Rights of Muslims and UOC-KP are violated in Crimea, Jewish community ceases to exist in Donbass, according to human rights defenders

In Russian-annexed Crimea the persecution of Muslims and Orthodox believers of the Kyiv Patriarchate has become systemic. This is confirmed by the analysis of the human rights situation in Crimea in March and September 2014, released in mid-September by representatives of the Crimean Human Rights field mission. In Donbass, another region of Ukraine, where Russia continues hybrid war against Ukraine, the Jewish religious community has almost ceased to exist, reports Religion in Ukraine referring to Portal-credo.ru and Ukrainian Week.

“Persecution on religious grounds has become systemic. Most instances of violation of freedom of conscience and religion concerns Muslims and Orthodox of the Kyiv Patriarchate,” state the mission in its report.

In addition, the human rights activists say that in Sevastopol, Krasnoperekopsk, Kerch and the Perevalne  village the churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate were closed.

“The Russian FSB and local authorities exert pressure on priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate. A number of actions by the Crimean government (search in mosques and other places of worship and educational institutions of Muslims, search for ‘banned’, ‘extremist’ Islamic literature, creation of Tauride Mufti as an alternative of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea, etc..) can aggravate the situation and speed up radicalization process among the Crimean Tatars,” reads the statement.

The Crimean Human Rights field mission was established on March 5, 2014 to unite those who, regardless of political position ready to act to protect human rights in the occupied peninsula. The mission monitors the human rights situation, takes actions to support the rule of law and promotes various initiatives in the field of human rights.

The Crimean Human Rights field mission is working with various agencies and institutions of the Council of Europe and the OSCE, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as with the Ombudsman as Ukraine and Russia, and regularly participates in the preparation of reports on the situation of human rights in Crimea.

In another region of Ukraine, Donbass, where Russia continues to wage hybrid war against Ukraine, the Jewish religious community of Donetsk and Luhansk virtually ceased to exist, as many Jews left these cities through military action, reports Interfax-Ukraine with reference to the press-center of the World Forum of Russian-speaking Jewish (WFRJ).

For example, a synagogue in Donetsk has been closed since mid-August 2014, and Rabbi Pinchas Vyshedski moved from Donetsk to Kyiv with a large group of Jews. WFRJ specified that in recent months, thousands of Jews were forced to flee east Ukraine.

“About 100 Jewish refugees have stayed since June in a suburban boarding house, equipped at the expense of the Jewish community in Kyiv (Central Brodsky Synagogue led by Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman). Moreover, hundreds of Jews also live temporarily with relatives and friends in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk experiencing serious financial problems,” reads the statement.

WFRJ notes that there is a growing tendency among the Jewish population of Ukraine towards repatriation to Israel. According to Jewish Agency ‘Sokhnut’ in 2014 the repatriation from Odessa to Israel increased by 371% compared to the year 2013, by 341% from Kharkiv, by 263% in Dnipropetrovsk, an d by 178% from Simferopol.