War and human rights
Vitaly Portnikov: Human rights and the war – it would seem, no concepts more mutually exclusive, although for centuries, even during the war, people are trying to establish some rules of conduct so as not to slip into the absolute savagery. But here’s human rights and hybrid warfare, hybrid world, uncertain legal status, a situation where the people themselves the territories involved in the conflict do not understand in what world they are … What is there can make human rights activists?
We were invited to the Kiev studio of Radio Liberty programs coordinator for the Russian Center for Documentation named Natali Estemirovoy Stanislav Dmitrievsky and head of the Center for Civil Liberties Alexander Matveichuk – Russian human rights activist and Ukrainian human rights activist, who are now engaged in this issue, important for the society of the two countries, of course, if these societies in the future they want to overcome the effects of the nightmare in which we all are.
I know you have just recently conducted one of these projects, trying to understand what is happening to human rights in the occupied territories of Russian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. To summarize your findings, what is the situation today?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: I would like to recall a very simple thing, which, nevertheless, have to constantly talk – about the two types of rights that people for some reason are very often confused. There are so-called law of the country and the state to protect against aggression – the right associated with the territorial integrity and its protection. In this sense, of course, Ukraine, being in his own right, to protect its territorial integrity and lead a military operation in the East. And there is another side – it is international humanitarian law, which must abide by both sides, regardless of whether they believe this war just or unjust, whether they are victims of aggression or its initiators.
Violation of humanitarian law, as happens in any war, committing both parties to the conflict. Our task as human rights – to do everything possible to avoid a climate of impunity. The difference is really only one thing: if all the gigantic problems that are now experiencing the Ukrainian state, there still exists the right legal framework by which we can while working, to change something (to achieve, for example, the release of illegally detained persons), then on the territory of the unrecognized breakaway republics of this legal framework is not at all, which significantly complicates the execution of such missions.
Alexander Matveichuk: Of course, we do not measure the human rights as a percentage. Regardless of what these rights are, we will always stand on the side of the victim have been violated. But it must be said about the difference between the scope of such activities. Studies that have been carried out, including our human rights organization show that the occupied part of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics from the very beginning of the occupation, that is, for many months in a forced, deliberate policy was implemented terror against the civilian population in the first place on the basis of their political views. That is to get into the basement and to be subjected to ill-treatment, torture and extrajudicial executions could only be for the fact that at one time you were a member of pro-Ukrainian rallies that once you say something, and the neighbors called the hotline and was told. This terror
Vitaly Portnikov: it is clear to me that the Russian human rights activists, to put it mildly, not the most desirable category of persons, which is ready to deal with power. We see the law on “foreign agents” and their constant defamation in the media controlled by the Russian government. In Ukraine, I also noticed lately some irritation over reports of human rights, whether they are doing international organizations or local human rights activists. It is clear: the country wants to look better than it is, under the conditions in which it is difficult to be crystal clear. How do you overcome these challenges?
Alexander Matveichuk: It is natural that in times of war increases the level of radicalization, the threshold of tolerance towards violence also becomes very high, the society is polarized: there are enemies, is “our”. We as a civil initiative (including “euromaidan the SOS”, which I also represent) are constantly trying to remind the public that one of the requirements euromaidan was – “Human Rights First” Now the challenge before us It is very difficult in war.. even on a symbolic level, the level of our words and thoughts, but we have to implement in practice. The problem is, it is natural for all the companies that are in a state of armed conflict, it is necessary to work.
