and totality of Russian racism”,- he added.
Moreover, the report paid special attention to the forced mobilization and conscription, in particular in the occupied territories, which disproportionately affects members of ethnic minorities, including indigenous peoples.
Recall that the Crimean Tatar Resource Center in the fall of 2022 was the first to start communication with international UN structures and an information campaign in Ukraine on these crimes.
What will the new report be useful for?
The expert Borys Babin notes that this document is important in the context of:
the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, the ECHR, etc., where the document will be taken into account
dialogue with neutral countries, because they cannot deny the conclusions of this document and are obliged to counteract the racists in power in the Kremlin.