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Penal institutions

Tasks, functions, rights and principles of human rights protection organization activities

A human rights protection organization is a special kind of non-profit NGO, whose activities are intended for the establishment and protection of rights and freedoms of people, for the efficient control of their observation by the state, its bodies and officers. Human rights protection organizations attempt to decrease the organized violence on the side of the state. To reach this aim human rights protection organization work at the same time in three directions:

protection of human rights in concrete cases (without remuneration), public investigations of facts of the violation of human rights by state bodies and officers;

spreading information about human rights, legal enlightenment;

analysis of the state with human rights.

All the three directions are closely interlaced, the work only in one direction, generally speaking, cannot be efficient. If one works only with the protection of individuals, then a human rights protection organization is doomed to the non-stop fight with the state under the condition of paternalism, which remains intact, when people do not know their rights and legal instruments of their protection, all these facts threatening human rights. The legal enlightenment and teaching human rights, the knowledge of one’s rights, national and international tools of their protection are needed for the successful defense of rights and for the creation of the rightful atmosphere. The analysis of the state with human rights needs analysis of the legal system, of the court and administrative practices, of the measure of their correspondence to the norms of the international right, of the observation of legislation processes, of the initiation of necessary changes in legislation and human rights protection practices. In order to carry out such analysis one must know international agreements in the sphere of human rights, the internal legislation and court practices of other countries, where ‘milder’ rights are applied, in particular of the European Court on human rights. It would be great if a network of organizations existed which would deal with one important right, for example, the right to live, or the right to be protected from torture and degrading treatment, or the right to the freedom of expression (freedom of speech and information) and so on. Yet, there are very few organizations (we mean public organizations which deal with the three mentioned above questions), so they have to deal with greatly different abuses of human rights working in the regime of a firemen’s brigade. It would be more efficient if human rights protection organizations concentrated on one or two key rights and would treat them profoundly and systematically.

Let us try to consider more exactly and in more details the subject of activities of human rights protection organizations: their tasks, functions, rights, principles of their activity, having in mind the development in the future of the special law ‘On public human rights protection organizations’.

The subject of control on the side of human rights protection organizations is the current state policy in the sphere of human rights, decisions, activity (passivity) of state bodies and officers that violate rights and freedoms of people or create obstacles for realizing by people their rights and freedoms. Another kind of human rights abuses is when people are illegally involved into executing some duties or when people are illegally made answerable for some obligations. These violations, obstacles and coercion can be systematic, that is to relate not to single individuals, but to groups; that is why human rights protection organizations regard complaints both from physical and juridical persons, including groups of people who carry out investigation of similar cases by their own initiative.

Human rights protection organizations have to solve such problems:

To protect human rights and freedoms that are fixed in the Constitution and national legislation (including international agreements which the Parliament agreed to satisfy).

To be a source of information on human rights for the people and power bodies, to raise the education level in the branch of human rights, to encourage respect to law and the development of structures that promote the respect to and understanding of human rights.

To analyze the state of human rights in their country and its separate regions.

In order to solve these tasks human rights protection organizations have to execute such functions:

1. 1. To consider complaints of physical and juridical persons or their associations about abuses of human rights and freedoms fixed in the Constitution, international and national legislation.

1. 2. To inform the claimants about their rights and available opportunities of their legal protection, and to assist the claimants in their access to these opportunities.

1. 3. To act as mediators in the process of regaining the rights and freedoms.

1. 4. To carry out public investigations of violations of human rights (according to the complaints of physical and juridical persons, or by the organization’s initiative).

1. 5. To readdress the complaints on behalf of the claimant or on behalf of the human rights protection organization to competent bodies for solving the question.

1. 6. To turn on behalf of the claimant or on behalf of the human rights protection organization to courts or to international organizations.

1. 7. To take part in the court process in order to defend the restoration of the abused rights and freedoms.

1. 8. To draw conclusions from the carried out public investigation.

1. 9. To pronounce the judgement according to the results of the carried out public investigation, to draw a public accusation and public warning to the state bodies or officers whose activity or inactivity resulted in the violation of human rights and freedoms.

1. 10. To publish the results in mass media.

In order to solve problems of the kind 2 human rights protection organizations have to:

2. 1. Collect, prepare and distribute information materials which include:

internal laws (including implemented international ones) which concern human rights, comments to them, corresponding administrative and court decisions and their interpretation by superior court organs;

internal mechanisms of human rights protection;

international juridical documents on human rights and comments to them;

international mechanisms of human rights protection;

information on the activities of the human rights protection organizations and its publication.

