Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada discusses issue of Internally Displaced Persons
The Parliamentary hearings on the issue of internally displaced people from the occupied Donbas region took place in the session hall of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on 17th of February. The representatives of state authorities, local authorities, human rights organizations and the public participated in the meeting. The issue surrounding the reasonability of blocking the occupied territories was raised among others at the Parliamentary hearings.
As stated by the head of the Crimean Human Rights Group, Olga Skrypnyk, the full blockage of occupied territories is unacceptable.
”The development of Ukraine as a State should be built on three main values – human life, human dignity and human rights. Crimea and the Donbas aren’t only an integral part of Ukraine; they are people and citizens of Ukraine. In this regard, legislative initiatives which provide full blockages of these territories are unacceptable. In the decision making process, the representatives of the executive and legislative branches should make a clear distinction between the occupation authorities and the people of Ukraine who found themselves in the occupied territories. Ukraine has to create mechanisms for the protection and implementation of the constitutional rights of citizens in the territory under its control,” Skrypnyk stated at the Parliamentary hearings.
On the 8th of December 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a decree to hold Parliamentary hearings on the 17th of February 2016, on the subject of “State observation of rights on the internal displacement of people and citizens of Ukraine residing in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and territory which is out of Ukrainian authorities’ control in the area of anti-terrorist operations.”
According to the operational information from the Interagency Coordinating Headquarters, as of the 23rd of December, 1,010,032 people, including 21,636 people from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, were resettled from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine to other regions of the country.