Attention, government! Youre monitored by human rights protection activists
It is not a secret that one cannot be accepted to Europe (it concerns the European Union, first of all), if the situation with human rights in the country is bad. Evaluating a country, the European Union structures pay attention not so much to statements of a country, which usually praises itself, as to the independent reports or information on situation with human rights prepared by public organizations. The considered report is a bright example of communitys work of this kind, and numerous recommendations to the government show that the situation with human rights in Ukraine is far from ideal.
The report was presented and discussed during the second forum of human rights protecting organizations of Ukraine «Monitoring of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Ukraine», which was held in Kyiv on 11-12 April. More than 150 representatives of human rights protecting organizations from all regions of Ukraine participated in the forum, as well as international human rights protecting organizations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights), Helsinki committees of Russia, Belarus and Moldova, international advisors and representatives of donor organizations, diplomatic corps, partner structures from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, foreign public activists, guests and journalists.
The forum was organized in Ukraine for the second time, last year it was dedicated to human rights at elections and remained in public memory first of all because of the incident of flinging mayonnaise on George Soros, who was a guest of the forum. In spite of such beginning, the forum of 2004 was useful and laid foundation for wide cooperation of human rights protecting organizations.
One of the main purposes of the forum of this year was to create the basis for the report on the observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in our country in 2005.