In a letter from 26 September 2016, the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) International Human and Civil Rights Committee called upon Commissioners for Human Rights and international human rights organizations to take immediate action in response to the troubling media reports of the seizure by Russian employees of the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Moscow and its General Director Volodymyr Ionov being refused entry.
Since his appointment by Ukrainian authorities on 3 March 2016, Russian authorities have refused to register Volodymyr Ionov as the General Director of the Ukrainian Cultural Center, a Ukrainian state institution that operates pursuant to a 1998 bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Concurrently, centers of the Russian Federation continue to operate unhindered in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Lviv.
These illegal actions on the part of Russian citizens impede not only the activities of the Ukrainian Cultural Center, but adversely affect the rights of the Ukrainian minority in the Russian Federation.
“The UWC International Human and Civil Rights Committee calls upon international human rights organizations to monitor and report on the threats to the Ukrainian minority and take immediate measures to protect the fundamental rights of Ukrainians living on the territory of the Russian Federation,” stated UWC International Human and Civil Rights Committee Chair Petro Sztyk.