2. 2. Create educational printed matter, audio-, photo- and video- materials on human rights for the massive consumers and for specialists.

2. 3. Develop educational curricula and methods for teaching human rights to various social and professional groups.

2. 4. Hold specialized seminars on human rights for representatives of so-called high risk professions (workers of bodies of internal affairs and security services, servants of penitentiaries, advocates, judges, prosecutors, military servicemen, physicians, journalists, trade union leaders and workers of social services), representatives of legislative and executive power whose work concern human rights.

2. 5. Organize various public campaigns and actions supporting human rights in the public mind: competitions for the best essays on human rights and for the best pictures or photographs on the same topic for schoolchildren, sport competitions for students and other similar happenings dedicated to the Day of human rights, to the Day of political convicts and so on.

2. 6. Collect and distribute materials on the history of the idea of human rights and the history of human rights protection movement.

Likewise, to fulfil item 3 human rights protection organizations have to:

3. 1. Prepare conclusions about laws, law drafts and other legal acts and programs directed at the protection of human rights and send them to the Parliament.

3. 2. Monitor the legislation, court and administrative practices in the sphere of human rights.

3. 3. Favor the ratification of international agreements in the sphere of human rights and control the concordance of the national legislation and international obligations in the sphere of human rights.

3. 4. Prepare independent reports about the state of observation and protection of human rights and freedoms, supply comments to official reports directed to international organizations about observation of human rights.

3. 5. Prepare and distribute in the Parliament, government and other bodies of state power and administration analytical materials, recommendations and propositions concerning various questions concerning human rights, in particular, in the sphere of:

national policy;

administrative procedures and practices;

procedural actions of law-enforcing bodies, such as court, militia, prosecutor’s office, security services, tax militia, etc.;

international aspects of human rights.

In order to execute these functions human rights protection organizations must have such rights:

the right for a free access to all documents, including documents that are stored by state organs and archives that are necessary for a concrete investigation, as well as the right to copy these documents, if the information stored in these documents does not contain state secrets or other secrets defined by law;

the right to receive written or oral explanations from all persons including state officers, if this information concerns the violation of human rights;

the right to investigate the case on the spot including places of arrest or detainment, as well as penitentiaries or places of military service or psychiatric hospitals and other places of confined freedom;

the right to carry out other actions necessary for checking the facts of the violation, if these actions do not contradict law;

the right to give recommendations to state organs depending on the results of the investigation, as well as assess the actions of state and non-state organs;

the right for the free access to the legislation activity, the right to receive law drafts from the parliamentary commissions, the right to take part in discussing the drafts at the meetings of the committees, the right to turn to subjects of legislation initiatives;

the right to take part in the development of state programs that concern teaching and investigating in the sphere of human rights, in teaching these subjects at schools, higher schools and other institutions where state officers are trained and educated;

the right to be present at court sessions and meetings of other state bodies where the questions of protection of rights and freedoms are discussed, as well as the right to have access to and the right to copy the minutes of such meetings;

the right to receive official reports that the state directs to international organizations, such as the UNO, OSCE, or to the national organizations such as the Supreme Rada and others;

the right to pass the collected information about the violation of human rights or own analytical materials to state bodies, mass media and international organizations, if this information does not contain state secrets or other secrets defined by law.

As to the principles of activities of human rights protection organizations, they are as follows:

Rights of man are protected independently of his race, sex, citizenship, ethnic or social origin, property, rank, occupation, residence, language, religion, political and other views.

Human rights protection organizations have the right to motivated rejection of a complaint. This principle means that an organization has a certain freedom of choice. The organization, in contrast to a state organization of similar profile, accepts a complaint, if the organization anticipates that its efforts could lead to the restoration of rights and freedoms and stop the activity (passivity) of state bodies and officers which caused the violation. A refusal to consider the complaint must be well-motivated.

Open consideration. The work of a human rights protection organization must be open and transparent for the public control. In my opinion, annual reports on activities of the organization would be reasonable; such reports must include the list of the considered complaints, their results, expenditures and sources of financing.

Inviolent character of activities. Certainly, there happen such periods when the violent struggle with the state is justified (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule), but this is the method of struggle too distant from the protection of human rights.

