Courts in the occupied Crimea issued decrees in 2020 to deport and forcibly relocate at least 178 people, including 105 Ukrainian citizens, according to a new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
This is reported by Interfax-Ukraine.
"In 2020, courts in Crimea issued decrees on the deportation and forced displacement of at least 178 people who are considered foreigners under Russian immigration law, including 105 Ukrainian citizens," Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
According to her, in the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, OHCHR continued to record violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law and provided recommendations to the Russian Federation as an occupying state on how to correct this.
Bogner noted that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was under pressure. In particular, due to the loss of its religious buildings in Crimea, representatives of other faiths were also under pressure. Some "Jehovah's Witnesses" have been criminally charged with extremism, and prosecution continues. "Law enforcement agencies in Crimea conducted at least 19 searches in residential premises belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses in 2020," she said.
OHCHR is also concerned about reports of inappropriate conditions of detention in penitentiary institutions in Crimea, as well as in the Russian Federation, where current and former prisoners in Crimea were deported to serve their sentences.
"We also express concern over further reports of the detention of Crimean prisoners serving sentences in the Russian Federation without ties to the outside world. Detention without communication with the outside world deprives the prisoner of any contact with the world and has been repeatedly recognized as a form of torture," Bogner said.