Women of the world are fighting for the possibility to safely travel alone, unaccompanied by men. This right is practically devoid of women in the «Lugansk People's Republic» and «Donetsk People's Republic».
In the summer 2014, a student, who was hitchhiking alone, became a prisoner of the Cossacks. She reported her story to the documenters of Eastern Ukraininan Center of Civic Initiatives.
The girl was crossing the border of Russia and the Lugansk region and found out that the familiar checkpoint does not exist anymore. Instead, there were Cossacks who checked documents. They did not like her passport, and started to accuse her in being a sniper. Men forced her to take off her t-shirt to show there are no bruises which might be traces of the weapon. Then they put the bag onto the head of the girl, put her into the car, and drove her away in an unknown direction.
The girl still does not know where she'd been held. The place looked like some kind of administrative biulding in an unknown locality. She was kept alone in the basement for a few days.
She recieived no food, no water, and she had no access to the toilet. During one of the interrogations, she was allowed to use the toilet on the floor, where she was able to drink water from the tap. In the cold basement cell, where she was left alone, there were nothing. There were even no blankets to shake on the floor. So she dozed sitting, leaning on the wall. And even so she was not allowed to sleep – the gunmen used to break into the cell in the middle of the night, grabbed her by the collar and took her upstairs for another interrogation.
During never ending interrogations she was threatened "all the penalties." She was pushed, cuffed, and threatened with a weapon. During one of the interrogations, a man violently hit her in the face, so she bled. They demanded her to admit that she was a war criminal.
They threatened me to shoot me on the spot, to hang me, to rape me, to bury me alive, to throw to the dogs... During the interrogation, they used to run up with a gun shouting: «Is this thing is familiar to you?! How many people have you slaughtered with such a thing? "
...They used to break into the cell, grab me by the the collar, spurn to wake me up. I thought I will break my legs on this ladder. Because you can not climb stairs when you are pushed in the back. They did not estimated their power - I was constantly stumbling on the stairs, banging on the wall.
The prisoner spent there three days. Then the militants allowed her to connect with her friends who arrived to take her away. The girl does not know which were the conditions of her release. Possibly there was paid a ransom.
Photo: Suspilne On September 15, human rights activists held campaigned near the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine requesting adopton of the...
Photo: Suspilne
On September 15, human rights activists held campaigned near the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine requesting adopton of the bill No. 2698 "On amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine concerning the implementation of international criminal and humanitarian law."
The adoption of this draft law would harmonize Ukrainian criminal legislation with the norms of international criminal and humanitarian law. Ukrainian law enforcement officers would be able to correctly qualify crimes committed during the war in the East of Ukraine. The bill would make it impossible to amnesty people who have committed war crimes. Also, these cases cannot simply be closed by the statute of limitations.
The bill on war criminals No. 2689 was registered in the Verkhovna Rada in December 2019.
Former prisoners of war and representatives of public organizations took part in the action. Center for Civil Liberties, the Izolyatsia art fund and the Arts & Rights project were the organizers of the event.
53% of Ukrainians believe that only those persons whose guilt in war and other serious crimes will be proven in court should be pros...
53% of Ukrainians believe that only those persons whose guilt in war and other serious crimes will be proven in court should be prosecuted for cooperation with the authorities of the so-called “L/DPR.” This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Ukraine and in cooperation with the ZMINA Center for Human Rights.
In the course of the poll, Ukrainians were asked who should be prosecuted for cooperation with the authorities of the so-called “DPR” / “LPR”.
Half of the respondents, namely 53%, believe that it should be only those whose guilt in war and other serious crimes will be proven in court.
22% say that everyone who held leadership positions in the so-called “DPR” / “LPR” should be prosecuted .
7% believe that all residents of the occupied territories who somehow cooperated with the local authorities.
Another 3% believe that no one should be responsible.
Recently, on September, 4 human rights defenders organized a discussion in Pokrovsk "Are we ready for reconciliation?"
More than 100 mercenaries from more than 30 countries are fighting on the side of illegal armed groups in Donbass. Deputy Prosecutor...
More than 100 mercenaries from more than 30 countries are fighting on the side of illegal armed groups in Donbass. Deputy Prosecutor General Gunduz Mammadov mentioned this in an interview for Radio Liberty.
“The Office of the Prosecutor General registered criminal proceedings on the facts of the participation of more than 100 foreign citizens in the illegal armed formations of the Russian Federation in the armed conflict in Donbas against Ukraine. The geography of the countries of origin of mercenaries is very diverse and comprises more than 30 states, including France, the Czech Republic and even Chile. The largest number of them are from Spain and Serbia - 27 people, Moldova - 26, France - 20,” - said Mammadov.
According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, citizens of Bulgaria, Armenia, Italy, Spain, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Germany, and others, participated in the illegal armed groups in Donbas as well.
Mercenraies took part in various units, in particular, the so-called 14th territorial defense battalion "Prizrak", 11th separate motorized rifle regiment "Vostok", 7th separate motorized rifle brigade "Chistyakovskaya", 1st separate motorized rifle brigade "Slavyanskaya", separate reconnaissance battalion "Sparta," a separate assault battalion" Somalia ", illegal armed formations" Rusichi "," Wolf`s Hundred "," Bryanka USSR "and others.
Previously, in Kazakhstan, Yevgenii Shcherbak was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for mercenarism as part of the illegal armed formation in Donbas after the Russian Federation refused to grant him asylum.
The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
