Human rights issues in the Ukraine

In this blog I will go through a brief history of the situation in Ukraine and state the article of the Universal Declaration of human rights that has been violated.

After the fall of the USSR in 1991 Ukraine was considered a “free” state by western organizations observing the country. However, after the election Viktor Yanukovych in 2010 the country has received the label “partly free”. This is due to the increase in police mistreatments, restrictions on assembly and free speech and xenophobic activities by the government. The public unrest finally peaked when the president shimmied away from a deal to join the EU and decided to side with Russia. Protest ensued in the country and the Euromaiden movement was formed. This caused mass protest so the government changed the law to make any protest illegal.

·         Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression

·         Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association

The result of the protest was 15,000 injured 98 dead and 100 “missing”. Missing implies being captured by the police, being tortured and being killed as that is a common trend in the Ukraine

·         Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

·         Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Meanwhile, in Crimea former Russians attempted to separate from the Ukraine and Russia brought in its troops. To make it “official” a election was made. It was not monitored outside the local so it is sure to have been fixed.

·         Article 21.  (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

A civil war has erupted in the southern and eastern part of the country. Pro-Russian militias continue to terrorize the population. There have been over 100,000 refugees leaving violent areas and hundreds people have been killed. There are very many human rights violations that occur during war so I will not list them all here. However, hopefully it can be appreciated that once looking at the order in which human rights are broken a chain reaction can be seen. First the right to assemble then the right to speech is taken. This can go on to disastrous results. Humans right violations must stop in their tracks in order to prevent further violation.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/ukraine