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Human rights in Ukraine concern the fundamental rights of every person in Ukraine. Between 2017 and 2022,Freedom House has given Ukraine ratings from 60 to 62 on its 100-point scale, and a "partly free" overall rating. Ratings on electoral processes have generally been good, but there are problems with corruption and due process. Its rating later declined in 2023 due to theRussian invasion of Ukraine, which led to the enactment ofmartial law in Ukraine, as well as a labor code that removed many legal protection for employees and small and medium-sized companies, as well as a law that increased the government's power to regulate media companies and journalism. Since the beginning of the invasion Russia has engaged in variouswar crimes against Ukrainian civilians and the invasion has had a majorhumanitarian impact on Ukraine and its citizens.[1]
Both the 2015 local elections and the 2019 presidential elections were generally peaceful, competitive and fair, although there are indications of misuse of state resources and vote-buying, and media pluralism has not yet been fully achieved.[2][3][4] Attacks on journalists, civil society activists and members of minority groups are frequent, and police responses inadequate.[5]
As of 2021 investigations into crimes against journalists and human rights activists often do not result in convictions, and impunity for torture is still widespread.[6] Gender-based and homophobic violence by groups advocating discrimination are also a cause for concern,[6] as well as linguistic rights of national minorities.[7] War crimes committed by both sides of thewar in Donbas are not prosecuted, and inRussian-occupied Crimea dissent is repressed.[6]
As part of the Soviet Union, all human rights were severely limited. TheSoviet Union was aone-party state until 1990[8] and atotalitarian state from1927 until 1953[9][10][11][12] where members of theCommunist Party held all key positions in the institutions of the state and other organizations.Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in freelabor unions, privatecorporations, independent churches or oppositionpolitical parties. Thefreedom of movement within and especially outside the country was limited.
In 1991 Ukraine declared independence. The referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held inUkraine on 1 December 1991.[13] An overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved thedeclaration of independence made by theVerkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991. Until 8 June 1995, Ukraine's supreme law was theConstitution (Fundamental Law) of theUkrainian SSR (adopted in 1978, with numerous later amendments). On 8 June 1995, PresidentLeonid Kuchma and SpeakerOleksandr Moroz (acting on behalf of the parliament) signed the Constitutional Agreement for the period until a new constitution could be drafted.
The first constitution since independence was adopted during an overnight parliamentary session after almost 24 hours of debate of 27–28 June 1996, unofficially known as "the constitutional night of 1996". The Law No. 254/96-BP ratifying the constitution, nullifying previous constitutions. The Agreement was ceremonially signed and promulgated in mid-July 1996. According to a ruling of theConstitutional Court of Ukraine, the constitution took force at the moment when the results of the parliamentary vote were announced on 28 June 1996 at approx. 9 a.m.Kyiv Time and for the first time enshrined the obligations of human rights into law.
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Ukraine was labelled as "free" byFreedom House in 2009.[14] In their report they stated, "Ukraine has one of the most vibrant civil societies in the region. Citizens are increasingly taking issues into their own hands, protesting against unwanted construction, and exposing corruption. There were no limits seen onNGO activities.Trade unions function, but strikes and worker protests were infrequently observed, even though dissatisfaction with thestate of economic affairs was pervasive in the fall of 2008. Factory owners were seen as still able to pressure their workers to vote according to the owners' preferences."[14]
On 20 October 2009 experts from theCouncil of Europe stated, "in the last five years the experts from the Council of Europe who monitor Ukraine have expressed practically no concerns regarding the important [process of the] formation of acivil society in Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the democratic states in Europe that is securinghuman rights as a national policy, as well as securing the rights of national minorities."[15] According toHuman Rights Watch (HRW), "while civil society institutions operate mostly without government interference, police abuse and violations of the rights of vulnerable groups … continue to mar Ukraine's human rights record."[16]
Afterthe early 2010 election ofPresidentViktor Yanukovych international organizations started to voice their concern. According to Freedom House, "Ukraine under President Yanukovych has become less democratic and, if current trends are left unchecked, may head down a path toward autocracy and kleptocracy."[17] Among the recent negative developments, they mentioned, "a more restrictive environment for the media, selective prosecution of opposition figures, worrisome intrusiveness by theSecurity Service of Ukraine, widely criticized local elections in October 2010 … and erosion of basic freedoms of assembly and speech." This led Freedom House to downgrade Ukraine from "Free" to "Partly Free" inFreedom in the World 2011.[17] Also in 2011Amnesty International spoke of "an increase in the number of allegations of torture and ill-treatment inpolice custody, restrictions on the freedom of speech and assembly, as well as massmanifestations of xenophobia".[18]
InReporters Without BordersPress Freedom Index 2010 Ukraine had fallen from 89th place to 131.[19] NeighboringRussia's press freedom was ranked at position 140.[20] TheInternational Federation for Human Rights called Ukraine "one of the countries seeing the most serious violations against human rights activists" in December 2011.[21]
As of late 2013 the situation continued to deteriorate and was one of the causes of theEuromaidan revolution, as joining or even working towards meeting the requirement to join theEuropean Union would dramatically improve human rights across Ukraine. Russia, which had already laid the ground work reacted to the Euromaidan protests and invaded Crimea and the widerDonbas regions.
