On April 13 the President of Ukraine met the Ombudsman Nina Karpachova. 

As the press-service of the Ukrainian Ombudsman informs, during the meeting they discussed a range of problems regarding keeping to rights and freedoms in Ukraine. Particularly, they spoke of fulfillment by Ukraine the obligations it undertook due to international treaties in the domain of human rights, about the necessity of intensifying cooperation of Ukraine with international structures for human rights.

Much attention was paid to the problems of keeping to political, public and social-economic rights of citizens in Ukraine, struggle against poverty, peculiarities of regional priorities in keeping to human rights and also raising the status of the judicial branch of the government.

The President supported the position of the Ombudsman on preserving the State department for punishment execution in the “acting status” and gave corresponding instructions. They agreed about common visiting penitentiary institutions soon.

In addition, during the conversation they spoke about the possibility of introducing dual citizenship. The Ombudsman was invited to the work group on the issue and to the direct participation in the sessions of the Council of the national safety and defense. 

The interlocutors touched the issue of the rights’ protection of the victims of the Sknyliv’s catastrophe. Nina Karpachova passed a letter to the President with the grounding of the problem. Viktor Yushchenko agreed that the current status of the victims as those who suffered “of a general ailment” looks cynical. He entrusted the government of Ukraine in ten days to consider in complex the issue of granting the appropriate status to the victims of the Sknyliv’s tragedy and their social defense.    

They also discussed the question of supporting the family of the perished journalist Georgy Gongadze, particularly, his two minor children, mother and wife.

They also touched the matter of continuing the common Ukrainian-Cuban program “Children of Chornobyl” which marked its 15^th anniversary recently. Nina Karpachova passed to the President the request of parents of 20 thousand children who were cured on Cuba, and also of the society “Ukraine-Cuba”, the Union of soldiers-Cubans not to support in the UN Commission on human rights the anti-Cuban resolution regarding condemning human rights on Cuba. The Ombudsman emphasized that the blockade of Cuba during 46 years is the main human rights violation.    

The question of keeping to the rights of national minorities in Ukraine and support of the Ukrainian Diaspora abroad was also discussed. According to the information of the press-service of the Ukrainian Ombudsman, this year for the first time a concrete sum of money was given for it – 50 million hryvnias.

Finishing the meeting, Viktor Yushchenko singled out that as the guarantor of keeping to the constitutional rights and freedoms in Ukraine, he will do everything possible to make the human rights the core of the new government.

RUPOR