Impunity for Human Rights Violations in Crimea: The Last Two Years and the Road Ahead
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Light refreshments will be served
Freedom House
1850 M Street NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20036
In the two years after Russia annexed Crimea, human rights and key democratic institutions have suffered dramatically in a crackdown that has affected nearly every facet of Crimean society including the media, civil society organizations, private businesses and religious groups. Accountability for these abuses is almost entirely absent.
Join us for a discussion with human rights defenders who have documented the unfolding human rights catastrophe in Crimea. The panelists will share their work representing efforts to monitor and document the situation on the ground and provide support to victims of human rights abuses.
The discussion will also address actions the United States and other governments, multilateral organizations, international organizations and civil society can take to hold human rights abusers accountable and address the ongoing implications for international peace, human rights and security in the region as a whole.
You can register here.
Introductory Remarks:
Mark P. Lagon
President
Freedom House
Robert Berschinski
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Panelists:
Alim Aliiev
Co-founder of Crimea SOS
Tetiana Pechonchyk
Head of the Board
Human Rights Information Center
Olga Skrypnyk
Head of Crimean Human Rights Group
Almenda
Participant Bios:
Alim Aliiev is a co-founder of Crimea SOS, an organization that started as a Facebook-civic group in February 2014 as the occupation of Crimea was under way. Crimea SOS now focuses on the realization and protection of the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and conflict-affected populations in Ukraine through social and humanitarian support, advocacy, and monitoring and documentation on human rights in Crimea. Mr. Aliiev is also a political scientist and media specialist, and has reported extensively on the occupation of Crimea, Crimean culture and social issues, and IDPs. In Lviv, Mr. Aliiev helped found Crimean House in Lviv, Ukraine, an organization aimed at maintaining and advancing Crimean Tatar culture.
Tetiana Pechonchyk is Head of the Board of the Human Rights Information Centre (HRIC), an organization which monitors and documents human rights abuses in Crimea and across the mainland Ukraine. Since March 2014 HRIC in close partnership with Ukrainian, Russian, and other human rights groups and activists had coordinated the work of the Crimean Human Rights Field Mission (CHRFM), the only permanent international monitoring mission from civil society being present in occupied Crimea. Ms. Pechonchyk also specializes in supporting media and journalists working in Crimea. In addition to her human rights work, Ms. Pechonchyk has worked as a journalist for a number of the national media outlets. She has a PhD degree with a thesis devoted to the freedom of speech study in the Ukrainian mass media discourse.
Olga Skrypnyk is Head of the Crimea Human Rights Group (CHRG) and Almenda, two initiatives focusing on supporting civil society in Crimea and promoting the observance and protection of human rights in Crimea by attracting wide attention to problems of human rights and international humanitarian law on the peninsula. Ms. Skrypnyk also serves as Head of the Public Council under the Ministry of Information Policy in Ukraine and formerly served as Senior Protection Assistant at UNHCR focusing on legal issues and IDPs. Ms. Skrypnyk has served as a senior lecturer on history, legal studies, and pedagogy at Crimean University for the Humanities in Yalta, and has led and been involved in several civic initiatives in Crimea, including the Docudays human rights film festival, human rights education initiatives, and independent media development.
