Russia has called on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to objectively evaluate massive violations of language and religious rights and freedoms in Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said about it at a joint news conference after negotiations with OSCE Secretary-General Thomas Greminger, TASS reported.
"We drew the secretary-general’s attention to the fact that Kiev’s authorities continue the course for derailing the implementation of the Minsk accords and called for closer monitoring and objective and principled evaluation of Kiev’s destructive actions to connive at the legislative level at massive violations of language, education and religious rights and freedoms," the Russian foreign minister noted.
The minister highlighted that "these steps contradict not just Ukraine’s international obligations, including the obligations undertaken within the OSCE, but the Ukrainian state’s constitution as well."
Lavrov said that during the negotiations the sides particularly dwelled "on the prospects of political settlement in eastern Ukraine, presuming the absence of alternatives to the complete and gradual implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures." "We also studied the ways to increase the effectiveness of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the operation of which Russia is actively supporting," he added.
The Western countries raise the issue of human rights violations only at private meetings with Ukraine’s authorities without speaking about it publicly and that evokes a feeling of impunity among the country’s authorities, Lavrov said.
"The countries that have a dominant influence on the behavior of Kiev’s authorities in this case have more leverages to prevent rude violations of human rights," Lavrov noted. "These ideas are brought home to the Kiev administration in private talks, and we know it is so: both OSCE representatives and representatives for the leading European countries are doing so. They are doing it quietly, hoping that the power of conviction, the power of influence and the West’s leverages for Kiev - economic and other - will work. However, particularly because they feel shy to do it publicly, Kiev’s authorities are left with a feeling of complete impunity," the minister said, answering the question on the hushing up by the Western countries of human rights violations in Ukraine.
In light of this, Lavrov concluded that the West is currently responsible for the actions of Ukraine’s authorities, as European countries backed the coup d’etat in Ukraine in the past.
Russian Foreign Minister also said that Moscow has provided the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with a comparison chart containing the responses OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir gave to the violations of journalists' rights in various countries.
"It is clear to us that [Chief Editor of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news outlet] Kirill Vyshinsky was arrested only for fulfilling his professional duties, covering the situation and expressing his view on it in order to provide objective information about what is going on in Ukraine to the public, as there is no free access to Russian media outlets," Lavrov said. "We pointed out that Harlem Desir once again expressed regret, following a court ruling extending Kirill Vyshinsky’s arrest until December 28," he said.
"We also drew the attention of our colleagues from the OSCE to the fact that the OSCE representative’s response to violations of journalists' rights is not always the same," the Russian top diplomat went on to say. "We provided them with a comparison chart containing his expression of negative attitude towards violations concerning Russian journalists, on the one hand, and to violations of foreign journalists’ rights, on the other," he explained.
According to Lavrov, Moscow calls on all OSCE agencies to abandon double standards. "When we witness a blatant violation of the fundamental rights of a journalist or any other person, our response should be adequate," he stressed.
Vyshinsky case
On May 15, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) carried out a large-scale operation against RIA Novosti Ukraine staff members, accusing them of high treason. The news agency’s Chief Editor Kirill Vyshinsky was arrested. Searches were conducted in the news agency’s Kiev office and press center, as well as in some journalists’ apartments. The SBU also issued a statement claiming that "a network of media structures, which Moscow used for carrying out a hybrid war" against Kiev had been exposed.
Charges against Vyshinsky are particularly based on a number of the journalist’s articles dedicated to the 2014 events in Crimea. If found guilty, the journalist may face up to 15 years. However, he pleaded not guilty.
Vyshinsky, originally a Ukrainian national, obtained Russian citizenship in 2015. He addressed Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko from the courtroom, renouncing his Ukrainian citizenship and saying he considered himself to be only a Russian national. He also addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for legal assistance in his release.
On November 1, Ukraine’s Kherson City Court extended Vyshinsky’s arrest until December 28.
