It is highly likely that Erdoğan will prevail next Sunday. Neither the dire state of the economy nor his responsibility for the extent of the damage caused by the Feb. 6 earthquake and his government’s failed rescue-and-relief assistance seemed to matter. Instead, his divisive, negative, and identity-driven politics carried the day against his opponent’s call for a more democratic and accountable Turkey. The country has now moved further to the right and away from democratic ideals, as well as from its traditional Western orientation defined by the founder of the Turkish republic, Atatürk, exactly a century ago this year. Autocrats around the world are sure to be relieved to see that it is, after all, possible to prevail through the ballot box.

What Happened?

As much as the results from the May 14  election caught many Turkish and international commentators off guard, with hindsight, they are not that terribly surprising. The polls, apart from two, were significantly off the mark, especially those that predicted Kılıçdaroğlu winning the contest in the first round.  Furthermore, many observers also were misled by Kılıçdaroğlu’s well-attended and jubilant rallies in Erdoğan strongholds, as well as his positive and inclusive campaign narrative symbolized by the heart symbol that he and his supporters adopted. This atmosphere suggested an electorate tired of Erdoğan’s 20-year-long reign and his deeply divisive and aggressive language.

Additionally, echo-chamber dynamics blinded sober analysis of Turkey’s sociopolitical realities and the benefits of public resources and partisan bureaucracy that accrued to Erdoğan as the incumbent. Hence, it is not surprising that numerous commentators boldly predicted that Erdoğan was losing and his reign was coming to an end. They were terribly mistaken. One such commentator, a veteran journalist, in an act of self-criticism, suspended his column until further notice. Even the Turkish stock market appears to have been under the spell of the expectation that Erdoğan was on the way out. It rallied as traders priced in this expectation before falling after the election.

Contrary to widespread concerns, the actual voting process appears to have been free from any major fraud, though there are still some allegations of electoral irregularities. As the OSCE election observation mission preliminarily concluded, the elections fell short of being contested fairly and were marked by practices that “tilted the playing field” against the opposition, giving the incumbent president and ruling parties “unjustified advantage.” This was most conspicuous in the case of media access, so critical to ensuring a fair and informed election process. The state-run and taxpayer-funded TV channel TRT, for example, gave Erdoğan coverage time amounting to almost 49 hours during the course of 41 days, compared with only 32 minutes and 23 seconds to his opponent.

This imbalance in access to the media enabled Erdoğan systematically to bombard the public with inflammatory language, such as saying that the opposition will be “buried in the upcoming elections as politically dead” and using a deep fake video to accuse them of receiving instructions from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. He also employed discriminatory language against the LGBTQ community, associating the opposition with this community and labeling Kılıçdaroğlu as a member of it to galvanize conservative voters. Additionally, he argued that the opposition lacked the competence and unity to govern, presenting himself as the only savior of Turkey.

Such language was critical to tightening the edges of his conservative and nationalist electoral coalition, and to mobilizing a broader electorate keen on continuity and strong leadership at a time of crisis. It also helped deflect attention away from the dire state of the economy, which has been marked by persistent high inflation, ever-growing current-accounts deficits, and collapsing foreign currency reserves, as well as from the government’s conspicuous failure to provide effective post-earthquake rescue and relief.

Erdoğan’s control of the media enabled him to skillfully attribute the massive destruction caused by the earthquake to fate and to the impossibility of preparing for what he termed a “once in a century disaster.” The role of shoddy construction due to corruption and mismanagement, extensively highlighted by the opposition and covered in the international media, made little impression on the electorate, including in the affected provinces. In these areas, Erdoğan lost few votes compared with 2018 and even managed to increase his votes in two of them.

His control over state resources — together with financial favors from “friendly countries” in the form of foreign currency deposits, swap arrangements and postponement of natural gas payments coming from autocratic allies — facilitated his hand in sustaining an unprecedented populist spending spree. He extended generous early retirement benefits to more than 2 million people, enabled another half million government employees on temporary contracts to be moved into permanent positions with generous social benefits, raised pension payments for retirees significantly, increased minimum wages, provided cheap credits for small businesses, and kept interest rates at incomprehensibly low levels to stimulate consumption on credit. Shortly before the elections, he crowned his generosity with billboards across the country publicizing his policy to provide free natural gas to households for a month. As a former Treasury official and commentator pointed out, such largesse aligned well with the public’s poor understanding of the terrible state of the Turkish economy. Ironically, he adds, Kılıçdaroğlu, by making unrealistic promises to match Erdoğan, inadvertently reinforced this misperception and the notion that the state has limitless resources. Additionally, Kılıçdaroğlu and his team’s promises for accountable, effective, and merit-based economic governance did not make much of an impression on Erdoğan’s supporters.

Lastly, Erdoğan pursued much more successful alliance politics than Kılıçdaroğlu did. He was able to sustain his coalition with the nationalist Devlet Bahçeli, whose Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received a solid 10 percent of the votes, well above poll predictions. He also was able to bring on board two Islamist parties, Yeniden Refah Partisi and the Kurdish HUDA-Par, both known for their conservative demands such as curtailing women rights. Those voters of Erdoğan’s AKP who were disappointed by the government’s mismanagement of the economy seem to have switched their support to other parties in the ruling alliance but remained loyal to Erdoğan. This enabled him to compensate for his declining electoral performance in 73 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, compared with  2018; AKP received support from only 35.6 percent of voters, its lowest level by far compared with five previous elections. In Sunday’s election, Erdoğan’s vote share surpassed that of his party by a record 14 percent.

In contrast, Kılıçdaroğlu, who has been credited for having patiently woven into place the Nation’s Alliance, an electoral alliance involving six political parties spanning a wide range of political inclinations, does not appear to have enjoyed much support from the voters of these parties. The glue of the coalition was undoubtedly the common desire to end Erdoğan’s rule. However, the commitment within this coalition to getting Kılıçdaroğlu elected remained half-hearted. Four smaller, right-wing political parties of the Nation’s Alliance ran under the electoral list of Kılıçdaroğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) and obtained a disproportionate 38 out of this list’s 169 winning candidates for the 600-member Grand National Assembly. Yet, the leadership of these parties failed to mobilize their base in support of Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential election. So they effectively got a free ride into the parliament while CHP saw its number of seats fall from 146 in 2018 to 131.

Kılıçdaroğlu also had trouble in reaching out to some voters of the nationalist İyi (Good) Party due to intra-alliance disagreements between CHP and İYİP leadership. Meanwhile, strong electoral support appears to have come from the supporters of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (renamed as New Left Party to avoid being banned by a closure case) and the Turkish Workers Party. Both had called on their followers to support Erdoğan’s opponent and in total received 10.5 percent of the votes cast in the parliamentary elections.

