Publisher's Synopsis
The briefing was held at 2 p.m. in room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, Mr. Orest Deychakiwsky, Policy Adviser for the Commission on Securityand Cooperation in Europe, moderating.Commissioner present: Jonas Wechsler, Senior Adviser, U.S. Department of State, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.Panelists present: Ivanna Bilych, Co-Founder and President of VOLYA Institute forContemporary Law and Society, Board Member of the Ukrainian American Bar Association;Andriy Klymenko, Chief Editor of Black Sea News, Economist; Bohdan Yaremenko, Chairman of the Board of the Ukrainian Nongovernmental Organization, Maidan of ForeignAffairs, Former Ukrainian Diplomat; Yuriy Yatsenko, Maidan Revolution Activist, Recently Released Political Prisoner; and Yaroslav Brisiuck, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Ukraine to the United States.Mr. DEYCHAKIWSKY. Good afternoon. My name is Orest Deychakiwsky. I'm a policyadviser here at the U.S. Helsinki Commission.On behalf of Chairman Congressman Chris Smith and the leadership of the Commission, welcome to this Helsinki Commission briefing entitled ''Human Rights Violations inRussia and Occupied Crimea.''Russia's forcible and illegal occupation of Ukraine's sovereign territory of Crimea inMarch 2014 resulted in a deplorable human rights situation as well as other serious consequencesthat continue to this day.Changes in government and legal framework in Crimea following the attemptedannexation have had a toxic impact on human rights and fundamental freedoms. Violationsof civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights are widespread, especiallyagainst those who oppose Russian occupation, including Crimean Tatars and other ethnic, including, of course, Ukrainian and other ethnic political and religious groups.Except for a recent spike because of the disruption of electricity supplies, Crimea hasnot been in the news all that much lately, certainly not compared to the months immediatelyfollowing Russia's occu