Vitaly Portnikov: Stanislav, reflecting on your experience, I think that you are in a difficult situation, even from a legal perspective. Take the example of Chechnya – there is always a human rights activists tried to protect the rights of people who are illegally detained, disappeared, got in some court cases on spurious pretexts, or under the same denunciations. Nevertheless citizenship institute was obvious, transparent – there were Russian citizens. Even in the short period of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was not designed so that it was impossible to classify these people as the Russian citizens. In the case of Donbass and the Crimea Institute for Citizenship is in a mixed state. There are people who themselves qualify as citizens of Ukraine, and they qualify as Russian citizens and citizens of the DNI. A beautiful story with film director Olegom Sentsovym, who believes that he is a citizen of Ukraine, Russia and spur of the moment considers as its citizen, because he could not renounce Russian citizenship, because he was detained at the time when he had a legal possibility. How to get out of such situations?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: There is a way. Of course, they are not as straightforward as, for example, in Chechnya. But there are criteria for effective control. Of course, we do not recognize the annexation of Crimea legitimate, the international community does not recognize the Russian human rights community does not recognize, but regardless of this, Russia exercises effective control over the territory. They’ve got their own police, its own prosecutors, its courts. In this case Russia will be responsible for all human rights obligations, including if we are talking about the complaints in the European Court of Human Rights .
More difficult situation in the Donbass, because it is not just about proving the fact of aggression, as set forth in the relevant UN documents. There’s a large-scale infiltration of gangs is enough to raise the question of aggression, but there is still the question of effective control. To prove that the authorities of the breakaway republics are effectively controlled by the Russian Federation and, therefore, the Russian Federation as a state is responsible for the fate of these people – I believe that it is a challenge, a task that, including in the European courts, must decide right now the human rights community : both the Russian and Ukrainian.
Alexander Matveichuk: Incidentally, we are taking the first steps towards this. The UN Committee on Human Rights Two months ago, I considered Russia’s obligations in the light of its compliance with international human rights standards. And we, as a Ukrainian human rights organization, was sent to your application. We have tried to justify the arguments, referring to the sources and the evidence that was collected by our field missions, which Russia exercises effective and total control of the territory, as well as coordinating the military operations against the Ukrainian army. Despite the fact that at the meeting of the UN Committee was surprised my presentation (to me the word has been given on behalf of the Ukrainian human rights community, I was talking about the Crimea and pro Donbass), in the final recommendations of the Committee thought of Donbas in a very diplomatic manner. This is the signal for the Russian Federation that even such unwieldy and very bureaucratic structures such as the UN,
There is another important point – this can never be done by the efforts of civil society only. It is the task of the Ukrainian authorities – to gather evidence of Russian aggression, demonstrate effective control. And here I unfortunately have to say that the work, as always, being ineffective, there is no single center. On all of our recommendations that it should be created, to be debugged system of gathering information, analyzing it, save photos and videos, we do not get proper answers. I very much fear that, when the war is over (as it will ever be over anyway), this issue is a factor of war crimes will be put in this light that we do not have any evidence, nor, consequently, the victims and the perpetrators.
Vitaly Portnikov: Maybe the parties are generally not very interested in how to document things that can interfere with the negotiation process?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: This element is always the case in any conflict. Still, it seems to me that, according to the documents, which are published officially accepted Rada, for the official position, as far as I could see her here, the state officially declares the need. On the other hand, I have the impression that the lion’s share of the work that should make the state, makes civil society. It’s amazing to us in Russia is not even dream! I believe that there is a civil society can not only help the state that is trying to do to become a democratic and goes to Europe. In Russia, it has long been a fig leaf, and here is the desire to eat, and the human rights community has much to teach the state. Here really have a chance.
Alexander Matveichuk: I want to give a specific example, that we understand the scale of the disaster. Everyone has heard about Slavyansk, it is quite a long time for people who have been in his basement, it was under occupation. Immediately after his release went to our mobile team “euromaidan SOS”. The basement was open. Members of the mobile teams have seen that all lying on the floor, that the basement wash some utilities. Our lawyer has been in the mobile group, she saw some documents. She realized that, if it just does not gather them on the floor, they disappear. It turned out to be death sentences signed by almost Strelkov (Igor Girkin)And lists of pro-Ukrainian activists in the Donbas. After we passed these documents, we rang round all these people say, be careful, you’re on the list. This is to ensure that no members of the mobile teams of civil society organizations were to withdraw these documents, and state agencies.