Ahead: The Culture Clash Persists in Turkish Politics

Kılıçdaroğlu’s task during the runoff is going to be a tough one. It is difficult to see from where he could attract additional votes to defeat Erdoğan, while retaining his diverse electoral base. There are the votes of the third presidential candidate, the Turkish nationalist Sinan Oğan, who is touted as a potential kingmaker. In recent days, Kılıçdaroğlu has stepped up his national rhetoric and pledged to return  refugees back to their countries. Meanwhile, Oğan’s supporters are recognized for their dislike of both Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu. Whether they would lend their support to whoever Oğan ultimately advises them to support in the runoff is not evident. Many are protest voters who may simply not vote in the second round. In any event, current indications are that Oğan, as a vocal Turkish nationalist, considers Kılıçdaroğlu’s close ties with the Kurdish political party a “red line.” It will be challenging for Kılıçdaroğlu to receive Oğan’s endorsement without alienating the Kurdish voters who cast their ballots for him in overwhelming numbers. There are reports that Oğan is more likely to support Erdoğan, though that too is not certain.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s defeat next Sunday would be a reminder of how an authoritarian populist who controls the media, has access to state resources, and enjoys the financial solidarity of other autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin can win in a country trapped in what Turkish political scientist Ersin Kalaycıoğlu in 2011 called a “kulturkampf,” or culture clash. EU officials highlighted the high level of participation in the elections as a “clear sign of strength of the Turkish democracy.” Erdoğan seized on  that to call the elections a ”great feast of democracy” and undoubtedly sees them as a massive source of legitimacy.

However, the real lesson to be learned from this recent electoral success is to recognize that, in an era of authoritarian consolidation around the world, it is exceedingly difficult to defeat populist autocrats who capture the key checks-and-balances of the democratic system. It is not evident that the opposition’s agenda for a pluralist democracy at ease with Turkey’s ethnic, social, and religious diversity was adopted wholeheartedly by the voters. Yet, the election results also suggest that Turkey is a deeply divided society holding or adhering to two different conceptions of democracy, and that Erdoğan no longer enjoys the support of an electoral majority.

Should Erdoğan prevail in the runoff, as appears likely, it will be interesting to see how he will address the wreckage his last term has left behind — economic, institutional, infrastructural (especially in the earthquake-hit region), and in foreign policy. Time will tell whether he will be able to stabilize the Turkish economy and restore relations with the West, if he is even interested in doing so. There are already alarming signs that the economic crisis will worsen after the election. Daron Acemoğlu, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), notes that it is not evident that Erdoğan will be able to address such a crisis, having to choose between two politically difficult options: returning to orthodox policies or imposing capital controls.

Either way, Erdoğan will soon need to prepare for the March 2024 local elections, when the country’s largest municipalities, currently controlled by the opposition, will be up for grabs. This electoral defeat in the presidential and parliamentary elections will weaken the opposition parties, but not knock them out entirely. The CHP still controls some of the major metropolitan governments, such as İstanbul, Ankara, and İzmir, and has popular leaders with national appeal such as İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş.

Turkish democracy appears set to experience another round of heavy bruising on May 28. After that, the next opportunity to stop Erdoğan’s authoritarian juggernaut will be the local elections in 2024, especially if he fails to salvage the economy and if he allows those elections to take place at all rather than ending what is left of Turkey’s electoral institutions.

IMAGE: Turkish opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (bottom right) and Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of the capital Ankara, visit Anıtkabir, a complex in the city that contains the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, during Youth and Sports Day on May 19, 2023 . (Photo by Yavuz Ozden/ dia images via Getty Images)

The post Erdoğan Appears Poised to Win Runoff: Why, and What’s Next for Turkey? appeared first on Just Security.

Around the time he became the gang’s leader, a United Nations mission in Haiti was moving to confront and dismantle gangs. In 2006, Haitian officials, with support from a U.N. disarmament program, brokered a truce among gangs, and he handed over his best weapons, though not all. His rivals kept all their guns. 

So he made a phone call to a government official, a person he knew would help them rearm.

He told me that. a few nights later, a white SUV pulled up to their meeting place. It was an official car, with government plates, to head off any checks by the police. He had brought four or five armed men with him to protect the delivery. In the duffel bag he collected that night — such handoffs occurred in increments — he found a Beretta 9 mm handgun, a 12-gauge shotgun, and an M-14 assault rifle. In return, the government official gained the gang leader’s capacity for organizing the community to vote in his favor. 

Such deals occur constantly. The efforts of international officials to curb gang violence rarely succeed, because there are always some Haitian political and business leaders ready to resupply gangs they support with weapons. This is how neighborhood control has long worked in Haiti, and what has passed for democracy.

Every Haitian I know is aware that, over the past 20 years, government ministers and senators and parliamentary delegates have delivered money and weapons to gangs. Most people who are directly involved don’t want to discuss this in a public forum for fear of retaliation. But this unwillingness to engage the problem directly has allowed this system to take over public life.

Over decades, in exchange for money and arms, gangs have organized communities and delivered votes. The more area they controlled, the more votes they could deliver, and the more money and weapons they stood to gain. Gangs have gained power in this system — today, they are more numerous and better-armed than ever and control most of Port-au-Prince. 

As international powers consider sending armed forces to Haiti to stop gang violence and reestablish government control, they must bear in mind that many Haitian leaders have been arming poor Haitian young men for generations in order to gain and hold onto power. Confronting gangs with military force will not work without also supporting Haitians seeking to break the cycle of violence and establish true democracy and stability.

What will really end gang violence and strengthen government authority is systemic reform by leaders who do not traffic in weapons, arm gangs, or use violence to circumvent democracy. These people exist — they need space to be able to express their leadership. Haitians must develop structures to discuss and confront this problem openly in order to shatter these systems and start somewhere different. Without patrons in politics and business, gangs will lose steam. Then, and only then, international and local plans to subdue and disarm them have a chance. The best approach for Haiti would be for the international community to support the Haitian police force to combat gangs and simultaneously support major, Haitian-led political and economic change.

It will be critical, as true disarmament moves forward, to develop processes of transitional justice and reconciliation, strong and sustainable job creation, and social programs. We need investments in basic local services such as electricity, clean water, schools, police, and courts in the huge swaths of Haiti that have been abandoned by the state for generations. When people have alternatives to gangs, they take them.

In my work in disadvantaged communities over 15 years, I have seen that, every time a gang member dies or rejects gang life, he is immediately replaced — the next day. This system, in which gangs bolster politics, is strong and durable because the Haitian state and society have done so little for so many neglected neighborhoods, and many young people are desperate.

Over the past few years, my organization has analyzed the root causes of Haitian conflict through dialogue processes that bring together people from poor neighborhoods with civil society, private sector, media, and political leaders. We know that a large part of the conflict in poor neighborhoods such as the Port-au-Prince shantytown of Cité Soleil comes down to the use of violence to control votes.

The international community should build its Haiti policy with a focus on supporting systemic political change, and shift from longtime failed tactics to confront gangs. The U.N., for instance, has long tried to subdue and confront Haitian gangs, including through various U.N. programs to disarm gangs in collaboration with the Haitian government.

My colleague who once led the Grand Ravine gang participated in a U.N. program in 2005, only to rearm because the gang war didn’t stop, and again in 2006, with the same result, largely because there was no clear break with the previous government and system, and no new, clean, functional leadership that could offer better solutions. He only finally disarmed when he became a Christian and gave up the gang altogether. He has since been engaged as a community organizer and brokers conversations between gangs and community members to resolve local conflicts. Others are looking for a different kind of answer than religion, but they have few other alternatives to the gangs, which have only gained power after decades of local and international failures to confront them.

