State Department's annual report praises Ukraine for significant progress on rights (02/09/97)

State Department's annual report praises Ukraine for significant progress on rights

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report for 1996 praises Ukraine for "significant progress toward building a law-based civil society" and at the same time focuses on a number of shortcomings in that process. The report on Ukraine, along with reports on 193 other countries, was released here January 30.

Human rights violations in Ukraine "remained at the same low level as last year (1995)," the report states, but adds that "problems remain in the unreformed legal and prison systems," which are underfunded and, despite the new Constitution, continue with some of the old Soviet practices and rely on judges and prosecutors appointed during the Soviet era. While the previous year's report criticized Ukraine for continuing to work under the old, Soviet Constitution, this year's report lauds the new Constitution adopted in June for safeguarding human rights and establishing the principle of judicial review, among other things.

But the U.S. government report adds that "the efficacy of the new Constitution, however, depends on enabling legislation, most of which had not been passed by year's end."

The report highlights the following problem areas:

Police and prison officials "regularly beat" detainees and are not punished for it.
The judiciary is overburdened; long trial delays and pre-trial detentions are a problem; prison conditions are poor.
Despite progress toward an independent judiciary, political interference continues, and there are cases of organized-crime influence.
There have been government attempts to control the press, and there are limits on the freedom of association and the work of non-native religious organizations.
"Significant societal anti-Semitism," discrimination and violence against women, and incidents of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities are evident.

The report notes that there were no political prisoners, no known political killings and no reported cases of political abuse in psychiatry in Ukraine in 1996. There was, however, a claim by the speaker of the Crimean Parliament that he was kidnapped and beaten by unidentified assailants, and the report also mentions that the 1994 disappearance of a Rukh leader, Mykhailo Boichyshyn, remains unsolved.

With respect to the right to privacy, the reports notes that while the Constitution requires that courts issue search warrants, during a five-year "transition" period, search warrants as well as arrest warrants will be issued at the discretion of the prosecutor. Also evident are some remnants of the Soviet control mechanisms, most notably the militia's right to stop any vehicle without probable cause to check the vehicle and the driver's documents, a practice that frequently results in a bribe being paid.

While the Constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press, the report points out that the government "largely controls" the broadcast media and "occasionally attempts to control" the press, which also results in tendencies toward self-censorship. The report cited the attempts by Derzhteleradio to quash two independently produced television news programs "Vikna" and "Pisliamova" and the sentencing to two years (suspended) of Ivan Makar, editor of the newspaper Opozytsiya, for libel against the president and his staff. At the same time, reporting on organized crime and corruption in government "is becoming increasingly bold."

In education, the report points out that the major universities, while state owned, "ostensibly operate under full autonomy." Academic freedom, however, "is an underdeveloped and poorly understood concept."

Under the new Constitution, organizers of demonstrations need only to inform the government about their plans in advance; there is no 10-day requirement, as in the past. Unlicensed demonstrations are common, the report says, but there have been cases of criminal prosecution of participants of unauthorized demonstrations in Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.

The report is highly critical of that part of the Constitution of Ukraine, its laws and government regulations that significantly limit freedom of association and the use of "onerous registration requirements to circumscribe this right."

The formation of regional political parties is restricted by a requirement that in order to be registered as a political party, a group must have representatives in at least half of the country's oblasts. The report points out that this negatively effects Russian and Tatar organizations in Crimea. According to the report, all organizations must be registered with the government, which then has a large measure of control over the organization's activities: the group must keep the government apprised of all its activities, including notification of its meetings; the meetings must be open to all, regardless of whether they are members or not; and the group must be ready, upon request, to present registration documents to any government official and be ready to prove that it is in compliance with its registration requirements. A change in purpose requires a new registration.

The government of Ukraine respects the religious freedoms enshrined in the new Constitution and the 1991 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religion. Unfortunately, the 1993 amendment to the law, as the report points out, "requires that members of the clergy, preachers, teachers and other foreign citizen representatives of foreign organizations preach, administer religious ordinances, or practice other canonical activities 'only in those religious organizations which invited them to Ukraine and with official approval of the governmental body that registered the statutes and the articles of the pertinent religious organization.' "

Freedom of movement within Ukraine is not limited by law, but there is a nationwide registration requirement at the workplace and place of residence in order to get social benefits. The report also notes that Ukrainians may travel abroad freely; however, they are still required to obtain exit visas.

Women are active in political life, but hold a disproportionately small percentage of offices, the report states. There are 16 women in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada; four women are of Cabinet rank; and two of the 18-member Supreme Court are women. The principle of equal pay for equal work is "generally observed" in the case of women in the workplace, the report notes, but they are barred by law from hard and hazardous jobs, which are the best paid blue-collar positions, and they have to contend with a glass ceiling for managerial positions. Statistics on wife beatings are not available, and even though most women who are raped never report it, there has been an 80 percent increase in rapes in recent years.

The State Department report states that Jews, the second largest religious minority in Ukraine, have "expanded opportunities to pursue their religious and cultural activities, but anti-Semitic incidents continue to occur." "The government has protected the rights of the Jewish community and speaks out against anti-Semitism," the report says, pointing out that there are "freely operating Jewish cultural centers and educational institutions, including several colleges." The report adds, however, that some "ultranationalist" groups, like UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self Defense Organization) and DSU (National Independence of Ukraine), circulate anti-Semitic tracts, and that anti-Semitic articles continue to appear in a few local newspapers, citing Za Vilnu Ukrainu in Lviv and Vechirniy Kyiv in the capital. The report points out that the papers have not been prosecuted under the law forbidding the sowing of interethnic hatred.

"With the exception of two regions," the report contends, "there is no evidence of serious ethnic tension. In some parts of western Ukraine, small Russian, Jewish and other minority groups credibly accuse some local Ukrainian ultranationalists of fostering ethnic hatred and printing anti-Semitic tracts. They also charge that local authorities have not taken action against those who foment ethnic hatred. In Crimea, Ukrainian and Tatar minorities credibly complain of discrimination by the Russian majority and demand that the Ukrainian and Tatar languages be given equal treatment to Russian."

The State Department compiles its annual human rights reports on countries that receive U.S. foreign aid as well as on all member-countries of the United Nations in compliance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.

In summarizing this year's reports, the State Department singled out China, Nigeria, Cuba, Burma and North Korea for their human rights violations.

It called the situation in Russia "mixed." There was "serious backsliding" on human rights in Belarus; Armenia had "flawed elections"; presidential power grew at the expense of the legislative and judiciary in Kazakstan and Kyrgystan; and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan lagged "even further behind" in human rights in the development of democracy.

In releasing the human rights reports, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stressed that they reflect "the American people's commitment to high standards of respect for human dignity and freedom for all people."

"That commitment matters a great deal to me, for I am a beneficiary of it, she said. Secretary Albright was born in Czecho-Slovakia, whence her family was forced to flee twice - once before the Nazis, and again before the Communists.

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