Vitaly Portnikov: It is important to understand how, in principle, the people behave in similar areas, because there is no guarantee that the front line (now stable delineation line) will be stable for a long time. People who feel the attention of repressive structures, is also very difficult in this situation. How capable the human rights community to provide assistance to such people?
Alexander Matveichuk: This is a big challenge for the human rights community, we were not ready for him. But a year has passed, we gradually adapt. We have formed a coalition to document war crimes in the Donbas, we are now talking about the free legal reception, which returned to the place previously occupied, and before that it acted enjoyed authority. And we’re talking about, accompanied by cases in international courts, because right now, seeing the level of the investigation, it is not necessary to talk about its effectiveness.
A striking example – Ivan Reznichenko, killed a policeman from Soledar, whose body was found by his friend, who organized their own investigation in a few months. his body showed the man, who identified himself as involved in the murder of Ivan. Recently, he was released on bail, the case is artificially inhibited, and relatives are constant threats, including from local law enforcement agencies.
Vitaly Portnikov: Stanislav, with the Ukrainian state is clear, it is in such a state as it is, somewhere it is replaced by a society where, it acts itself … But if he understands that he is dealing with its own citizens, which should be protected? It can do it or not – is another question. And with the Russian state is much more difficult, if we are talking about the citizens of the Russian Federation, then the official services comes just a screeching halt, as happened with those soldiers, which the Russian Federation has not yet been considered by Russian and attempts by them as citizens of the refuse. We can say that the Russian consul met with the two men formed only under the pressure of public opinion. What to do?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: Frankly, I do not know. I have not cherish any illusions here. In Russia, it is clear who the “fifth column”, “enemies of the people”. We all joke that “fifth column” came to the meeting with the other four at our conference. But still, despite all the horror, all this reaction, in which we have fallen after losing our unfinished “Snow Revolution” 2011-12 years, some public pressure tools of social influence are preserved. You are quite right to say about these two soldiers – have refused them the native state, which they have served, and the company has managed to pull this topic. No one knows what will happen to us tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. Do what you must, and the rest is in God’s hands. You just need to do their job, no matter what.
Vitaly Portnikov: I have a feeling that the Russian state structures do not act as State organs, even when it is their direct responsibility – that’s the problem. Here the question is not even ideology and functioning.
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: This and all other areas of the case. I’m in his native Nizhny Novgorod, is involved in activities to protect cultural heritage. I do not see the state, I do not see bodies to perform their functions. I come here, I see a huge level of problems, but I was jealous because I understand that this is a problem of a completely different level. There is political will, the desire, there is a civil society. I do not know how much we still have to go before that. But we still work together, although there is a huge propaganda force, aiming to ensure that we have to separate, to divide. I friends say, “How are you to ride?” I say, “Well now eat me, probably to be crucified.” Certainly I laugh. Nevertheless, we are working together.
Alexander Matveichuk: In this situation of detainees gereushnikami is an important aspect interesting. This Monday I went to see them with our Russian colleague, a human rights activist. We have been working together, there are values that unite us. Human rights have no borders.
Vitaly Portnikov: You also do talk to them?
Alexander Matveichuk: Yes.
Vitaly Portnikov: How do these people feel themselves?
Alexander Matveichuk: They have no complaints about the content, they are totally shallow that they are being tortured, as it says is now the General Staff of the Russian Federation. They have one request, and it is very revealing: they want to get in touch with their families, and their Consul said that a month can not find a wife of Sergeant. He is very worried, why so much time Russian consulate is unable to establish contact with her.
Vitaly Portnikov: In my opinion, this woman was interviewed, he said he was discharged from the armed forces. She found great employees of the Russian TV channels.