Today, shantytowns still lack sufficient electricity, water, food, medical care, schools, and jobs. Children as young as 8 or 9 hang out with gang members and bring home money that helps buy food and pay rent.

And all over Haiti, too many politicians still come around handing out money and guns to gain power.

IMAGE: A person carries a child past Haitian National Police attempting to repel gangs in a neighborhood near the Presidential Palace in the center of Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 3, 2023. (Photo by RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP via Getty Images)

The post To Curb Gang Violence in Haiti, Break with Politics as Usual appeared first on Just Security.

It is also why we welcome Finland’s entry into NATO, because it will help ensure peace in the rest of Europe, even amid war in Ukraine. In that regard, President Joe Biden’s declaration that NATO is strengthened by its newest ally and that the Alliance will continue to safeguard transatlantic security, defending „every inch of NATO territory,“ are of the utmost importance.

Alas, our new geopolitical realities mean that it is not only countries in Russia’s immediate environs that are in danger. During the 1990s, Bosnia too was a victim of sustained aggression, which ultimately culminated in the Srebrenica Genocide, the single greatest atrocity in Europe since the Holocaust. News about the atrocities in occupied Ukrainian towns and villages reminds us of our inferno and brings the deepest empathy. We know this suffering all too well.

Even today, our country remains in the crosshairs of Russian-backed Serb nationalists and their expansionist machinations. While Moscow advances its “Russian World“ through the leveling of entire cities in Ukraine, in Belgrade they promote a so-called “Serbian World,“ to be carved out of the sovereign territories of neighboring states, including Bosnia. Serbia has provided safe harbor to Wagner Group militants, has dubious – and anti-democratic — ties to Russian intelligence operatives, and has received billions in Russian and Chinese arms, all while actively sponsoring hardline secessionist elements in Bosnia.

Like Finland, Bosnia is on the geopolitical frontlines. And as a result, I strongly believe Bosnia, like Finland, should be admitted to NATO through an accelerated procedure.  After all, it already has been working under a membership action plan since 2010. Bosnia must not be left to swing in the winds of war blowing from the Black Sea. The Russian attack on Ukraine has proved there is no longer a geostrategic periphery, but that Europe’s security and stability depends on a full-spectrum defense of all vulnerable polities.

A Sense of Urgency

In January, I travelled to the NATO Headquarters in Brussels for official talks with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Royal Netherlands Navy Admiral Rob Bauer. I stressed to them that Bosnia has no other alternative than the Euro-Atlantic route. In fact, after being elected as a member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in October last year, I chose this as my first trip outside the country, because Brussels – home base for NATO and the EU — and Washington are the most strategically significant destinations for BiH.

After tectonic security changes in Europe over the past year due to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina needs a NATO fast track to help the Alliance permanently lock down the stability of the Western Balkans and to likewise permanently foreclose the possibility of renewed instability in our country. No one — not NATO nor the citizens of Bosnia — can afford to squander this opportunity. NATO has had a presence in Bosnia since the war in the 1990s and in peacekeeping in the aftermath. It currently provides support to the EU peacekeeping mission there and has a military headquarters to aid in closer integration with the Alliance and to help Bosnia implement the reforms needed to join NATO under the now-13-year-old membership action plan.

The next NATO summit in Lithuania, in July this year, should send a clear message that the membership of Bosnia and Herzegovina is both desirable and strategically important for the entire Euro-Atlantic community. And, most importantly, it is feasible — since the BiH Armed Forces are already trained and equipped according to NATO standards. The pursuit and acquisition of NATO membership is already enshrined into Bosnian law. Article 84 (Activities for Accession to NATO) of the country’s Defence Law states: “The Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Presidency, and all defence authorities within their respective constitutional and legal competencies, shall conduct required activities for the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO.”

In the beginning of February, I was in Washington to attend the National Prayer Breakfast. In the U.S. Congress, I had separate meetings with the members of the House and Senate, and saw for myself the tremendous degree of bipartisan support for Bosnia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Many in Washington already understand the necessity and urgency of fast-tracking Sarajevo’s NATO membership, but we need the key decision makers to give the green light.

Time is of the Essence

During my most recent visit to Brussels, on Feb. 15, I travelled with my counterparts in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state presidency for meetings with Josep Borrell, the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. We were acquainted with the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, and I am convinced Bosnia’s NATO aspirations will advance these objectives.

Yes, there are problems to address. The Serb nationalist establishment in Bosnia and Herzegovina maintains close links to Moscow and a posture of stringent opposition to the country’s NATO aspirations. But they have few institutional means to halt our progress, no more than similar actors did in neighboring Montenegro, which became the Alliance’s 29th member in 2017. Precisely because we oppose the reactionary politics of individuals like the president of the BiH entity Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and the shameful associations that he and his sponsors in Belgrade maintain with the Putin regime, we urge the Atlantic community to recognize the significance and urgency of our membership in NATO.

Above all, a NATO fast track for Bosnia and Herzegovina would justify the Alliance’s value-based purpose. It is a moral obligation to do everything to prevent history from repeating itself in the Balkans. At the crossroads of history, of course with Ukraine in mind, personal and collective experience compel us to stand up and take bold actions.

As Stoltenberg has observed, Finland’s entry into NATO shows that the Alliance’s doors remain open. Bosnia and Herzegovina must be among the next states to walk through those doors.

Realizing this aim will require vision and leadership, and the support of the United States will be especially key. It will be difficult, but the past year has shown that the Euro-Atlantic community still has the capacity to deliver when the situation demands it. Furthermore, the past year has shown the imperative of acting preventatively, before negative trends descend into a downward spiral. As the experience with Ukraine has shown in the converse, Russia isn’t likely to dare an attack on NATO members, knowing the full force of the Alliance would come to bear. This preventive measure would, in turn, benefit the Alliance in further stabilizing the Western Balkans, supporting EU integration, and adding another professionalized member force.

Through the support of the United States, the EU, and NATO for Ukraine, Moldova, Finland, and Sweden, the whole of the free world is safer. Bosnia and Herzegovina must be part of the future of that calculus. And the most significant resulting policy should be our immediate entry into NATO.

IMAGE: A Bosnian soldier smiles as Bosnian armed forces stand at attention during a ceremony in Capljina, on June 12, 2019, in a departure ceremony that marks the 10th rotation of infantry men and military policy from Bosnia’s armed forces to be dispatched into a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, as part of the NATO troops operating in that country. (Photo credit should read ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP via Getty Images)

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Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the establishment of the museum at a gala in Jerusalem honoring Albanian “Righteous Among the Nations,” a designation given to non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Rama said, “It is another very important moment in Tirana’s history, urban development, and architecture.” He referred to the rescues as “perhaps the most glorious page of Albanian history.”

The museum is to be named “Besa” – an Albanian word meaning “promise” or “trust,” which relates to a traditional concept of giving a promise to entrust or protect something or someone, a code of honor dating back centuries. It was this simple idea that saved an estimated 600 to 1,800 Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

The museum will be located in a historic building in downtown Tirana once belonging to the influential Toptani family. It embodies typical 19th century Albanian architecture and has been designated by the government as a Cultural Heritage site and Cultural Monument. Other existing Jewish sites include the Jewish Quarter in Vlora, where a population of Jews from Greece arrived in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and the Solomon Museum of Jewish history in Berat. Tirana’s lake park also has a memorial to victims of the Holocaust and Albanians who saved them.

