International group of human rights activists visit occupied Crimea

"The activity of the mission in Crimea was quite intensive. Over the past four days, the group managed to hold about 20 meetings, attended by about fifty people: victims of human rights violations in Crimea, relatives of political prisoners, lawyers, activists, journalists who work there. We managed to gather a fairly large array of information," chair of the board of the Human Rights Information Center Tetiana Pechonchyk said at a press conference, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The visit of representatives of the Human Rights Houses from Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine to the occupied Crimea took place on September 14-18. The human rights mission focused on the issues related to freedom of speech, peaceful assemblies and association as well as persecution of human rights activists and civic activists in Crimea.

"One of the goals was to test a possibility of making visits to Crimea in accordance with national legislation and to estimate the access from the Russian side, including possible obstacles for human rights defenders," the human rights defender added.

Pechonchyk specified that a detailed follow up report would be made public in October.

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