Alexander Matveichuk: There is another important point. Detainees gereushnikov was me, a Ukrainian human rights activist, and our colleague – Russian human rights activist. And our Ukrainian citizens who are detained for political reasons pronounced in Russia, did the spies, “right sector” , saboteurs, terrorists, and they even Ukrainian Consul can not get for months. Nikolai Karpyuk – 14 months, Stanislav Klich – 8. It has recently been an alarming statement by a lawyer Savchenko Ili Nadezhda Novikova that he does not know whether Nicholas Karpyuk alive, just such a long time to it no one is allowed.
Vitaly Portnikov: This, incidentally, was in recent history with two Ukrainian citizens, young people, who were detained at the Russian-Ukrainian border, in one of the border towns, it was almost the students. They are very long kept imprisoned in Russia on a completely trumped-up charges, they barely pulled out.
Alexander Matveichuk: During the year! The first three months they were held in defiance of a court decision on deportation. And they are not just kept – tortured them. They were taken to the woods, beaten. The incident is now present at our joint conference. Before that we worked on this briefcase, he is well known to me. But I personally have heard of it, why one of them was forced to open his veins, and the second – to cut his stomach. They just realized that they would be killed in a specific time. They wanted to get to the hospital to stop the torture and abuse.
Vitaly Portnikov: This is a very striking example of what can happen with the Russian penal system, when it is faced with the Ukrainian crisis. You agree that such explicit complaints still in Russia recorded very rarely.
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: If you exclude Chechnya, Dagestan. There’s just a stream. The worst thing – is now at the conference there was talk in the Crimea, were human rights activists working there, and I see that the methods that have been developed, tested, and found widespread in Chechnya, begin to be gradually introduced in the Crimea – thank God, not yet on the same scale, but it is a very frightening trend. Crimea on the background of all other regions (they believe that it is the Russian state) is gradually drifting to the Chechen side, I mean, enforced disappearances, killings and torture. You just have to be ready for it. Yet there can not find some of the people responsible for torture brought to justice for the killings. It is still good, because in Chechnya, it is in principle impossible. But everything is there.
Alexander Matveichuk: I remind you that a huge number of missing in the Crimea (the figure was named Elloy Pamfilovoy , the Human Rights Commissioner in the Russian Federation) Human rights defenders need to tell, at least about 9 of them, who went on a pronounced political motives – eg , members of the “Ukrainian house”. Time of the abduction of one of them was recorded on video, which gives us the opportunity to say that it was made of the Crimean “self-defense”. The whereabouts of these people is unknown. Regarding torture can bring a bright example of the latter case Alexander Kostenko, who was named the most important thing a dictator of the Crimean branch of “Freedom” , and she Poklonskaya I read out the horrific for each lawyer and the prosecution lawyer. Just listen to what evidence operates the main Crimean prosecutor – and understandable farce and absurdity of the whole situation.
Vitaly Portnikov: Poklonskaya – Yanukovych ward system – what wonder that it is all the principles of the system suffered in the Crimea?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: The feeling of a friend Wyszynski , and even caricature.
Alexander Matveichuk: It should be noted that during the trial the lawyer Dmitry Sotnikov has repeatedly said that his client had been tortured, but that request was rejected and not considered. We have other examples – black and Afanasyev, who are in the case of so-called “Crimean terrorists” is Oleg Sentsov, which we remembered. So, they admitted their guilt, now have 7 years of the colony. The court session was held behind closed doors. But we know that they complained of torture. Later, they were afraid to take the other lawyers, except those assigned to the State Service of the Russian Federation. One of them contained even in a psychiatric hospital for a while, but now they are serving a 7-year sentence.
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: This is a common practice. Indeed, with regard to allegations of torture, all without exception, Russian courts have rejected these claims. Organization “Committee against Torture” , with which I work, which is now also declared a “foreign agent”, managed in 15 years to prosecute about 115 law enforcement personnel. Proving torture – generally a difficult matter, and when the investigation is opposed to it … We had cases when it was possible to bring to justice after 7 years, 6 years. For example, the famous case of Mikheyev – the criminal case was stopped 20 times, and each time the lawyers appealed the decision of the Committee. This is a very long struggle. But now the situation is deteriorating. If earlier we watched as annoying flies, now – both overt enemies.