“The rescue of the Jews during World War II is one of the most beautiful pages in the history of the Albanians. Christians and Muslims sacrificed everything to protect them,” said Elva Margariti, Albania’s minister of culture. “For Albanians this is BESA; it is a value that we will pass on to our children, telling them this extraordinary story. The Besa Museum will be a bridge of communication between generations; a dialogue space for sharing the best values of our peoples.”

One of the leading behind-the-scenes figures in pushing ahead with this project is Kazakh-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Alexander Machkevitch, who heads the Eurasian Resources Group and has business interests in the Balkans. “I am humbled to be a part of this important project that will memorialize the bravery of Albanians who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust,” he said in an emailed statement.  “This project is a testament to the power of solidarity and compassion in the face of darkness, and I hope it will inspire future generations to continue this legacy of kindness,” Machkevitch said.

The Balkans once had a small, but vibrant and well-integrated Jewish community. However, much like elsewhere in Europe, many of the communities were annihilated by the Nazis and their collaborators. Yet, there were numerous cases of Balkan Muslims going to extremes to save their Jewish neighbors, even at the risk of the lives of the rescuer’s family.

Rare Acts of Rescue

Though acts of rescue were rare in Europe during the Holocaust — it is estimated that less than 0.5 percent of those living under Nazi occupation helped Jews in one way or another — Albania rightfully prides itself as the only European country (and a Muslim-majority country) to have more Jews after World War II than before it (historians estimate 200 Jews lived in Albanian in the 1930s). Though Albania was occupied by both fascist Italy from 1939 and later Nazi Germany, its Jewish population grew throughout the war to almost 2,000. Some Jews in Albania felt safe enough to continue operating their businesses through the occupation, trusting their neighbors would not turn them in. The Albanian embassy in Berlin was the only European embassy to continue issuing visas to Jews throughout the war, and Albania became an important transit point for Jews fleeing to the Americas.

The Jews of Albania descended from Andalusian Jewish refugees, known as Sephardic Jews, who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal during the 15th century. Sephardic Jews settled throughout the Balkan Peninsula after being provided safe passage and safe haven by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet Fatih, and built flourishing communities in the region. Many spoke Ladino, a language based on elements of Hebrew and Spanish.

Neighboring Bosnia’s response to the plight of Jews during World War II also remains a powerful example of compassion in the face of Nazi brutality during the Holocaust. The recently released film “Sevap/Mitzvah” (“A Good Deed”) is based on the true story of a Muslim woman, Zejneba Hardaga, and her family who hid the Jewish Kabiljo family at their home, risking their own lives, and helping them escape Nazi-occupied Sarajevo in the 1940s and then move to Israel. The Hardagas were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center, based on testimony provided by the Kabiljo family. Another case in point is Derviš Korkut, a Bosnian Muslim scholar who became known as the Rescuer of the Sarajevo Haggadah as he risked his own life to save the precious illuminated manuscript from 16th century Andalusia from the Nazi General Johann Hans Fortner, who was frantically combing Sarajevo during World War II to find it.

The stories of Balkan rescuers of persecuted or fleeing Jews are relatively unknown due to political isolation under longtime communist dictatorships, Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia and Enver Hoxha in Albania. In the case of Albania, they were not acknowledged until 1987, when Yad Vashem recognized at least 75 Albanians as Righteous Among the Nations. Only recently have archives been made more open to foreign researchers and historians, who are working to document the Albanian experience during the Holocaust.

American Recognition

At the international level, it was through former U.S. Congressmen Joe DioGuardi, a New York Republican, and Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, who visited Albania after the collapse of communism in 1990, that the efforts of the Albanian people were first recognized internationally. They led the first U.S. official delegation to visit Albania since 1939.

The Jewish experience in Albania was further internationalized and popularized by Norman Gershman, an American photographer fascinated by their stories who traveled to Albania and Kosovo between 2003 and 2008 to chronicle the tales of the righteous Albanians and their devotion to “Besa.” In his exhibition Albanian Muslim Rescuers During the Holocaust, he presented portraits and testimonies of Albanian Muslim rescuers and their descendants. When he asked them why they had rescued Jews, their resounding response was “Besa.” According to one Albanian saying, “Albanians would rather die than break the Besa.”

In July 2020, an inauguration ceremony was held for the new Holocaust Memorial established in Tirana. The ceremony was attended by the Rama, U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim, Israeli Ambassador Noah Gal Gendler, and representatives of all religious communities in Albania. However, though more and more attention is being paid to commemorating the Holocaust in the Balkans, Jewish life in the Balkans is dying. The population in Sarajevo, home to the larger of these Balkan Jewish communities, numbers just a thousand or so, with many considering themselves to be Jewish but not regularly observant. In other Balkan countries, such as Croatia and Serbia, Hitler’s World War II quislings are being politically and legally rehabilitated as a new wave of right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism sweeps across the region. The Ladino language is almost extinct and most of what remains are vague childhood memories among the older generation.

As in other parts of Europe, the economic crisis has been a boon for the nationalist right, which has seized on that and political dysfunction and opportunism to foment ethnic animosity, including antisemitism. Such attacks and general disinformation and misinformation, thus far most often on social media, find fertile ground in part due to a lack of sufficient or accurate education in schools and in public discourse about World War II and the Holocaust.

All this makes the Besa museum ever more valuable as a place where younger generations will be educated — but also inspired — by the deeds of Albania’s righteous.

IMAGE: A man walks through Hebrew Street in the Albanian city of Berat on February 6, 2019, in front of the city’s tiny Solomon Museum, the country’s only Jewish history museum. (Photo by GENT SHKULLAKU/AFP via Getty Images)

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Ukraine has long been at the vanguard of era-defining challenges to media, and a year of full-scale war has been an accelerator for previously slow-burning fires: a deteriorating business model and precarious financial viability, outdated regulatory structures in the face of digital convergence, and the lack of a definitive response to digitally supercharged foreign propaganda campaigns.

A Lesson in Resilience and Dedication

In some ways, and perhaps surprisingly, the war has amplified the fundamental strengths of Ukrainian news media. The war has bolstered public support for democratic values, including the ideals of free speech, journalistic freedom, independence, and pluralism. Since the start of the full-scale war, Ukrainians have actually become more resilient to disinformation, as they have sought out trustworthy news. In a flight to quality, some audiences have shifted to independent online outlets such as Ukrainska Pravda, public TV broadcaster Suspilne, and regional radio broadcasters.

On their smart phones, TVs, and radios — even for those trapped under Russian occupation or fleeing to safety — Ukrainians have remained connected to news outlets providing life-saving information and unblinking coverage of the mounting toll of war crimes committed by invading Russian forces. Leading Ukrainian journalists and newspapers around the world have collaborated on a special initiative, the Reckoning Project, that is bringing global attention to Russian war crimes, documented through harrowing storytelling. On March 4 this year, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne premiered its most recent documentary film, “Bucha: Execution in Kyivo-Myrotska Street,” which reconstructed minute-by-minute the events exactly a year earlier, when several Ukrainian volunteers rescuing animals near Bucha were executed by the Russian military. Suspilne journalists managed to identify the Russian soldiers who committed the crime.

