"Either evolve or die." Interview with a human rights activist - about the inadvertence of international organizations, a tribunal for Putin and prisoners

The executive director of the Center for Civil Liberties Alexander Romtsov told more about the human rights activities of the CGZ in an interview with Radio NV. - My first question will relate to your activity at the Civil Liberty Center. As it has changed when compared with 2014 - Russia's attack on Ukraine, with full -scale aggression, which began on February 24.

What had to be changed in CHS? I suspect that you have more work, because the fighting theater throughout Ukraine - no one feels safe when the rocket can be hit anywhere. - I agree with you. To begin with the fact that the CGS is quite an old human rights organization. We have been working since 2007. Of course, since the beginning of the 2014 war, our activity has already reflected in particular the attack of the Russian Federation then.

Since February 24, it has added many field tasks, documenting war crimes. Our basic idea is that human rights standards are everywhere in Ukraine. Of course, this is not so easy, because it is first and foremost interaction with the authorities, so that it does not forget Ukraine's international obligations both in laws, actions and in reactions to some new practices - from stationers for police to the Istanbul Convention.

For example, the creation of a new legislation that is needed to response to war. For seven years in a row, we have been working to ensure that these categories, military crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, aggression, aggression, are emerging in our national, legislation. And every time we were told: "Not on time. " Like, it is not so important, it's too difficult, much harmonize. We have written a law together with international experts.

And now, when we have military crimes every day for thousands of pieces . . . Really, it is the largest in the history of wars a documented war, because we all have high -tech with you and have many opportunities to fix how it is happening, what harm and negative consequences for Ukrainians are aggression . And so far we do not have this law. He has not been signed by the President for a year.

But I have always reacted not just to theoretical, distant human rights, we talked about the standards that we are with you, as a democratic Ukrainian society that seeks to develop, to realize people's opportunities at home, not when leaving. here. From February 24, we returned to documentation. We started doing it in 2014, special training. This is not the same as just investigating criminal offenses or administrative violations. It requires a lot of knowledge.

We worked with those who documented crimes during the Second Chechen [War], we clearly understand how Russia is going (and it does not change its standards of behavior) and what types of war crimes are doing because it believes that it is a good war strategy. But no, I say right away. Now we, together with other organizations - Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Ukrainian Helsinki Union - have created an initiative tribunal for Putin.

And a lot of attention is paid to this-the fixing of those offenses, war crimes, the political violations that Russia against Ukraine commits, because all this is a global violation of human rights, first. And secondly, we need to understand that we are not the only crisis in the world.

In order for Ukraine to continue to help Ukraine, in the priority of funding, we must show that it is actually a terrible war and it violates the principles on which all this happy, economically developed civilized world stands; What we really are on guard and can be a turning point that will not only protect itself, but simply forbid the aggressive policy that Russia has been leading since the 90s. We are apotheosis, peak. And before that were Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Balkans, Moldova.

In fact, we are those who are now standing for everyone and can show that the crime is all this policy, not just an attack on Ukraine. - Another aspect that is worth mentioning. We exactly show how ineffective were allegedly powerful international organizations that cannot prevent these crimes that are happening right now in real time in Ukraine.

That is, where is the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross that should protect our prisoners of war? Ukraine now has this key role - to change how these organizations work. Or maybe it is worth establishing new organizations? - You are right. We all joked with you that there was a globe of Ukraine (laughs - ed. ). In reality, we are now at the center of all events. This is a very big responsibility, on the one hand.

It is very important that all of these mechanisms that have lost their mission, that they should be achieved. According to these procedures, for the fact that they cannot be changed, for the fact that they have been predicted for too long, they lost what they were created for. On the one hand, they seem to help elsewhere and it works. But if we are talking about the most important mission so that there is no war . . .

Despite the fact that the number of conflicts in the world is declining, but they are all hybrid (this is not Russia, it is not even able to create this model), a mixture The war models work everywhere. And, unfortunately, neither the OSCE nor the UN have a response to it. You will have [organizations to change] - "either evolutionary or die. " - You would like to ask about your other direction. On the CGS website, one of the first windows is the search for the missing.

How does it work? Do you manage to receive any information about our captives? - We have worked for eight years with this topic. Then they were political prisoners and hostages in the Donbass. Most political prisoners are the Crimean Tatars, which were arrested in Crimea, then moved to the territory of the Russian Federation. We have changed the name - now it is Prisoners Voice and we are still keeping this campaign.

Now we put all this experience in our captives - both prisoners of war and civilians. If there is a trafficage with the military with the military, from the General Staff, that is, it is a little more structured and there are more rules, including international, then with civilian terror. None of us really know how many people have taken out from the Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Chernihiv region Russian troops when they fled from our Armed Forces.

Mariupol, Melitopol: We know that filtration camps are 19 pieces. But there is no entrance there and it is terrible. In addition, there is a violent movement of children to the territory of the Russian Federation. It is one of the most promising accusations for the International Criminal Court against Putin himself, because it is a real element of genocide: a group of children is detached from the roots, they are adopted, for example, do not give any contact with Ukraine.

We try to keep track of these children to find. All this [happens] with our experience, with contact with relatives, we interact with the various state structures that do it. Most importantly, we use our connections in the territory to find such people, because no one tries to show them in the official structure. Recently, Mykola Polozov, who was engaged in our sailors, created a search. Polon is an initiative that brings together lawyers.