Activists of Ukrainian human rights protecting organizations trained in Kharkiv
On 27-30 January the Fifth school of human rights for activists of Ukrainian human rights protecting organizations was held in Kharkiv. The School was organized by the Kharkiv group for human rights protection (KhG).
47 representatives of non-governmental organizations from 18 regions of Ukraine, Kyiv City and the Crimean Autonomous Republic took part in the work of the school. Those, who were lucky to get to the school after the competition, listened to the speeches of co-chairman of the KhG Evhen Zakkharov, candidates of law Vsevolod Rechitskiy and Ruslan Topolevskiy, lawyer Arkadiy Bushchenko, head of the KhG public reception office Ludmila Klochko and others.
“Even in the most democratic country the majority, fighting for its interests, can violate the rights of individual”, pointed out Ludmila Klochko. “The main task of human rights protectors is to defend human rights from the illegal actions of the state and its organs. Our School is conducted for giving the opportunity to its participants to obtain new knowledge, to exchange experience, to find new partners for organization of joint work”.
It is noteworthy that the Fifth school was held in the post-election period, and many organizations, taking part in it, had actively protected voters’ rights during the presidential election-2004. So, the “pupils”, many of whom were the members of non-governmental organizations with many-year experience, shared their impressions, told about the disclosed falsifications, suggested the ways of democratization of the election process and the society as a whole. Four days of the School were saturated with substantial lectures and interesting trainings. The participants considered the questions of Ukrainian constitutionalism in the modern context, the conceptions of human rights, protection of human rights in courts, in particular, the European Court, activities of non-governmental organizations in the sphere of human rights protection, etc. The human rights protectors carried out a heated, but tolerant discussion of the problems of interaction between human rights protecting organization and the power, correlation of politics and human rights protection, cooperation of non-governmental organizations and mass media, organization of informational exchange, joint actions and campaigns.
The participants of the school practiced in preparation of the projects united with the general idea: “Free person in free country”, and, as its was pointed out by them, this creative work, in spite of very limited time, was conducted on the high level. Perhaps, some of these projects will become the basis for creation of real programs, which would be realized in Ukraine in the nearest future.
The participants of the School parted not only as associates, but as a real friends. They gave each other their contacts and arranged about further cooperation, the cooperation for the sake of human rights, for the sake of people.
P. S. The anonymous poll was conducted among the participants of the Fifth school of human rights for activists of Ukrainian human rights protecting organizations. The respondents had to estimate, by the 12-point scale, the level of organization and conduction of the action. It seems that the average estimation was absolutely deserved -- 10.8!