‘Do not harm!’. This principle means that the methods applied in human rights protection must not worsen the position of the victim. This follows from a more general principle that the main goal of human rights protection activities is to minimize the level of violence in the society.

Independence of the political position. For the human rights protection activities it is important that the civil life must reflect all the parts of the political spectrum and social activities. I believe that human rights protection organizations have the duty to be non-party in principle; they must not support this or that party platform in election campaigns, the political choice must be left individual for each member. In my opinion, members of such organizations must not be members of political parties or deputies of the Parliament.

Independence of the public thought. The public opinion may support ideas that are very far from those shared by human rights protection activists. For example, the public opinion in any country supports the death penalty, whereas human rights protection organizations fight for its abolition.

Honesty, maximal reliability and objectiveness of information. This principle means that the work should be governed by the English court principle: ‘To say truth, all the truth and nothing but truth’. This is one of the principal differences between human rights protection and political activities. For a politician, at best, the principle is to say the truth, but not all the truth. The information which may harm a party’s reputation is usually concealed. The well-known formula ‘He is a son-of-a-bitch, but our son-of-a-bitch’ is unacceptable for human rights protection organizations. Such organizations must attain the objective truth even if it contradicts their interests.

Modesty. This principle is difficult to formalize. Unfortunately, a phenomenon has developed that could be named ‘human rights protection tourism’, when the people calling themselves human rights protectors infrequently stay in their own country; their organizations permanently hold conferences with banquets; this is especially unbearable in the beggarly country.

Independence of the state. Since human rights protection organizations oppose the state, they must be maximally independent of the state, especially in financing. In my opinion, such organizations must not be financed from the state funds and must not use any special privileges, except those established by law for all non-profit NGOs. Nonetheless, the independence must not become confrontation. I am troubled by the prosecutor’s tone which many human rights protection organizations apply to the state, their wish to blame the power in all cases.

Honest cooperation of differently thinking people. This principle of mutual relations of human rights protection organizations with the state was formulated in 1988 by Sergey Kovalev. In everything where I agree with the power, I am ready to cooperate honestly, but whenever the state errs, I will oppose the state by using all lawful methods.

Taking into account interests of all sides involved in a conflict, including those of state organs. This is one of the main principles in conflictology — a clear understanding of the fact that harmony in a society comes not when the interests of all members agree (this would be unnatural and impossible), but when the interests of all the interested sides are regarded in the equal extent.

Encouragement of citizens’ rights by the state. Notice that a human rights protector may not be an etatist, since human rights presuppose the state’s duty to observe them. As an outstanding American human rights protector Catherine Fitzpatric remarked, ‘without just laws, independent judges and professional advocates the struggle for human rights is the elementary struggle for openness: distribution of information about crimes in the hope to wake consciousness or at least cause some worry among power structures’. That is why human rights protection organizations must keep up the dialog with the state, until the state is capable to do it. The character of the dialog is determined by the above-mentioned principles of the honest cooperation of differently thinking people, and taking into account interests of all sides connected with the conflict, including those of state organs. That is why the old formula of human rights protection in the totalitarian period — ‘protection of rights of citizens from the organized violation by the state’ — must be expanded by ‘assistance to the state in protection citizens’ rights.

The question of legalization of a human rights protection organization is a puzzling one. It is obvious that legalization must not be decided by a state organ. It is also obvious that the question whether an organization is a human rights protection one or just called itself so must be decided by human rights protectors’ community. Perhaps it should be done by the national association of human rights protection organizations, and a state body should only stamp the decision. A procedure of acceptation of a new organization by the national association should be explicitly formulated, as well as some other demands to a new organization: a code of professional ethics, a declaration of rights and duties and so forth. Yet, we first must grow and develop in order to create a national association.



Point of view

Capital punishment in the world in 1999

According to the data of Amnesty International, 1813 executions occurred in the world during the last year, which is about 19% less than in 1998. It is promising that although the capital punishment is preserved in the criminal laws of 103 countries, in practice only 31 countries applied this punishment. The above-mentioned figures are not quite reliable since such data are kept secret by the countries in order to dodge international sanctions.

Last year about 4000 criminals from 63 countries got the death verdicts. As to actual executions during 1999, 60% of them were applied in China.

