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war crimes in Ukraine

The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

The open letter to President of Ukraine L. Kuchma.

13.12.2002   
The appeal signed by a number of human rights protecting organizations (the Kharkov Group for human rights protection, the Kherson oblast fund of charity and health, the Sevastopol human rights protection group, the International Society of human rights – Ukrainian section, the Lugansk public organization for protecting the constitutional rights of citizens), where the authors comment the activities of President Kuchma during the last time rather negatively.

Respected President!

We, being representatives of human rights protecting organizations, got the invitations to meet you on 10 December, on the International Day of human rights. We are grateful to you for the invitation, and we appreciate the fact that the state organs of Ukraine remember that on 10 December 1948 the Universal Declaration of human rights was adopted. Yet, we think that it would be advisable to reject your invitation. We believe that the reasons of our refusal may be interesting for the Ukrainian public and international community.

Evaluating your activities on your post of the President of Ukraine, the activities of your administration and the organs of the executive power, we reckon that there is no proper climate in the country for the normal dialog between the organizations of the civil society and the power. The organs of the state power in Ukraine try to rise above the society ignoring the interests of citizens, their rights, freedoms and will. This attitude was well illustrated by the referendum "after the people’s initiative" that was actually initiated by you, brutal meddling of the state organs into the election process during the parliamentary election, pressure upon the representatives of the opposition, political censorship applied to the mass media, etc. As a result, the political strain in the Ukrainian society increases, and Ukraine becomes more and more isolated from the integration processes occurring in Europe.

We think that your approach to the public institutions is not correct: on the Day of invalids you meet invalids, on the Victory Day – the WW2 veterans, on the Women’s Day – women and on the Day of human rights – human rights protectors. We are sure that such meetings are unable to solve any problems, they have no features of a dialog, they are merely used by the authorities for improving their own image. We cannot accept such role and such form of relations.

The Kharkiv Group for human rights protection
The Kherson oblast fund of charity and health
The Sevastopol human rights protection group
The International Society of human rights – Ukrainian section
The Lugansk public organization for protecting the constitutional rights of citizens

 

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