Ukrainian investigative journalism, which historically has been, perhaps, the most well-developed across Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, and Central Asia, continues to be a watchdog of Ukraine’s democratic governance as well. The war has not silenced critical reporting, even on highly sensitive issues of alleged military leadership misconduct or corruption allegations.

A Lesson in Openness

The government, for its part, has largely remained committed to transparency and openness. While internet shutdowns have become a recurring response to security threats in far too many countries across the globe, Ukraine has bolstered connectivity and stepped up official communication to counter disinformation.

At the same time, a government-supported media initiative that brought together major television news channels to share and transmit the same content in assigned time slots, known informally as the United News telemarathon, has drawn criticism as a potential risk to media pluralism and independence. As Russia targeted telecommunications infrastructure, the telemarathon ensured essential information was disseminated on many channels and spared resources, as staff fled to safety and advertising revenue dried up. But with the public increasingly turning its attention elsewhere (to social media, for instance) for news, the most likely outcome is that the telemarathon will gradually fade away. In just seven years, the proportion of Ukrainians who get their news from TV has fallen from 85 percent to 36 percent.

A Lesson in Loss and Destruction

Like the country as a whole, Ukraine’s media sector has also been deeply wounded by the war. Ukraine has nurtured a generation of world-class journalists over the past decade, but has lost scores of talented reporters in just a year. Eight journalists have been killed in the course of their work during that period, 13 others were killed by Russian shelling or torture, and 27 died as combatants, according to the Institute of Mass Information in Kyiv.  This tremendous loss of highly qualified human capacity will take dozens of years to restore., Additionally, the accumulated stress and trauma for journalists is bringing many to the point of professional burnout.

News outlets are literally and figuratively running on fumes, running their operations on gas-powered generators amid blackouts and an industry – and economy-wide — financial crisis. Though Russia’s full-scale invasion prompted an initial tide of donations, subscriptions, and membership contributions to news outlets, media managers say that wave has subsided. Meanwhile, Russia’s attacks on the power grid have reduced the availability of electricity and internet service, which is translating into a loss of audiences. Advertising revenue continued to trickle in for a few outlets in the aftermath of the invasion but has since dried up entirely. As a result, outlets have in some cases slashed staff salaries down to survival wages.

Ironically, Ukraine’s media pluralism, especially in the broadcast sector, has long been dependent on financial support from the country’s business moguls – the plethora of oligarchs translated into a kind of plurality in broadcasting. But their waning fortunes amid the war and associated economic woes has delivered another financial blow to broadcasting in Ukraine, as they lose interest in supporting media outlets. The final outcomes of this major funding shift for the broadcasting sector are yet to be seen.

A Lesson in Legislating

Meanwhile, the country is preparing to implement a bold new media law that aims to balance free expression with the need to address Russia’s propaganda for war. Adopted last December as one of the requirements for obtaining European Union membership, the law broadens the power of the media regulator, the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, to include print and online media, on-demand media services, and video-sharing platforms (though excluding individual accounts on online platforms such as YouTube or Twitter).

The new law, titled “On Media,” gives the National Council authority to register additional types of media and to sanction them for content violations. Some of the regulator’s powers, including over the registration of print media and oversight of pre-election campaigning violations by print and online media, were previously held by other bodies, so the new law provides a more unified regulatory system.

Proponents of the new law cite the failure of the media sector to introduce effective self-regulation over the last two decades, creating vulnerabilities to the spread of Russia-backed lies and propaganda. Some observers are concerned that the president will have too much influence over the regulator through the power to appoint half of its council members. But changes to this require amendments to provisions in the country’s Constitution, currently impossible under martial law. In the meantime, Ukrainian civil society, which has always been a driver of media reforms, will have to maintain active watchdogging of the regulator.

One of the most innovative features of the law is the creation of a co-regulatory system for each media sphere. Each media sector, such as audiovisual, online, and print media, will have the ability to set codes of conduct for the media to interpret the law’s content prohibitions, and can appoint independent committees of experts to review complaints based on those codes. Should the regulator find significant reason to depart from the recommendations of those experts and reverse their decisions, the media outlet subject to the complaint can appeal in court, using the expert committee’s judgment in its favor.

Interestingly, the new media law places Ukraine among global pioneers in convergent regulation, which is likely to come to media sectors everywhere, as news outlets and other media advance their cross-platform operations to adjust to the technological changes of the past decade. A final expert review of Ukraine’s law by the Council of Europe called the scope of the regulator’s coverage “unusual,” but determined that the law was largely aligned with the Council of Europe standards. As a raft of draft media laws are being prepared in Central Asia, it will be interesting to see whether those draw inspiration from the new Ukrainian law as an alternative to relying on the patterns of Russian media regulation, as has been the case in the past.

Looking Ahead

While the war has exacerbated many of the most vexing challenges faced by media in Ukraine, it has also reaffirmed the country’s commitment to a democratic public sphere and bolstered the dedication of a vibrant coalition of civil society and media actors. They will now need long-term support, partnership, and trust from the international community to chart an innovative path for the media sector. They inevitably will confront three major issues.

First, Ukraine will offer lessons for how to balance legitimate national security interests with freedom of expression in media regulation. Even with legal safeguards introduced to prevent potential abuse of the law, civil society will need resources to engage in meaningful and continuous monitoring of the media law’s implementation and to potentially push for further reforms, especially on the national media regulator’s independence. Furthermore, Ukrainian civil society will need support so that it can take a seat, along with their counterparts from around the world, in global debates about how current international laws and norms can be better tailored to the challenges of information weaponization. One example is the question of how the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ Article 20 prohibiting “propaganda for war” can be better interpreted and enforced to protect against disinformation campaigns and propaganda for war such as that waged by Russia.

Second, Ukraine has been a laboratory for experimentation for news media finance models, and the only certainty for media outlets is continued change. Audience data is in short supply because of the challenges of funding and implementing surveys, not least because audiences are constantly on the move in wartime. News outlets in every segment of the market will need support to navigate these changes. Public-service media have built trust and widened their audiences during the past year, benefitting from previous reform efforts. Will these institutions have the resources they need to continue serving the public? Regional media, especially radio, and local media have also won trust among audiences, but have yet to translate that trust into financial viability. Membership models and subscriptions have brought much-needed financial infusions to national digital outlets but have proven hard to sustain. Over the past year, Ukrainian media have survived on volunteer support, ingenuity, pluck, and the aid of international assistance; they will need support to create an enabling environment where they can thrive in the long term as well.

Finally, Ukraine will need support to rebuild its shattered communications infrastructure as a foundation for a vibrant public sphere. The experience of the war has demonstrated that a multi-faceted communication infrastructure is the most resilient. Three quarters of Ukrainians get their news from social networks, up from 62 percent in 2020, according to a survey conducted for Internews. Meanwhile, listeners of regional radio stations jumped to 56 percent from 31 percent a year earlier. As a matter of principle, pluralism must apply not only to content, but also to channels of communication; it must be preserved in Ukraine and elsewhere.