25% more of the last year executions were contributed by Congo, Iran, The Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America. For example, in the USA 98 people were executed last year. The similar numbers for Congo and Iran are 100 and 165. The criminals, who were condemned to death before their reaching 18 years of age, were executed only in two countries: the USA and Iran. Last year two countries rejected the de facto prohibition of the death penalty which they recently had: the first executions after five years of the moratorium were held in Trinidad-and-Tobago, in Uganda some executions were held after three years of the moratorium.

Yet, the general balance is positive — four states refused to apply the capital punishment for all kinds of crimes: Eastern Timor, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and the Bermuda Islands. Latvia cancelled the death penalty for any crimes committed in peaceful time. In June 1999 in the Russian Federation President Eltsin mercied about seven hundred of the convicted to death. Other seven countries joined during 1999 the Second Optional Protocol to the International Pact on civil and political rights; this Protocol prohibits completely the application of the death penalty.



Victims of political repression

Aleksandr Gorobets has been restored as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper ‘Pravda Ukrainy’

The Shevchenko district court of Kyiv has restored Aleksandr Gorobets as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper ‘Pravda Ukrainy’ (‘The Truth of Ukraine’). Judge Irina Telnikova also decided to recompense the loss of salary equal to Hr 15,000 for the period from 11 December 1998. In May last year the Vatutin district court of Kyiv found A. Gorobets guilty of sexual molesting inside his office and condemned him to seven months of imprisonment. Yet, since during the crime investigation A. Gorobets was kept under arrest for 7 months and 24 days, he was freed in the courtroom. At the court session A. Gorobets’s advocate Oksana Utiralova proved the illegality of his disemployment. There were some discrepancies in dates and documents, but the main argument was provided by the defendant in his complaint directed from the Lukyanovskaya prison to the General Prosecutor Mikhail Potebeyko, where the claimant told that after the rape the victim ‘headed the search in the rapists’ office’. The innocent rapist, as the editor-in-chief, headed the campaign in protection of the ‘Gromada’ party and its leader Pavel Lazarenko.

By the way, today’s mass media declared that Pavel Lazarenko’s complicity in several murders has been finally proved.

Interfax, Ukraine



Deported peoples

Extracts from Goryn’s autobiography

On 7 December 1999 Vakhtang Kipiani and Vasyl Ovsienko recorded the following stories told by Goryn himself. Soon a book of Goryn’s articles will be printed prepared by a member of the Kharkiv Group for human rights protection Vasyl Ovsienko, where these interesting interview will be printed in full.

«Many people, who never had contacts with the incarcerated, imagine that people sit there and wistfully think when they would be released. This is a rough mistake. People live there doing a lot of intellectual work. Vasyl Ovsienko remembers well the discussions which we held. I cannot forget the discussion which I had with the late Yurko Litvin, which concerned theoretical problems of the Ukrainian liberation movement. Our attitude to anarchism, problems of individual rights, rights of a nation, right protection movement. These problems have roots in the Ukrainian philosophy, Ukrainian political thought and even Ukrainian art. Yuri often recollected that he had written an article about Taras Shevchenko as a human rights protector. We led intellectual life. I do not remember in which year it was, maybe in 1983, maybe in 1984, but it resulted in the idea to organize a meeting dedicated to Taras Shevchenko.

Before it, during the first arrest, we had a meeting dedicated to Grushevsky. It was in 1966 in the Mordova concentration camp. Later, in 1971, we had a meeting dedicated to one-hundred anniversary of Lesia Ukrainka’s birth. In fact, this meeting transferred to the ten-day discussion of Lesia Ukrainka’s creative activity. Poets of different nations, including those, who had translated Lesia Ukrainka’s works to their native language, took part in this discussion. It was an international conference in a concentration camp.

These talks were carried out in a small cell, Yurko Litvin participated in them, Vasyl Kurylo, myself and sometimes some others. This is an interesting fact that under prison conditions the spiritual life of Ukrainian political convicts never stopped for a minute.

I want to remark that before Gorbachev came to power, the KGB decided to dispose of those political prisoners, who, in their opinion, could be dangerous to the Russian Empire after their release. I do not doubt that the fact that during 1984-85 six people died in one small concentration camp and 30 people died in other similar establishments is the solid proof that it was not accidental. The KGB concentrated their efforts on those people who had the authority and will that they had not lost during many years of persecutions and incarceration. The KGB-men understood perfectly that such people after their release would continue their struggle. After two arrests and many years of concentration camps. The death of Yurko Litvin, or Vasyl Stus, or Valeriy Marchenko were carved in out memory. Tykhiy’s death, you know, this is a man who never submitted and always demonstrated his independence. Others also behaved well since there were no people in our circle who submitted, may be, except one or two.

