Respect for human rights has been weakening in Europe for many years, but “this is no reason to give up”, said the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, when presenting her annual report to the parliamentary assembly on Monday 24 April at the opening of the spring plenary.
At the forefront of this very disturbing record is the war in Ukraine, which has made 2022 “the year of mass atrocities on European soil”.
Since March 2022, the Commissioner has conducted six emergency missions to reception centres in border countries, before visiting Ukraine in May, including several locations in the Kyiv region that were previously under Russian control or witnessed heavy fighting, such as Irpin, Bucha, and Borodyanka.
During the visit, she observed that the war had caused “numerous cases of torture, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detention and sexual violence”.
Her second visit in March focused on the situation of children transferred to Russia or to the occupied territories, in some cases for adoption, a topic the Assembly will debate on 27 April.
This is a clear violation of international law, as children separated from their parents during a humanitarian emergency can never be considered orphans, she said.
The Commissioner called for international cooperation on this issue and noted the international arrest warrant issued by the ICC against the Russian president and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights.
She added that it is essential to investigate and prosecute those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine, welcoming the focus on this issue at the upcoming Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe in Reykjavik on 16-17 May.
Beyond Ukraine, the Commissioner warned of the deterioration of respect for fundamental rights in all Council of Europe member states.
This is evidenced by the reluctance to implement the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (another theme of the summit), “the continued violation of the human rights of migrants and their instrumentalisation for political purposes”, “the increasing repression of environmental human rights defenders, especially young people, who demand to be heard, sometimes through unconventional means”, the challenging of media freedom and the difficulties faced by human rights defenders in a growing number of European states.
Overall, the Commissioner denounced a “polarisation in society characterised by hate speech against different social or minority groups”, with the “dramatic example” of “the pervasive climate of intolerance against LGBTI people”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/6if (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)