Ukraine signed but not yet ratified
As of 17 January 2013 Ukraine had lost all of its 211 cases at theEuropean Court of Human Rights.[22]
AfterBucha,Lyman,Makariv, andKherson were liberated from Russian occupation, Ukraine discovered mass graves containing bodies of civilians. Victims frequently bore evidence of torture.[23][24][25][26][27]
International observers, includingFreedom House and theUnited States Department of State, generally consider Ukrainian election processes to be free and fair. However, there were credible allegations of vote-buying, and media coverage was at times biased.Nazi andCommunist parties are banned.[28]
Amendments to the constitution, which came into force, were detrimental to the right to receive afair trial because they re-introduced the so-called general supervision by the prosecutor's office. Other serious problems included lengthy periods for review of cases because the courts were overloaded; infringement of equality of arms; non-observance of the presumption of innocence; the failure to execute court rulings; and high level of corruption in courts.[29] Independent lawyers and human rights activists have complained Ukrainian judges regularly come under pressure to hand down a certain verdict.[30]
According toFreedom House, the judiciary has become more efficient and less corrupt since theOrange Revolution.[14]
Recent (since 2010) trials of high-profile political figures[nb 1]Yulia Tymoshenko,Yuriy Lutsenko, Igor Didenko,[32] Anatoliy Makarenko[33] andValeriy Ivaschenko[34] have been described by theEuropean Commission, the United States and other international organizations as "unfair, untransparent and not independent"[35] and "selective prosecution of political opponents".[36][37][38]
Multiple languages have always been spoken in what is now Ukraine.[39] In the 19th century the Russians and Jews were the main ethnic groups in the urban areas while the countryside was mostly Ukrainian.[40][41] Ukraine has a history of linguistic conflict dating back to at least the 19th century. In 1863, Russian Minister of Internal AffairsPyotr Valuev issued acircular that banned the publication of religious texts and educational texts written in the Ukrainian language.[42]
TheSoviet policy towards the Ukrainian language varied from the promotion of it underLenin ("indigenization") to the persecution of the pro-Ukrainian language movement underStalin, and tolerance of it which was coupled with the gradual decline of the use of the Ukrainian language and the creepingrussification of Ukraine underKhrushchev andBrezhnev.[43] FollowingUkraine's declaration of independence in 1991, the previous pro-Russian policies were reversed and the use of theUkrainian language was actively encouraged and in certain areas, it was made compulsory. The 1996Constitution stated that Ukrainian is the state language, and it also stated that the free use and development ofRussian and other national minority languages is also permitted.
Subsequent legislation, notably the 2019 Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language, made the use of Ukrainian mandatory in various areas of public life.[7][44][45] Exceptions were made for languages that are considered "indigenous" because the speakers of them lack a kin-state, such as theCrimean Tatar language and theKaraim language, as well as those languages that are theofficial languages of the European Union.[46] However, significant minority languages in Ukraine, such asRussian,Belarusian andJewish, are neither official EU languages nor indigenous,[46] and concerns have been raised about their protection.[7][47] For example, print and online publications in languages that do not meet these criteria are prohibited unless they also have a Ukrainian translation,[7][44] and secondary schooling in these languages is prohibited.[44][46][47] The differential treatment of minority languages has been criticized on human rights and discrimination grounds by theVenice Commission,Human Rights Watch and theUnited Nations Human Rights Office.[7][46][48][49]
Russia exaggerated the real language issues, using them to create a false justification for the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. False claims included claims that Ukraine has been committinggenocide, and claims that Ukrainians have been shooting people who speak Russian.[50][51] In areas it controlled, Russia required that all classes be in Russian[52][53] and allegedly tortured a teacher for teaching in Ukrainian.[54]
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In 2007, in Ukraine's provinces numerous, anonymous attacks[55] and threats persisted against journalists, who investigated or exposed corruption or other government misdeeds.[56][57] The US-basedCommittee to Protect Journalists concluded in 2007 that these attacks, and police reluctance in some cases to pursue the perpetrators, were "helping to foster an atmosphere of impunity against independent journalists".[16][58]
Ukraine's ranking inReporters Without Borders'sPress Freedom Index has in the latest years been around the 90th spot (89 in 2009,[59] 87 in 2008[60]), while it occupied the 112th spot in 2002[61] and even the 132nd spot in 2004.[62]
During the Russia-backed 2010-2014 Presidency ofViktor Yanukovych was electedPresident of Ukraine, journalistic watchdogs complained about a deterioration of press freedom in Ukraine.[63][64][65][66] Anonymous journalists said early May 2010 that they were voluntarily tailoring their coverage so as not to offend the Yanukovych administration and theYanukovych Government.[67] The Yanukovych Government said it did not censor the media,[68] so did thePresidential Administration[69] and President Yanukovych himself.[70][71]
A May 2014 report from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said that there were approximately 300 violent attacks on the media in Ukraine since November 2013.[72] A crackdown on what authorities describe as "pro-separatist" points of view have triggered dismay among Western human rights monitors. For example, the 11 September 2014 shutdown ofVesti [Wikidata] newspaper by theUkrainian Security Service for "violating Ukraine's territorial integrity" brought swift condemnation from theCommittee to Protect Journalists and theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.[73][nb 2]