Vasyl Stus was always belligerent and protesting. There were three punishment cells in our concentration camp and they were filled all the time. When a cell became empty our wardens found whom to put into the vacant cell. They came to us, made us undress and searched, searched. They searched us when we returned from a walk of from work. Stus asked: ‘Why do you feel me like a hen?’, and added, ‘fascists’. That was what our torturers expected. As the result, Stus went to the punishment cell.

Before this incident I stayed in one punishment cell with Stus. About a fortnight before Leonid Borodin, an inhabitant of a neighboring cell, had been there. Stus came to the cell and began to gather his things for the punishment cell. Borodin asked him: ‘Why do not you take the kettle?’. ‘I shall go on hunger strike’, answered Stus. ‘For which time?’, asked Borodin. ‘Forever.’ When I had come to the camp, Stus had gone on such a strike too. But he was taken to the hospital and artificially fed. So Stus ended the strike. When he returned from the hospital, he said: ‘Mykhaylo, I am feeling bad because I have stopped this hunger strike, another time I will not do that’. When he was taken to the punishment cell this time, Leonid Borodin was at once moved to our cell. Someone who worked near the punishment block told that on the fourth day Stus knocked on the door and said to the guard: ‘Give me a pill of validol since my heart is aching’. The guard answered: ‘You can do without’. Stus could not. He died, as I remember, on 4 September 1985.»

Mykhaylo Goryn told to his interviewers about his opinions on the language policy in Ukraine. His views are rather stern.

‘We have Ukraine, but this Ukraine is not quite Ukrainian: we have the government, but the members of the government communicate in a foreign language. We have presidential structures, but they are only half Ukrainian. In several years we shall give the power to the hands of people who know Ukrainian not better than today’s state officials.

I do not want to say that the language is important, but I want to say that without a language there is no state and no people, or on the contrary: without a language there is no nation, there is no people and there is no state.

Thus, building economy must go parallelly to restoring the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. The language restoration must develop parallelly with breeding Ukrainian patriots. The situation here is far from satisfactory. We have not the system of values at school that would say that the love to motherland is the greatest spiritual value.

Thus we have the problems of building economy, of restoring the language, of breeding the people, of transferring our army to state language. We cannot hope that Ukraine will be defended by Russian generals and Russian-speaking army, especially against our Northern neighbor, which is quite possible.’

In reprinting these materials, please, refer to KHPG-inform.

Editor in charge of the issue — Evhen Zakharov



Mykhaylo Goryn is 70 on 17 June

The Kharkiv Group for human rights protection congratulates Mykhaylo with his anniversary and sends him the best greetings.

Mykhaylo Goryn was born on 17 June 1930 in the village of Kniselo, Zhidachivsk district of the Lviv oblast. Mykhaylo’s father was a head of the village branch of ‘Prosvita’, he headed the district underground organization of the OUN (union of Ukrainian nationalists); he had been repressed by the Polish power. In December 1944 Mykhaylo with his mother was deported by the Soviet power to Siberia. They managed to escape.

In 1949-55 Mykhaylo was a student of the department of logic and psychology of Lviv University. In 1953 he was driven from the university for his refusal to join the Komsomol, but thanks to the rector, academician E. Lazarenko, he was restored. In his student’s time he had contacts with the OUN underground. He prepared and distributed leaflets. After the graduation from the university he worked as a teacher of logic, psychology, Ukrainian language and literature, was in charge of the district methodical department, was an inspector of district administration of school education. From 1961 he went in for research. He organized an experimental laboratory of psychology and physiology of labor at the Lviv plant of autoloaders. He wrote several methodical papers for school teachers and on psychology of labor. He was preparing a candidate’s dissertation (a work equivalent to a Ph.D. thesis).

In May 1962 he established contacts with I. Svetlychny, I. Dziuba, I. Drach and others. He became one of the organizers of the Lviv club of creative youth ‘Prolisok’. He organized the distribution of political literature published abroad or inside samizdat. He was arrested on 26 August 1965 for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 62 of the CC of Ukrainian Republic). On 18 April 1966 he was condemned at the closed sitting of the Lviv oblast court together with his brother Bogdan Goryn, Ivan Gel and Myroslava Zvarichevskaya. The verdict was six years of the strict regime concentration camp.

