PACE adopts resolution on Russian captives with first mention of Ukrainian journalists
On October 2, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted the Resolution "Missing persons, prisoners of war and civilians in captivity as a result of the war of aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine". The resolution contains the first separate mention of detained journalists.
74 PACE members voted in favor of the document, deputy head of the Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee and Ukrainian PACE delegation member Yevhenia Kravchuk announced on Facebook.
The Assembly reminds that 30 Ukrainian citizen journalists and media professionals remain unlawfully detained by Russia in terrible conditions. PACE calls for sustained international pressure on the Russian Federation to release the detained journalists and provide immediate access for independent international bodies to inspect the conditions in which these journalists are held.
The part of the resolution that mentions detained journalists
"Deploring that 30 Ukrainian civilian journalists and media workers remain unlawfully detained in appalling conditions by the Russian Federation, the Assembly welcomes the release of Crimean Tatars together with prisoners of war and civilians from Russian captivity on 28 June 2024.
"The Assembly recalls that although the illegal Russian detentions started back in 2014, many of those abducted have been captured after the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022.
"The Assembly underlines that the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea remains particularly difficult, and urges its members to engage their governments, civil society, and media networks to raise awareness of the plight of Ukrainian journalists.
"The Assembly also calls for sustained international pressure on the Russian Federation to release the detained journalists and to provide immediate access for independent international bodies to inspect the conditions in which these journalists are held. Here too, the international community must insist on transparency and accountability to protect the human dignity and rights of those unlawfully imprisoned."
Yevhenia Kravchuk says that she mentioned the continued imprisonment of the journalists Dmytro Khyliuk, Iryna Danylovych, Victoria Roshchyna, and many other media professionals in her speech at PACE.
"And those who were released share shocking stories of torture – of physical and psychological abuse. I stressed that the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea is particularly difficult. In 2021, journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko was arrested in Crimea and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Some of the detainees represent Crimean Tatars, an indigenous people of Ukraine: Amet Suleymanov, Asan Akhtemov, Aziz Azizov, and others," she wrote.
Furthermore, the PACE meeting featured a speech by Nariman Celal, a journalist released from Russian captivity and the first deputy of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. Kravchuk says he testified about prisoners of war and civilian hostages at a PACE side event, advocating pressure on the Russian Federation to release them.
In a comment to Ukrinform, Yevhenia Kravchuk noted that the PACE resolution contains the first separate mention of detained journalists, including many so-called citizen journalists who documented the Russian authorities' crimes in occupied Crimea.
"For the first time, the resolution mentions a separate category of civilian prisoners – the detained journalists. There are more than thirty of them, at least those that have been identified," Kravchuk noted.
According to her, many people in the temporarily occupied territories become citizen journalists and it is difficult to account for them, since they are not officially media professionals.
"Since there is no free media in these areas, they actually play the role of journalists and record war crimes, which is why they get imprisoned for years. And a considerable share of these people are Crimean Tatars," the deputy noted.
According to Kravchuk, it was important that the document contain a reminder that these people have been in captivity since 2014, when the Russian Federation first occupied Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The planned resolution on detained journalists
In a comment to the Institute of Mass Information, Yevhenia Kravchuk reported that the PACE plans to adopt a separate resolution on detained journalists. The first hearings are planned for the spring of 2025. "The resolution will be ready no earlier than in a year," said the deputy.
Kravchuk added that she will be involved in the preparation of the resolution and this period may involve hearing testimonies: hearing the families of the detained journalists, as well as those who have already been released from captivity and are now advocating for this issue.
Moreover, there are plans to involve international human rights organizations "so that this issue has a global voice and it is not just Ukrainians talking about it."
The resolution adopted by the PACE on October 2 says that a total of 65,956 military servicepeople and civilians were registered as missing or captured, of which 50,916 (of which civilians far outnumber military personnel) were registered as missing based on verified data.
As IMI reported, Nariman Dzhelal returned to Ukraine on June 28 from Russian captivity. He is the first to be released from the IMI's list of 30 Ukrainian journalists captured by Russia, published by the Institute of Mass Information.
Help us be even more cool!
