‘Temporarily occupied territory’: UN GA committee adopts resolution on human rights in Crimea

The UN General Assembly committee voted to adopt a resolution on human rights in Crimea on November, 15.

“On November 15, 2016, the Third Committee (focused on the subject of human rights) of the UN General Assembly adopted resolution entitled ‘Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)’, initiated by Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to the UN said in a statement.

The document also urges Russia to allow international human rights mechanisms, in particular the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, unimpeded access to Crimea in order to monitor human rights situation and asks the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a separate thematic report on the situation in the peninsula.

“For the first time the official documents of the UN recognize the Russian Federation as an occupying power and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a temporarily occupied territory. In addition, the resolution confirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine and reaffirmed the non-recognition of annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula,” the statement reads.

In turn, Anatoly Viktorov, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights (DHCHR), said at the session of the committee that the resolution ‘has nothing to do with the real situation in Crimea, as well as the opinion and interests of the peninsula residents’.

“We are convinced that many Ukrainians would prefer to live like the residents of Crimea live now: in peace, gradual economic development and social security. This is how the present situation in Crimea looks like,” he said.

A total of 73 states voted for the document, 76 abstained, 23 voted against, including Russia, Belarus, Vietnam, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, China, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea, Syria.

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As reported earlier, The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague recognized the annexation of the Crimean peninsula as a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and a Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory.

Belsat TV journalists were witnessing the dramatic moment of the beginning of the annexation:

belsat.eu, following Interfax Ukraine, TASS