In 1965 there appeared some new tendencies in the Mordova camps: samizdat appeared, as well as other writings, national groups consolidated in protest actions. For the propaganda and distribution of samizdat among cell-mates the court of Zubovo-Poliansky district condemned Mykhaylo Goryn to incarceration in Vladimir prison. Even from there he managed to transfer information about the state of the imprisoned.

Goryn was released on 26 August 1971 and returned to Lviv, where he resided with his family without a propiska (residence permit). In order to dodge the criminal accusation of parasitism he had to find a job as a engine driver at building a chemical plant in the Rivno oblast. From September 1972 he worked a stoker in boiler-houses of Lviv. From 1977 — as a psychologist at the kinescope plant. All this time he assisted to political convicts and their families. In 1976 the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was created. Goryn took part in writing the Group’s statutory documents. After the arrest of the Group founders he took the publication of its bulletin, prepared Nos. 4-7. During 1981 Goryn was searched six times. During the search of 23 March the searchers placed stealthily a faked document concerning the case of I. Kandyba; on 28 November — another text on 15 pages bearing an illiterate heading ‘Social studies of the machinery of rusification in Ukraine’ (the fakers meant ‘sociological’).

On 3 November, after a 13-hour search, Goryn was at last arrested. To protest against the fakes he went on a hunger strike and refused to participate in the preliminary session. On 10 November he had a heart stroke. On 25 June 1982 he was condemned according to Article 62 part 2 and Article 79 of the CC of the Ukrainian Republic (the latter article was included because Goryn refused to give testimony in the case of I. Kandyba). He was condemned for ten years of the especially strict regime camp and for 5 years of exile. He was regarded as an especially dangerous recidivist.

On 12 November 1982 Goryn was transported to the concentration camp BC-389/36 in the village of Kuchino of Chusovskoy district of the Perm oblast. There he had an opportunity to discuss urgent matters with his cell-mates. There he discussed with Yu. Litvin the problems of reforming of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, there he wrote sketches on O. Tykhiy, G. Marchenko, V. Stus and Yu. Litvin.

He caught several deadly diseases: inflammation of kidneys, hypertension, arrhythmia. In May 1984 he had a heart stroke, on 28 November 1986 he was sent to Lviv, where after the second heart stroke he was put to a hospital. He was ‘mercied’ on 2 July 1987.

Next month Goryn together with V. Chornovil and P. Skochko resumed printing ‘The Ukrainian Herald’, starting from issue 7. On 11 March 1987 Z. Krasivskiy and V. Chornovil, as working secretaries of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, undersigned the ‘Appeal of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group to the Ukrainian and world public’, where they declared that the Group resumed its activities. The brothers Goryn and V. Chornovil wrote the ‘Declaration of the principles of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union’. This union was created on the basis of the Group. M. Goryn also organized and headed the working group of protection Ukrainian political prisoners, he participated in several meetings of national democratic movements of various nations of the USSR.

On 11 August 1988 the Lviv directorate of the KGB warned Goryn officially about his anti-Soviet activities. He was detained several times by militia, in particular in Chernivtsi, where he came to the statutory meeting of the Helsinki union. There he was detained for 15 days.

In summer of 1989 he worked in Kyiv, in the organizing committee of the Popular Rukh. At the statutory congress (8-10 September) he was elected the head of the secretariat of the Rukh. He was the head of the political council and one of the heads of the Rukh. In 1990 he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Rada of the Ukrainian Republic, worked in the Commission on sovereignty, headed the Commission of national minorities. He organized the actions ‘The chain of unity’ between Kyiv and Lviv (21 January 1990), ‘Children diplomacy’ (children Christmas excursions from West Ukraine to East and in the contrary direction), ‘The Holiday of the Cossack glory’ (Zaporozhye, summer 1990), Congress of national minorities (Odessa, November 1991) and others.

From May 1992 to October 1995 Goryn was the head of the Ukrainian Republican party. After the division of this party in 1997 he became one of the founders of the Republican Christian party. Now he is the head of its editorial commission.




“Prava Ludiny” (human rights) monthly bulletin, 2000, #06