On July 20, Friday, at 11:00, press conference of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union War Takes No Holidays will be held at Glavcom press center (Kyiv, 8/20 Shovkovychna St.) on the occasion of the liberation of Sievierodonetsk from illegal armed groups on July 22, 2014

The press conference will be dedicated to the importance of issues related to the documentation of war crimes, consequences of the conflict, and aid to conflict victims.

With this event, we aim to inform the public about the problems with keeping objective records of gross human rights violations committed and damage caused in the course of the armed conflict, as well as to report on the steps being taken by the government on this front.

Speakers

Oleksiy Bida – coordinator of UHHRU Documentation Center

Elina Shyshkina – coordinator of Right 2 Protection initiative

Andrian Aleksieyev – prosecutor, Division for Supervision of Compliance with the Law and Enforcement of Court Decisions in Criminal Cases, Department for Investigation of Crimes against the Foundations of National Security of Ukraine, Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine

Andriy Atamanchuk – investigator, Major Crimes Unit, Department for Investigation of Crimes Committed in Temporarily Occupied Territories, Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine

Ukraine still has no national database of people who died or disappeared in eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The Ukrainian government and international organizations have only rough estimates of losses among civilians and combatants, as well as of the scale of damage to private property. The lack of a unified national database creates problems with obtaining satisfaction: restitution, pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, as well as material, qualified medical, psychological, legal and social aid.

As the first step toward solving this problem, UHHRU experts will present the results of the Memorial Map developed by them last year, which provides a visual opportunity to get acquainted with information on the people who died in eastern Ukraine on all sides of the conflict – government military forces, paramilitary groups from the so-called “DPR”/”LPR”, as well as units of Russian armed forces.

Every person who died has the right to be remembered, and their families deserve just satisfaction. If the circumstances of their deaths are withheld, they die twice – both physically and on paper. Every victim of the conflict has the right to know what happened to their loved ones and what caused it. Such is the right to the truth.

The speakers will also explain the prospects of this work as a mandatory element of a new phenomenon for Ukraine – transitional justice, which is supposed to combine international expertise and national practices in the area of equitable treatment for all victims of the conflict.

Contact: Maksym Petrov (UHHRU) – 095 483 48 45