Vitaly Portnikov: After the law on “foreign agents” will be the human rights movement in Russia?
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: Law on “foreign agents” – is not the worst. By the way, I am very pleased that the human rights community to boycott it almost unanimously, no one volunteered himself the star is not sewn. But now we adopted another law on the “undesirable organizations”, which, as I understand it, is intended to announce such …
Vitaly Portnikov: Anyone who fails to declare a “foreign agents.”
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: … foreign organizations, that is, funds from which we get the funding, our partners, and to criminalize it. Of course, I think that this will complicate the matter. Gradually comes to reformat the human rights movement in a movement of civil resistance. Perhaps there all this will drift.
Alexander Matveichuk: There are examples in other countries, which also started with a similar law, and ended up in the summer of last year jail all human rights – I mean Azerbaijan. The problem is that the legislation, which is now accepted in Russia, especially in the field of taxation, provides the potential for public authorities for some time to accumulate evidence and then put human rights defenders are not under political articles, and present to the public that they are just fighting for your pocket. Including a huge propaganda machine, and the people who now live in poverty, of course, will not be sympathetic to this concern. The situation is very worrying, we are very worried about our Russian colleagues.
Vitaly Portnikov: We was not very optimistic program, because it is unclear how to get out of all situations, at least, how to prove that not only the organization, but also ordinary people become targets of repression, pressure objects. If those areas that should be the object of attention of human rights organizations, the authority of law and human rights protection itself is so low, how to get out of this situation before the end of the conflict?
Alexander Matveichuk: I’ll start with a joke. We were at the conference were to arrive on the same flight several dozen Russian human rights activists, and the flight was canceled. We do not associate it with the conference. A colleague of ours, which in Soviet times was a dissident, said: “You do not know the underground practitioner How did you hit upon the idea of all invited to sit on an airplane.?”
Vitaly Portnikov: Because they thought it was underground.
Alexander Matveichuk: Yes. I mean, you do not need to reinvent the wheel. History repeats itself, and there is what you need to do. We as “euromaidan SOS” addressed to people who, while living in the Crimea, are engaged in public activities, or have their own independent position, with the suggestion that they began to study and implement in their daily life safety practices: information, legal, physical. Have accumulated an arsenal of techniques, they do not save, do not give an absolute guarantee, but significantly reduces the risk and make the price of attacks on individual higher.
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: With this activity we are also engaged in a long time, is the protection of human rights defenders. Of course, no one can guarantee. Now you can go to the wonderful Kiev, and on the head of a brick will fall …
Vitaly Portnikov: You know, drop a brick on his head and some deliberate action structures, which should be a law – it is not the same thing.
Stanislav Dmitrievsky: Just probability … of course, we will do our best to anticipate these probabilities.
Alexander Matveichuk: I want to make an optimistic note in our program. Still, despite all the difficulties that are now fighting Ukraine, – the war that Russia started occupying the Crimea, and then launch a hybrid war through their proxy agents of the DNI, LC in the east, to the fact that reforms in the area of human rights man do not go with us as quickly and effectively as we would like – in spite of all this, we are seeing a huge rise of civil society. Create hundreds of different initiatives at different levels, which, in fact, carry out public functions. It gives us an opportunity to look ahead optimistically. Our society is now much stronger than the state apparatus.
Vitaly Portnikov: I think it’s something that should inspire hope, and something that will help, anyway, rehabilitation Donetsk and Lugansk regions and the Crimea in the future, when the law will be restored in those areas where human rights would not work, and the ordinary life of every citizen living there. Although this is true of all the Russians, and not only the inhabitants of these regions.
Sourse, 07/06/2015
