Head of UN monitoring mission: Human rights situation in Crimea remains unchanged

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine continues to document the human rights violation and says there have been no improvements on the peninsula over the past ten months.

The mission has prepared already the second report on the situation in Crimea. This time, the human rights violations were documented for the period from September 13, 2017 until June 30, 2018.

"The human rights situation in Crimea has not changed. We continue to record human rights violations and we can say that no improvements have taken place on the peninsula over the past ten months," Fiona Frazer, the Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said in an interview with DT.UA.

"The international humanitarian law imposes a number of obligations on the Russian Federation as an occupying power. Thus, Russia must not apply its laws and impose its citizenship; residents of the occupied territory must not be forced to serve in the army of the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, this happens. Since 2014, according to official statistics, 12,000 Crimeans have been drafted into the Russian armed forces. In addition, the occupying power must not transfer detainees and prisoners from Crimea to the territory of the Russian Federation. However, the people detained or convicted before 2014 were moved to the territory of the Russian Federation in order to appear before the court or serve their sentence," Frazer notes.

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