Tribunal for Putin initiative identifies over 5,300 victims of enforced disappearances
This was discussed at the presentation of the report on enforced disappearances and displacement of Ukrainian children in 2022-2023, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
"The application to the International Criminal Court was submitted half a year ago, and the report to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances was submitted just now. These documents contain information about specific enforced disappearances. We collected the confirmed cases to demonstrate the scenario of Russia's behavior in the occupied territories," said Oleksandra Romantsova, an Executive Director at the Center for Civil Liberties.
Oleksandra Romantsova / Photo: snapshot from video
She clarified that the application concerns disappearance of civilians. The International Criminal Court, in cooperation with Ukrainian law enforcement and human rights defenders, is able, based on the outcome of the investigation, to issue arrest warrants for Russia’s top officials complicit in these crimes.
According to Romantsova, the largest number of disappearances was recorded after the de-occupation of Kharkiv region. At the same time, full information on enforced disappearances in Donetsk and Luhansk regions is currently unavailable to rights defenders as the areas remain occupied by Russian invasion forces.
Lawyer Hanna Ovdienko said Russia systematically persecutes residents of occupied territories who express their pro-Ukrainian position, have served in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies or as public servants.
Hanna Ovdienko / Photo: snapshot from video
"The research shows that Russia systematically commits enforced disappearances under the same scenario as a certain scheme is applied... When Russians invaded the territory of Ukraine, they had already had lists of persons who were subsequently abducted. As a rule, these were public activists, law enforcement officers, military personnel, members of political parties, journalists, rights defenders, and other persons who could actively resist Russia both physically and intellectually. After the initial arrests and abductions, a second wave of disappearances came, targeting those on whom tips were provided by enemy accomplices," Ovdienko said.
According to the lawyer, disappearance means that a person is captured, imprisoned, or killed. Usually, such people are illegally held in places of deprivation of liberty in the temporarily occupied territories, as well as in Russia and Belarus.
As reported, the T4P (Tribunal for Putin) Global Initiative was launched in response to full-scale aggression Russia unleashed against Ukraine in February 2022. The participants of the initiative document events that bear signs of crimes according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes) in all regions of Ukraine.
The initiative was co-founded by the Center for Civil Liberties, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
