Human Rights Abuses in Ukraine

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

The US-installed coup d'etat regime governs by brute force, tolerating no opposition to its hardline rule.

Things are exacerbated by deplorable economic conditions, harming millions of ordinary Ukrainians, the regime in power controlled by the US, using it as a dagger against bordering Russia.

Millions fled cross-border to the Russian Federation and other European countries to escape what's going on. The World Health Organization predicts declining Ukrainian population will continue because of deplorable conditions in the country.

Ukrainians are affected by high unemployment, elimination of social programs, inadequate healthcare services, brutalizing fascist extremism, and depravation affecting millions.

In 2018, over three million Ukrainians applied for passports to work in Poland, the only European nation letting them seek seasonal work visas with passbook identification alone.

Millions of Ukrainian ex-pats live in Russia, Poland, and other European countries. Income earned by ex-pats sent home to families constitutes up to 4% of Ukraine's GDP - more than foreign investment in the country.

Loss of skilled workers, a falling currency, inflation, and overall deplorable conditions made Ukraine an economic, social, and political basket case - exacerbated by severe repression.

Human rights abuses are rife, including arbitrary arrests, arrests, disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

In its latest 2017 human rights report on the country, the State Department said the following (unreported by major media):

"The most significant human rights issues included unlawful killings and politically motivated disappearances in the context of the conflict in the Donbas region; torture; and harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers; arbitrary arrests and detentions; and lack of judicial independence." 

"Other abuses included widespread government corruption; censorship; blocking of websites; government failure to hold accountable perpetrators of violence against journalists and anti-corruption activists; and violence against ethnic minorities, and LGBTI persons."

"The government generally failed to take adequate steps to prosecute or punish most officials who committed abuses, resulting in a climate of impunity. Human rights groups and the United Nations noted significant deficiencies in investigations into human rights abuses committed by government security forces, in particular into allegations of torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, and other abuses reportedly perpetrated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The perpetrators of the 2014 Euromaidan shootings in Kyiv have not been held to

account."

On February 19, Russia's Foreign Ministry reported the following:

"Since the 2014 state coup, openly supported by the United States and a number of Western countries, Ukraine has been plunging deeper and deeper into political chaos, corruption, lawlessness and aggressive nationalism," adding:

In the past five years under fascist rule, "the country has been engulfed by a wave of violence and crimes, committed for political and ideological motives."

"In most cases, they did not receive a proper legal assessment. There has been no impartial investigation into the so-called Maidan snipers case. The May (2014 massacre) in Odessa" remains unresolved - perpetrators still with impunity.

The US-installed Kiev regime "declared an open season on everyone whose views deviate from the official ones."

"Many independent Ukrainian media and journalists are being persecuted and repressed. Attacks on human rights activists and public figures have also become a routine occurrence."

"(D)iscrimination of the Russian-speaking population and ethnic minorities in terms of their linguistic, educational and cultural rights and freedoms has become unprecedented."

"By establishing the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the authorities have deepened the rift in the local Orthodoxy and divided Ukrainians into 'ours' and 'theirs.' The green light was given to violent redistribution of church property and elimination of the canonic Ukrainian Orthodox Church."

US-supported war without mercy on Donbass continues intermittently. Kiev "is ready to (escalate things) at any moment in order to try and regain control of the region no matter how many lives it may claim." 

"According to the UN, the death toll topped 12,000 since the conflict broke out in April 2014." The true figure is likely several-fold this figure or more. 

"Hundreds of people are listed as missing while hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes." 

"The Ukrainian government continues its trade, economic, energy and transport blockade of the country's southeast, which further aggravates the already complicated humanitarian situation."

US-led Western countries support Ukraine's putschist regime, encouraging its hardline rule, especially its aggression in Donbass.

Ukrainian nationals in Russia were disenfranchised, defying the nation's law. Flagrant Kiev rule of law violations persist with no letup. 

The world community yawns and looks the other way - despite a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), documenting the regime's human rights abuses - in  Donbass and elsewhere in the country.

The Donetsk People's Republic police spokesman Daniel Bezsonov said "(a)ccording to the information we have, (puppet) Poroshenko ordered the command of the occupying forces to prepare for him a false evidence base, which he could use to initiate new sanctions against the Russian Federation during his speech at the Munich Security Conference," adding: 

"As conceived by puppeteers from Washington, (he) should appear before the world community in the form of an 'innocent lamb.' "

"We express our sincere hope that the leadership of the OSCE will not go in the wake of Poroshenko and his owners, but will strictly follow the unshakable European principles and impartially fulfill their functional duties."

Separately, I explained that an investigation showed he's trying to rig his "reelection" on March 31 in a nation controlled by the US as a client state where democracy and governance by the rule of law don't exist.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html