Еміне Джеппар
First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar hopes that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will join and actively support the tasks and goals of the Crimean Platform.
She said this through her presentation during an interactive dialogue on Ukraine held in Geneva on March 22 as part of the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Dzheppar informed the UN Human Rights Council in detail about the ongoing gross violations of human rights and international law by the Russian occupation administration in Crimea, Russia's militarization of the Ukrainian peninsula and systemic policies to change the demographic composition of its population.
The First Deputy Minister spoke about the ongoing reprisals in Crimea, other manifestations of which were the illegal detention of journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko, cases of ethnic and religious discrimination, in particular, against the Crimean Tatar people, and ousting of independent media.
She drew the attention of UN member states and OHCHR to the Ukrainian initiative to create the Crimean Platform as a new consultative and coordination format for the de-occupation of the Crimean peninsula. She expressed hope for the active involvement of OHCHR in supporting the tasks and goals of the Platform.
The diplomat assured that the Ukrainian side was ready for further active cooperation with OHCHR in order to ensure human rights throughout Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, called on UN human rights mechanisms to strengthen monitoring of Russia’s violations of human rights in the occupied part of Donbas.
Crimean Platform
The Crimean Platform is a new consultative and coordination format initiated by Ukraine to improve the international response to the occupation of Crimea and growing security challenges.
The Platform aims to increase international pressure on Russia, prevent further human rights violations, protect victims of the occupation regime, and achieve the goal of de-occupation of Crimea and its return to Ukraine.
The Crimean Platform will operate at several levels: The first is the highest political level, which will be joined by foreign heads of state and government. The second is the level of heads of foreign policy departments and defence ministers; the third is the inter-parliamentary level; the fourth is the level of non-governmental experts.
The activities of the Crimean Platform will be officially launched at the inaugural summit which is planned to be held in Kyiv on August 23, 2021.
