History of the
Center of Civil Liberties
The Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) was founded in 2007 to promote the values of human rights
What is the Center for Civil Liberties? The Center for Civil Liberties has been actively working for the protection of human rights in Ukraine and the OSCE region for 15 years, and is a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The Center became the first human rights organization in the world, which in 2014 sent its own mobile teams to document war crimes in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. To this day, the Center for Civil Liberties continues to do this in all regions where crimes are committed by russian troops.
The Center for Civil Liberties also launched the “legal Maidan barricade” during the Revolution of Dignity – the Euromaidan SOS initiative. The organization united several thousand people and during all three months of the protest defended the participants persecuted by the authorities in various regions of the country.
Another result of the Center’s work is the global action Save Oleg Sentsov, which united thousands of people from about 40 countries in demonstrations for the release of the illegally imprisoned Ukrainian director. In the end, Oleg Sentsov was released along with 34 other political prisoners.
The main priority of the Center for Civil Liberties is the restoration of justice for all victims of war crimes. In addition to punishing those guilty of atrocities, the russian federation should be expelled from the UN Security Council for systematic violations of the charter. Russia has not been punished for previous crimes (in Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Syria, Libya, Mali, in other countries), and this prompts it to commit new evil with new force around the world.
Human rights defenders of the Center for Civil Liberties are convinced that sustainable peace is impossible without justice.
The Center for Civil Liberties has been actively working for the protection of human rights in Ukraine and the OSCE region for 15 years, and is a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The Center became the first human rights organization in the world, which in 2014 sent its own mobile teams to document war crimes in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. To this day, the Center for Civil Liberties continues to do this in all regions where crimes are committed by russian troops.
The Center for Civil Liberties also launched the “legal Maidan barricade” during the Revolution of Dignity – the Euromaidan SOS initiative. The organization united several thousand people and during all three months of the protest defended the participants persecuted by the authorities in various regions of the country.
Another result of the Center’s work is the global action Save Oleg Sentsov, which united thousands of people from about 40 countries in demonstrations for the release of the illegally imprisoned Ukrainian director. In the end, Oleg Sentsov was released along with 34 other political prisoners.
The main priority of the Center for Civil Liberties is the restoration of justice for all victims of war crimes. In addition to punishing those guilty of atrocities, the russian federation should be expelled from the UN Security Council for systematic violations of the charter. Russia has not been punished for previous crimes (in Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Syria, Libya, Mali, in other countries), and this prompts it to commit new evil with new force around the world.
Human rights defenders of the Center for Civil Liberties are convinced that sustainable peace is impossible without justice.
The main projects of the Center
In 2013, the Revolution of Dignity marked the beginning of an important stage for both the country and the Center for Civil Liberties. Then the Center launched the “Euromaidan SOS” initiative, which brought together thousands of people to provide legal and other assistance to the protestors persecuted by the then authorities.
In 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Center for Civil Liberties sent its own mobile teams to document war crimes. Since then, all these years, the Center has been collecting stories of people who survived captivity, stories from the families of those who suffered, as well as stories of those who witnessed war crimes.
The Center for Civil Liberties is also actively working to free all illegally enslaved Ukrainians. The #SaveOlegSentsov international campaign was one of the most successful examples of the advocacy work of the Center. Thousands of people in about 40 countries of the world simultaneously organized demonstrations with a common appeal to their governments to help release director Oleg Sentsov and other political prisoners. And these efforts worked.
After the full-scale invasion, the team of the Center for Civil Liberties, as one of the initiators of the “Tribunal for Putin” project, is concentrating on documenting war crimes. The goal is to collect data on Russian crimes for future trials together with partners in all regions of the country. Currently, there are almost 26,000 documented atrocities in the database. The initiative is actively working at the informational level to use mechanisms of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the EU and the International Criminal Court to punish guilty. However, there are so many crimes that Ukraine can’t deal with them all by itself. This means that an international tribunal is needed.
Other successful projects of the Center:
The OZON public monitoring group is an initiative of the Center for Civil Liberties, which carries out public monitoring of law enforcement agencies, courts and local self-government bodies in various regions of Ukraine.
Together with the Euromaidan SOS initiative, the Center for Civil Liberties created a map of disappearances, as a result of violent actions, of human right defenders, journalists, activists and representatives of local self-government bodies. Information on the state of pressure on civil society is constantly updated and supplemented.
Another successful case is the Kyiv School of Human Rights and Democracy (KSHR and D) This is a free educational platform of the Center for Civil Liberties, with which you can become a volunteer of the Central Civil Service, learn more about human rights or start a human rights activity.
And to support existing and create new human rights and public initiatives, the Kyiv Human Rights HUB works, where public organizations can learn and consult under the mentorship of the Center.
During the 15 years of activity of the Center for Civil Liberties, human rights defenders have been helped by volunteers. Thanks to them, it is possible to implement large projects for the protection of human rights and the defense of justice. And that’s why the Center launched its own award for volunteers — the Volunteer Award from the Euromaidan SOS initiative. This is an all-Ukrainian non-governmental award, which has been awarded for 9 years in a row for a special contribution to the development of the volunteer movement in Ukraine to “ordinary people who do extraordinary things.”