Ukrainian media are facing every challenge, all at once: a culmination of the struggle for public attention and appreciation of the media’s role in democracy; a financial crisis in the advertising-based model for journalism; the profound dangers created by the war to journalists’ physical safety and emotional resilience; and the need to balance free expression with the threats to national security stemming from Russia’s propaganda for war and related disinformation.

The Summit for Democracy, co-hosted this week in Washington D.C. with partner events across the world, includes several sessions on the criticality of media to the health of democratic systems. Those sessions would do well to acknowledge that Ukraine, with the long-term partnership and support of the international community, can help redefine how news media worldwide reckon with era-defining challenges to the public sphere.

IMAGE: Journalists take shelter in a building underpass during a drone attack in the capital Kyiv on October 17, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Government officials said Kyiv had been struck four times in an early morning Russian attack with Iranian drones that damaged a residential building and targeted the central train station. (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

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Though criticizing the Thai monarchy has long been taboo, mounting frustration over the monarchy’s growing political power (particularly after the 2014 coup by the military, which has long been close to the royal family) and questionable constitutional reforms have prompted youth activists to speak out. They do so, however, at great personal risk. Nearly 300 youth activists now face imprisonment for demanding democratic rights, the youngest among them only 12 years old, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a group I co-founded in response to the coup.

These youth are among nearly 2,000 human rights defenders targeted since 2020 by restrictive laws designed to silence dissent. Among these regulations is the lèse-majesté law, used to punish  any action deemed to “defame, insult, or threaten” the monarchy. Lèse-majesté has been the law since Thailand’s first criminal code in 1908, but over the past decade, the military government has been using it in earnest to persecute pro-democracy activists. Since November 2020, more than 200 people have been charged under this law, including a woman who shared clips about the monarchy on social media and is now serving a 43.5-year sentence (reduced from 87 years after she pleaded guilty).

Clearly, these draconian measures are meant to suppress demands for democratic change. Without international support to bolster the Thai democracy movement, the situation will only worsen.

As world leaders gather for the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy this week, it is imperative they turn their attention to Thailand, which pointedly was not invited to the summit. The timing is serendipitous. Thailand’s next general election is slated for May 14th. It is arguably the most important election in Asia this year, as it could set the tone for democratic rights in the region. It also represents a chance to curb the junta’s influence and shift power to the Thai people — where it belongs.

If world leaders are serious about upholding democratic values, they must make it clear in the strongest terms that another coup or any military-and-royal intervention in the election process is unacceptable. They also must demand an end to the persecution of pro-democracy activists, and insist on the repeal of repressive laws like lèse-majesté. The world must not sit by while the chances of restoring democracy are again under threat in Thailand.

In Thailand, the military has played an outsized role in politics since the nation became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. In this new system of governance, the King reigns, but does not rule, as ruling is done by the government. Importantly, the King’s official acts are considered constitutionally and legally void absent his minister’s countersignature. However, in practice, there have been diversions from this standard. For instance, the King requested in 2016 that the military junta make changes to a draft constitution after voters had already approved it in a referendum. The government obliged.

Over the decades, Thailand has experienced more than a dozen coups. Rather than protect democracy, the monarchy tends to side with those who staged the latest overthrow. Indeed, the alliance between the monarchy and the Thai military is holding back democracy. Military leaders have become expert in writing constitutions in their favor, rigging elections, ousting elected governments, and setting bad examples for regional peers (they coddle and protect the brutal Burmese dictatorship, for example). Yet the international community still welcomes and supports them.

Thailand’s last general election in 2019 was neither free nor fair, but rather a theatrical spectacle thinly disguised as democracy. The Thai military held the election under strict laws that censored the media and limited the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Two separate opposition political parties were dissolved, both before and after the election. After the election, the junta-appointed Senate voted with military-party members of Parliament to reinstall Thai Royal Army Commander in Chief General Prayut Chan-o-cha as prime minister, the position he held after leading the 2014 military coup. He also serves as defense minister.

These farcical elections stoked frustrations that had already been growing over the government’s inadequate response to the pandemic, the economic downturn, and the disbanding of Future Forward, a new political party popular with youth. Student-led protests erupted in Bangkok in the summer of 2020, then spread nationwide. Demonstrators demanded the resignation of the prime minister, an end to the harassment of activists, a new constitution, and limits on the monarchy’s power.

For Thailand’s pro-democracy movement, the upcoming general election offers a fresh opportunity to begin to right the wrongs. Opposition parties are well-positioned to win sufficient parliamentary seats to nullify the military government’s control. A landslide win by the opposition would also secure enough votes to elect the next prime minister. However, the fear is palpable that the military could undermine the election process, or worse yet, commit another coup after the election, as it has in the past (we’re seeing signs of trouble already with the government selecting May 14 as the election date; that date falls during the exam period for university students, most of whom support democratic parties).

Ignoring this intensifying authoritarian threat not only imperils the civil rights of millions of people, but also stands to bolster China’s influence in the region. World leaders must publicly call for – and act to ensure – the election is free, fair, and inclusive by pressuring the government to:

• Lift restrictions on public participation, political campaigns, and election monitoring and reporting of results by civil society groups and news outlets.
• Drop all charges and prosecutions of pro-democracy activists.
• Release political prisoners detained for exercising their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, including those charged under the lèse-majesté
• Guarantee defendants’ right to a fair trial, due process, public hearing, and bail in line with international standards.

At a time when democratic rights are imperiled around the globe, world leaders cannot just pay lip service to preserving democracy; they must act. In Thailand, we have an opportunity to usher in a new era that empowers people and upholds democratic freedoms. Human rights defenders like Sainam and many others should not spend decades in prison for exercising their basic right to freedom of expression. The United States and world leaders can – and must – seize this opportunity to restore democracy in a country that has been backsliding for too long.

IMAGE: A Thai runner dressed in a costume gives a three finger “hunger games” salute as thousands gather at Suan Rot Fai Park for a “fun run” against Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his government on January 12, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Police estimated that more than 12,000 people joined the protest against the Prime Minister, who seized power during a 2014 coup, led a junta in the following years and was elected Prime Minister in a much-disputed March 2019 election. (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

The post Shut Out of Democracy Summit , Thailand Prepares for May Elections as Restrictive Laws Aim to Silence Youth Activists appeared first on Just Security.

The ruling Georgian Dream Party had claimed the legislation was necessary to raise awareness of foreign influence in the country. While the bill has been withdrawn, it is merely a symptom of the country’s broader democratic backsliding, a trend that won’t be reversed by the mere failure of this legislation. As the Biden administration conducts its second Summit for Democracy this week to advance its commitment to curbing authoritarian trends, it should maintain the attention to Georgia spurred by this near miss.

The proposed “foreign agents” law was similar to legislation approved in Russia in 2012. There, President Vladimir Putin’s government has used it to block a range of civil society organizations and independent media from doing their jobs by imposing hefty fines, placing legal restrictions on their work, and in many cases forcing them to shut down entirely. In Russia and in other countries in the region, the term “foreign agents” has been used to smear human rights groups and pro-democracy organizations as being subsidiaries of outside forces, when in reality they represent grassroots movements that are critical of authoritarian regimes.

