THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
According to the Krym.Realii website, the Freedom Now human rights organization, has filed a petition with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of freelancer Krym.Realii Vladyslav Yesypenko, who was convicted in annexed Crimea. This UN commission investigates cases of arbitrary arrests and detentions.
Calls to release freelancer Krym.Realii Vladyslav Yesypenko, who was convicted in annexed Crimea, are increasingly being heard from various international platforms. On November 21 in New York, Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist for the Tatar-Bashkir service of Radio Liberty, remembered her colleagues in prison, including Vladyslav Yesypenko, when she was awarded the International Press Freedom Award. She declared that “journalism is not a crime” and that journalists should be released.
In October, at the Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of the Peace Formula in Montreal, Kateryna Yesypenko, Vladyslav‘s wife, spoke about the torture he suffered in russian captivity and the politically motivated persecution of her husband.
“In a letter to President Biden that I took to Washington, Vladyslav wrote, “The electric shock made my brain boil, and my heart jump out of my chest.” There is no greater outrage than when a person is turned into a mute, powerless animal. Four long years of imprisonment have taken a huge toll on my husband. His physical health has suffered. His psychological health has deteriorated, as he fears that the world will forget about him,” Kateryna Yesypenko said in Montreal.
In a comment to Krym.Realii, Adam Ledmat, a lawyer at Freedom Now, explained the international human rights organization’s intention to file a petition on behalf of Vladyslav Yesypenko, “I am confident that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will conclude that Vladyslav Yesypenko‘s fundamental rights have been violated. We continue to call for Yesypenko‘s immediate release and the annulment of his sentence in accordance with international human rights law,” the lawyer said.
Mentions of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) are not often found in the Ukrainian information field. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is one of 46 special procedures established within the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says Crimea SOS analyst Yevhen Yaroshenko. Its specificity is that any individual, legal or public organization, state institution, or business association can apply there with a complaint about the fact of detention, which has the sign of groundless. And this can be done without going through all the judicial procedures within the country.
“The situation with Vladyslav Yesypenko clearly falls under the category provided for by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In particular, the violation of the right to freedom of expression. This article is used as one of the universal mechanisms for protecting journalists,” explained Yevhen Yaroshenko.
The group consists of five experts. They are elected for six years, and they represent different regions of the world. The group includes a Ukrainian representative. Currently, this is Hanna Yudkovska, a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights from Ukraine. They make decisions on complaints, transmit decisions to the UN Human Rights Council, and communicate with the governments of those countries where violations were found, notes Yevhen Yaroshenko. The conclusion of this commission can be used as additional evidence in court proceedings in the country. A complaint to the group does not prevent the applicant from applying to the European Court of Human Rights.
This group is called a quasi-judicial body. But, it does not have the authority to enforce its recommendations. “The reports of this working group do not have binding legal force. Therefore, unfortunately, russia may not take into account the decisions of such UN special procedures. But ignoring such reports is a reason for many states to impose sanctions against human rights violators,” Yevhen Yaroshenko told journalists at the Krym.Realii website.
In 2021, when the case of Vladyslav Yesypenko was still being considered in the russian-controlled Simferopol District Court, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union filed a lawsuit against russia in the European Court of Human Rights in connection with his persecution. Again, russia may not comply with its decision since it withdrew from its jurisdiction in 2022, but the ECHR’s conclusion will be more political, with the expectation that russia may change its decision in the future, believes Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
“We are talking about the fact that de jure the decisions of the European Court must be complied with by russia on the basis that the violations committed by and the consideration of the case related to the period when the russian federation was still within the system of the European Convention on Human Rights,” says Oleksandr Pavlichenko.
So far, all international legal mechanisms that Ukraine has appealed to regarding russia have not yielded results. Russia does not respond to them since it does not recognize their jurisdiction. Therefore, in order to achieve the release of those illegally detained by russian security forces, the participation of intermediary countries is important. This also applies to Vladyslav Yesypenko and other journalists who were detained in the annexed Crimea, Oleksandr Pavlichenko believes.
“He (Vladyslav Yesypenko) is currently a representative of this already quite a large group of Ukrainian media workers, more than 40 of whom are in places of detention in russia and the territories occupied by it. In fact, this is a clear indicator of persecution for professional activities related to media work involving coverage of what is happening in the directly occupied territories of Ukraine. And this, unfortunately, is a reality that must be reacted to at the level of international political institutions,” Oleksandr Pavlichenko said.
One of the positive moments, the human rights activist notes, is that russia has begun to release Ukrainian political prisoners who have already been convicted by a russian court. Until 2024, there was no such practice. “There are quite a few such releases, and a large number are still in places of detention. This is a big minus, of course. And unfortunately, we do not have any, let’s say, strategy or program regarding when and how many Ukrainian citizens will be transferred to Ukraine from those in the territory of the russian federation or the occupied territories of Ukraine. That is, this is a matter of negotiations, a matter of the coordination headquarters. And let me remind you that such processes take place in silence. They are not covered in any way as to where, when, how, and by whom such negotiations are taking place,” Pavlichenko noted. In 2024, several civilian political prisoners were released from russian captivity. Thus, the First Deputy Chairperson of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Nariman Dzhelyal, who spent almost three years in russian captivity, was released. In September, Lieniie Umerova, a Crimean woman who was detained by russian security forces in December 2022 after crossing the Georgian-Russian border while trying to visit her father in Crimea, was released from a russian remand prison. Will Vladyslav Yesypenko be next?
NUJU Information Service
Discussion about this post