Human Rights House Foundation statement
HRC59 – Item 10 – Interactive Dialogue – HC Ukraine
3 July 2025
Check against delivery.
We welcome the Secretary-General’s report and its detailed focus on the deteriorating situation in Crimea.
Over a decade of occupation has produced a near-total collapse of civic space in Crimea and what our partner the Crimean Human Rights Group calls a prison for the residents of the occupied territory.
Our partner ZMINA documented at least 47 new cases of pressure on professional and citizen journalists in Crimea between May 2024 and May 2025. Seventeen journalists remain political prisoners. Among them, Iryna Danylovych, Remzi Bekirov, Amet Suleimanov, and Tymur Ibrahimov require urgent medical care; Mr Bekirov is repeatedly confined to a punishment cell. We call on their immediate release.
Human rights lawyers and defenders are likewise targeted. Recent searches and disbarments of Crimean Tatar lawyers, and the closure or sanctioning of independent media exemplify Russia’s deliberate dismantling of fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.
We further note with alarm the Secretary General’s documentation of forced conscription and indoctrination of children, mass confiscation of property from Ukrainians who refuse Russian citizenship, and the continued denial of OHCHR and other independent monitors’ access to Crimea.
We highlight the report’s finding that such persecution is systematic and our Ukrainian partners now make a clear case for such persecution as amounting to a potential crime against humanity.
President.
We ask the High Commissioner, whether there are any remedies or reparations for the mass confiscation or property of Ukrainians in Crimea?