Ukraine has also shut down several television stations operated by Russia on the grounds that they spread Russian propaganda.[73] In February 2017 the Ukrainian government banned the commercial importation of books from Russia, which had accounted for up to 60% of all titles sold.[75]
According toAmnesty International, in 2021 the media were generally pluralistic and free, but some outlets were discriminated against by officials because of their perceived pro-Russian leaning.[76] Criticisms have been levelled at the decision to depriveTaras Kozak's TV channels of broadcasting licences.[76] The investigation into the murder of the journalistPavlo Sheremet in 2016 were undermined by serious deficiencies and lack of credibility.[76]
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Reports oftorture and ill-treatment by police persisted during 2007, as did unduly long periods of pretrial custody. Of major concern were the inhumane conditions in detention with overcrowded cells, appalling sanitary conditions and the lack of appropriate medical care. During the year numerous group suicide attempts took place in some penal colonies.[29][83]
In Eastern Ukraine, the SBU conducted torture and human rights abuses for allegedpro-Russian separatists, according to 2016 reports.[84][85][86] Some of this torture took place insecret prisons with unacknowledged detention.[87] The existence ofblack sites was denounced by multiple reports of theUN monitoring mission in Ukraine,[88]Amnesty International[89] andHuman Rights Watch.[90]
On 25 May 2016, the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) suspended its visit to Ukraine after the government denied it access to places in several parts of the country where it suspects these secret jails were located.[84][91] In 2018 Amnesty International concluded that, "The investigation into the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) for its alleged secret prisons failed to make any progress. Law enforcement officials continued to use torture and other ill-treatment."[92]
According toAmnesty International, in 2021 abuse of prisoners remained "endemic".[76] As reported by theProsecutor General's Office, in March 2022 theEuropean Court of Human Rights had ruled against Ukraine in 115 cases .[76] The European Court found that Oleksandr Rafalsky had spent 15 years in prison despite good reasons to believe that his "confessions" had been extorted by torture.[93]
During the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine numerous acts of torture of civilians and numerous acts of torture of prisoners of war by Russian forces have been documented,[94][95][96][97] including rape and sexual violence against men, women, and children by Russian forces.[98][99]
The Ukrainian government has taken a number of positive steps to fightHIV/AIDS, chiefly in the area of legislative and policy reform. But these important commitments are being undermined in the criminal justice and health systems by widespread human rights abuses against drug users, sex workers, and people living with HIV/AIDS.[16]
There has been a growing awareness of human trafficking as a human rights issue in Europe. The end of communism has contributed to an increase in human trafficking, with the majority of victims being women forced into prostitution.[100][101] In 2013 Ukraine was a country of origin and country of transit for persons, primarily women and children, trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor.[102] Charcoal production and pornography have been listed in theU.S. Department of Labor'sList of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor under the country of Ukraine in December 2014. The Government of Ukraine has shown some commitment to combatting trafficking but has been criticized for not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and for inadequate trafficking prevention efforts.[103]
Violence against women is an entrenched social problem in Ukrainian culture engendered by traditional male and female stereotypes.[104][105] It was not recognized during the Soviet era, but in recent decades the issue became an important topic of discussion in Ukrainian society and among academic scholars. According to the estimation ofOSCE the violence towards women is widespread in Ukraine and it is associated with three times more deaths than the ongoing armed conflict in the eastern provinces of the country.[106]
During the ongoingRusso-Ukrainian War, Ukraine has lost control ofCrimea and parts of theDonbas. On 21 May 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has passed a resolution declaring that it has withdrawn from some of the obligations stipulated in theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (articles 2, 9, 12, 14, 17), theConvention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (articles 5, 6, 8, 13) andEuropean Social Charter (articles 1 p. 2, 4 p. 2-3, 8 p. 1, 14 p. 1, 15,16,17 p. 1a p. 1c, 23,30, 31 p. 1-2) at theDonbas region until "Russia cease its aggression in eastern Ukraine".[107][108]
"after 1953 ...This was still an oppressive regime, but not a totalitarian one."
"The era of 'social engineering' in the Soviet Union ended with the death of Stalin in 1953 or soon after; and that was the close of the totalitarian regime itself."
"The Soviet Union after the death of Stalin moved from totalitarianism to authoritarian rule."
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)a persistent pattern of arbitrary and incommunicado detention by the Ukrainian law enforcement (mainly by the Security Service of Ukraine) and by military and paramilitary units (first and foremost by the former volunteer battalions now formally incorporated into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard and the police). These cases were often accompanied by torture and ill-treatment
