Rights report says Ukraine continues to make progress (02/15/98)

Rights report says Ukraine continues to make progress

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - "Ukraine continued the process of building a law-based civil society" in 1997, according to the U.S. State Department's annual human rights report released here January 30.

The report, which covers countries that receive U.S. foreign assistance and all countries that are members of the United Nations, noted that instances of human rights violations in Ukraine "remained at the same low level as in 1996."

The 1997 report on Ukraine is very similar in its observations to the 1996 report, which praised and cited many of the same human rights achievements and shortcomings. It also noted, again, that in many cases the shortcomings result from holdover practices and personalities from the Soviet era, the absence of constitutionally mandated enabling legislation and enforcement, as well as the worsening economic situation in Ukraine.

The report cites continuing problems with trial delays and beatings in the unreformed legal and prison systems, and in the army.

Noting progress in ensuring the independence of the judiciary under Ukraine's new Constitution, the report adds that "political interference continues to affect the judicial process."

While no longer criticizing Ukraine for working under a Soviet-style constitution, as it did in previous reports, the State Department report points out that "the efficacy of the 1996 Constitution and the safeguards that it provides for human rights depends on enabling legislation, most of which has not yet been passed."

The report also cites other shortcomings:

Occasionally, government officials attempt to control the press and limit freedom of speech by suing editors for libel, initiating tax audits, and by keeping radio and television under government control.
The government controls freedom of association through "onerous registration requirements," and non-native religious organizations by "narrowly defining the activities of members of the clergy, preachers, teachers and other foreign citizen representatives of foreign organizations."
Laws governing political party organizations potentially limit human rights by "imposing limitations on the establishment of political parties that are not sufficiently regionally represented." The new government regulation requires that in order to be registered, political parties must have representatives in at least half the oblasts, which "negatively affects primarily Russian and Crimean Tatar organizations in Crimea."

· While Jews, the second largest religious minority in Ukraine, "have expanded opportunities to pursue their religious and cultural activities," the report says, anti-Semitism continues "on an individual basis, but is virtually non-existent at the official level."

The State Department report notes that there are freely operating Jewish cultural centers and educational institutions, including several colleges, but at the same time, there are some "ultranationalist Ukrainian groups" that continue to circulate anti-Semitic tracts, and a few local newspapers that publish anti-Semitic diatribes, singling out as in the previous year's report, the Lviv newspaper Za Vilnu Ukrayinu and the Kiev-based Vechirniy Kyiv.

· With some important exceptions, there are "only isolated cases of ethnic discrimination" in Ukraine.

The report notes that some pro-Russian organizations complain about the increased use of Ukrainian in schools and in the media, and that "with the exception of two regions, 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," while in Crimea, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities "credibly complain of discrimination by the Russian majority and demand that Ukrainian and Tatar languages be given equal treatment to Russian."

· Violence persists against women and children, as well as discrimination against women. The number of reported rapes and attempted rapes has increased by 80 percent over recent years. A 1995 poll of 600 women conducted by a women's organization in Kharkiv indicated that 10 to 15 percent had been raped and over 25 percent subjected to physical abuse over the course of their lifetime.

The report notes that women hold 19 of the 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, two hold ministerial posts, and two are on the 18-member Constitutional Court.

Ukraine is not singled out for its shortcomings in the introduction to the report, as are some of the 194 countries covered in this year's report: China is listed among the nine countries seen as "repressive"; Afghanistan among the seven listed as "in conflict"; and a few East European and a number of former Soviet states listed among countries "in transition" are cited for eliciting "some concern."

Russia, among them, is cited for taking "a step backward with the passage of a law restricting freedom of religion" and for "not adequately address(ing) pervasive sexual and domestic violence against women."

The human rights report also singles out the worsening situation in Belarus, where President Alyaksandr Lukashenka harassed independent political parties, the media, trade unions, human rights groups, and non-governmental organizations, and forced the Soros Foundation out of the country.

The State Department's annual human rights reports are compiled as required by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.

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