The result of the law in Russia has been that any semblance of Russian civil society with an ability to monitor and critique the state has been eradicated. The law allowed Putin to further consolidate his power, which was exemplified when the human rights organization Memorial was banned two months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Memorial was one of three organizations that shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

Georgian civil society organizations and independent media outlets feared that if their government’s legislation passed, it would severely undercut their ability to function and, most likely, cause them to stop operating in Georgia. The European Union and the United States, the biggest two donors, objected to the legislation, as did prominent international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Georgia had been one of the strongest partners for the United States as a bulwark against Russia in the region, while continuing to wrestle with the territories that Russia has occupied since its invasion there in 2008. But as Georgian domestic institutions weaken and some of its leaders have signaled closer ties with Russia, the whole country’s ability to effectively counter Russian malign influence has waned. The recent debacle with the foreign agents law has seriously damaged the government’s credibility in Brussels and Washington.

When asked about U.S.-Georgia relations in a March 7 press briefing three days before the legislation was withdrawn and amid the widespread protests in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price replied that the United States is “concerned, that partnership could be – at least in part – jeopardized should a law like this move forward.” This is hardly the kind of reaction the Georgian government would want to prompt if it were truly committed to a strong partnership with the United States and ultimate accession to the EU. In fact, the European Commission last June opted to delay granting Georgia EU candidate status.

The foreign agents law is just the latest in a series of steps taken by the ruling party to capture, or at least undermine, many of Georgia’s key democratic institutions. The government has attempted to curb the independence of the judiciary, tried to undermine or seize control of a sizeable portion of the media, and attacked any organizations that sought greater transparency and oversight.

The slow degradation of Georgia’s institutions from the ruling party in recent years has implications beyond just domestic politics. It has made Georgia more susceptible to interference from Russia and a less reliable ally for the United States, and reduced its prospects as a candidate to join the EU.

While public condemnation from the Biden administration has been strong recently, the administration should also seriously examine conditioning non-security assistance to Georgia to convey the gravity of its concerns. The Georgian government should not expect the same level of support it has enjoyed for many years if its leaders are actively undermining the country’s role as a U.S. ally in the region.

The role that former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili continues to play informally in the politics of Georgian Dream also should come under more scrutiny from the United States. Despite having no official role, Ivanishvili is widely believed to still operate as the de facto head of the party. Ivanishvili’s role in recent years has looked less like a participant in the political process and more like that of an oligarch. As the country’s wealthiest person, Ivanishvili maintains an influential role in Georgian Dream, but one with little transparency. The Biden administration should ask for more transparency from the Georgian government regarding his role, and work with the EU to investigate whether Ivanishvili’s activities violate any existing sanctions regimens or other shared policies related to Georgian security.

Georgia is slated for parliamentary elections next year. The conduct and credibility of that vote will be an important indicator of whether the country embraces more democracy or whether it becomes less democratic and even more susceptible to Russian interference.

When domestic institutions in Georgia are undercut by proposals like the foreign agents law, the country’s overall security is weakened. It is essential that the United States apply pressure to the current Georgian government to advance much-needed reforms, especially given public support for eventual EU membership, and to ensure its vibrant civil society can operate freely. Without U.S. pressure, the current government will feel more emboldened to implement other laws that undermine Georgia’s democracy.

Georgian civil society has been raising the alarm about the decline of democratic institutions in the country for years. The government now has clearly demonstrated the potential damaging policies it may enact if its officials are left unchecked.

IMAGE: People take part in a demonstration outside Georgia’s Parliament in Tbilisi on March 8, 2023 called by Georgian opposition and civil society groups against government plans to introduce controversial “foreign agent” legislation, reminiscent of Russian legislation to pressure critics. The calls came after more than sixty of people were detained and dozens of police officers wounded in violent clashes that broke out in the capital Tbilisi late the day before, amid fears of democratic backsliding in Georgia. (Photo by VANO SHLAMOV/AFP via Getty Images)

The post Backsliding: Georgia’s Crackdown on Civil Society May Be Just a Start appeared first on Just Security.

Починаючи з лютого 2022 року та незаконного вторгнення Росії в Україну, російські військові та їхні пособники скоїли незліченну кількість жорстоких воєнних злочинів і злочинів проти людяності. Докази свідчать про бомбардування цивільних об’єктів, включно з медичними установами, а також випадки зґвалтування та інших форм сексуального насильства, масові вбивства та масові поховання, знищення гуманітарних конвоїв та коридорів. За деякими підрахунками, кількість воєнних злочинів, про які повідомляється на сьогоднішній день, становить понад 71 000 випадків.

В останні місяці все більше уваги приділяється так званим “фільтраційним” таборам у Росії. Процес, який проходять українські цивільні особи в цих місцях, включає перевірку (“фільтрацію”) шляхом встановлення особи, зняття відбитків пальців і фотографування, обшук речей і телефонів, допити, а після цього, найчастіше, примусове переміщення і депортацію, включно з дітьми, з України на окуповані Росією території в Україні або до Російської Федерації.

Міжнародне право не містить окремого визначення злочину “фільтрації”. Але фактичне примусове переміщення та депортація цивільних осіб, у тому числі дітей, з України на окуповані території України або до Росії, держави-окупанта, є порушенням міжнародного права та цілого ряду міжнародних норм у сфері прав людини, а також інших відповідних нормативних актів.

Але примусове переміщення цивільних осіб з України до Росії або на підконтрольну Росії територію є не лише правовим порушенням. Російський уряд також маніпулює повідомленнями про такі переміщення через свою пропагандистську машину, щоб підживити низку дезінформуючих та націоналістичних наративів, таких як фальшива ідея про те, що це “рятує” українців від нацистів, які нібито панують в українському уряді та збройних силах.

Громадянське суспільство України з допомогою міжнародних партнерів взяло на себе важку, проблемну і копітку роботу з документування та протидії цій незаконній діяльності, про що ми розповімо у ширшому звіті, який готують наші організації – Центр громадянських свобод (ЦГС), Фонд “Вільна Росія” (ФРР) та Центр з прав людини Американської асоціації юристів (ABA/CHR) відповідно. У звіті будуть проаналізовані різні аспекти системи фільтрації та розглянуті окремі випадки відповідно до норм міжнародного гуманітарного права, міжнародного кримінального права, а також норм і стандартів міжнародного права прав людини.

Насильницькі переміщення на практиці

Фільтрація вже використовувалася російським урядом раніше, протягом Чеченської війни, а також в Україні з моменту незаконного захоплення та анексії Росією Криму та вторгнення на східний регіон Донбасу в 2014 році.

Зважаючи на масштабність поточних операцій з фільтрації та примусового переміщення, український уряд, організації громадянського суспільства та міжнародна спільнота працюють над протидією різним елементам цієї незаконної практики. Організації громадянського суспільства, наприклад, збирають та документують дані, упорядковують справи в базі даних та обробляють докази, які в кінцевому підсумку знадобляться для встановлення відповідальності та справедливості в судах.

