Ukraine urges PACE to avoid restoring Russia's membership due to repressions of Crimean Tatars
The Ukrainian delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) appealed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland and PACE President Liliane Maury Pasquier in connection with the detention of around 20 Crimean Tatars by the Russian authorities of annexed Crimea. They requested to use the existing mechanisms to protect the rights of the indigenous people of the peninsula and to stop efforts to restore Russian delegation to the PACE, reports Interfax-Ukraine.
“We ask the leaders of the Council of Europe to use the existing mechanisms in the organization to protect the rights of the indigenous people of the peninsula, and demand to stop all attempts to unconditionally restore the Russian delegation to PACE due to Russia’s continuous violation of the rules of law and human rights, which the Council of Europe should defend within its statutory objectives, ”wrote on his Facebook page the chairman of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE, MP from the Petro Poroshenko Block, Volodymyr Aryev.
According to him, Ukrainian delegation sent a similar appeal to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dune Miyatović.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation to the PACE also published on his page an appeal to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the PACE President.
On March 27, Russian security forces detained at least 20 people during searches in the houses of the Crimean Tatars in the annexed Simferopol.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine sent a protest note. Kyiv expressed particular concern that the Russian authorities again chose the so-called “Hizb ut-Tahrir case” as a pretext for searches, which had already been used to fabricate cases against the Crimean Tatar activists and ensure their further convictions.
The Russian delegation to the PACE has been deprived of its powers since 2014. During the meetings on October 9, 2018, and in 2017, the PACE did not return Russia’s right to vote and postponed this issue until 2019.