Олександра Дрік із Центру громадянських свобод (ЦГС) згадала кілька задокументованих випадків під час звернення в Раді Безпеки ООН у вересні 2022 року. Наприклад, у квітні 2022 року російські військові затримали та допитали чоловіка та його родину. Дізнавшись, що його дружина жертвує гроші на підтримку українських військових, російські солдати назвали її фашисткою і нацисткою та намагалися забрати їхню дитину, щоб відправити до так званого табору перевиховання. Вони напали на чоловіка, наносячи йому удари в пахову область, і катували його електричним струмом. Чоловік також бачив докази катувань, які, очевидно, застосовувалися до інших людей перед ним: кров на підлозі і білі шматки, схожі на уламки кісток. Він був врятований переважно тому, що росіяни хотіли, аби він працював на них. Зрештою, сім’я змогла втекти до Європи.

В іншій справі 21-річний студент з південноукраїнського портового міста Маріуполь, яке перебувало в жорстокій облозі протягом декількох місяців, перш ніж впало під натиском російських військ у травні 2022 року, пережив невимовні муки, коли його батька застрелили російські солдати, а сам він був змушений ховатися в підвалі протягом 30 днів, поки його рідне місто було зруйноване, перш ніж його разом з 80-річною, хворою на рак, бабусею силоміць провели через два фільтраційні табори (один у Донецьку, другий на кордоні з Росією). У фільтраційних таборах у нього брали відбитки пальців, фотографували та допитували. Росіяни також вимагали, щоб він здав свій український паспорт, на що він відмовив. Врешті, через чотири дні йому вдалося втекти, і він виїхав до Грузії, Туреччини і, нарешті, до Німеччини.

Інший випадок, на який посилається ЦГС, стосується 16-річного хлопця, який намагався втекти з Мелітополя на південному сході України і був затриманий росіянами. Вони тримали його протягом трьох місяців у тюремній камері без працюючого туалету, змушували дивитися на катування інших затриманих і прибирати кров з камер після допитів.

Більшість випадків “фільтрації” та примусового переміщення ще не були повністю задокументовані або оприлюднені; про багато з них, ймовірно, навіть не повідомлялося. Але ЦГС та інші організації збирають, фіксують і документують їх по мірі надходження повідомлень, ретельно вносячи файли в базу даних, шматочок за шматочком. Експерти ЦГС, як і багато інших українських громадських організацій, що документують воєнні злочини, часто працюють цілодобово через великий обсяг справ. Вони координують свою роботу з міжнародною спільнотою та різними українськими державними установами.

Окрім вересневого засідання Ради Безпеки ООН, присвяченого цьому питанню, низка урядів країн-партнерів України, міжнародних організацій та інформаційних агентств також висвітлюють і привертають увагу до “фільтраційної” практики. У серпні 2022 року Лабораторія гуманітарних досліджень Єльської школи громадського здоров’я в рамках проєкту, підтриманого Державним департаментом США, опублікувала звіт, що відображає систему фільтрації в Донецькій області та довкола неї на сході України. Дослідження показало, що Росія створила систему фільтрації за кілька тижнів до початку вторгнення. У звіті визначено 21 об’єкт у Донецьку та його околицях, які входять до цієї системи, та описано їхні функції, включаючи реєстрацію, утримання осіб, повторювані допити та ув’язнення.

Лише минулого місяця Лабораторія опублікувала звіт про “Російську систематичну програму з перевиховання та усиновлення українських дітей”. У ньому йдеться про те, що російський уряд і військові “планомірно перемістили щонайменше 6 000 дітей з України до мережі закладів перевиховання та усиновлення в окупованому Росією Криму та на материковій частині Росії”. Майкл Карпентер, представник США в Організації з безпеки і співробітництва в Європі, до якої входять як Україна, так і Росія, процитував звіт Лабораторії, зазначивши, що наразі нараховується щонайменше 43 таборів, розташованих на території, що простягається від незаконно окупованого Кримського півострова через Сибір і до Далекого Сходу Росії.

Державний департамент США аналогічно описав, як відбувається класифікація затриманих у фільтраційних системах. Затримані були розподілені за рівнем передбачуваної загрози, яку вони нібито становили. Затримані, які вважаються російськими силовиками або їхніми поплічниками як найбільш загрозливі, піддаються тривалому утриманню під вартою і тортурам на окупованих територіях або примусово вивозяться до Росії. Затримані, які вважаються такими, що становлять помірну загрозу, також можуть бути вивезені до Росії. Затриманих, які не становлять загрози, документально оформлюють й іноді відпускають в Україні, тоді як деякі з цієї категорії все одно депортуються до Росії.

Багато правозахисних організацій також забили на сполох. Human Rights Watch (HRW) описала конкретні випадки фільтрації та насильницького переміщення українських цивільних осіб. Автори одного зі звітів задокументували докази, провели інтерв’ю з 117 особами і спробували відтворити більш широку картину послідовності подій, з якими стикаються цивільні особи. Звіт демонструє широку варіативність випадків. Одних українських цивільних осіб силоміць заштовхали в автобуси, інших змусили “добровільно” переїхати на окуповану територію або в Росію, щоб уникнути подальшої відповіді з боку української армії, деякі втекли, щоб уникнути свавілля і насильства воєнного часу з боку окупаційної російської армії. Ще деякі виїхали до Росії за власним бажанням, посилаючись на обмеження воєнного стану, який український уряд запровадив з дня повномасштабного нападу Росії минулого року і який продовжує діяти з того часу. Amnesty International висловили особливе занепокоєння щодо найбільш вразливих груп населення, таких як діти, люди похилого віку та люди з інвалідністю, які були змушені тікати.

Що відбувається з українськими цивільними особами, яких примусово вивозять до Росії?

Пов’язане занепокоєння викликає доля українських цивільних осіб після їхнього примусового переміщення та депортації до Росії: що з ними відбувається, де вони перебувають, чи вони в безпеці, що з дітьми та вразливими групами населення? На ці питання важко відповісти через відсутність будь-яких відкритих даних, брак комунікації, масштаби переміщень та низку інших проблем. Навіть кількісна оцінки цивільних осіб, переміщених до Росії, сильно варіюється в різних джерелах. На сайті Державного департаменту США, який згадувався раніше, сказано, що кількісні оцінки з різних джерел коливаються “від 900 000 до 1,6 мільйона”, включаючи “тисячі дітей”. Один з російських урядових сайтів РІА, вочевидь намагаючись довести привабливість Росії для українців порівняно з Польщею та Німеччиною, повідомив рік тому, що понад 2,9 мільйона українців в’їхали в Російську Федерацію з України. Український уряд наводить більш стримані цифри – приблизно від 100 000 до 200 000 дорослих і 14 700 дітей, які були вивезені до Росії.

Одна з наших організацій, Фонд “Вільна Росія”, виступила з ініціативою розслідувати і збирати більше інформації про конкретні випадки, щоб скласти більш точну загальну картину. Фонд розпочав цю роботу в 2014 році, а минулого року створив ініціативу “Пошук-Полон”, щоб допомогти знайти і повернути військовополонених і цивільних осіб, які були насильно вивезені з України в Росію. Лише з минулого року ініціатива отримала тисячі запитів від українців з проханням допомогти знайти їхніх близьких. Від 5 до 7 відсотків цих запитів стосуються зниклих безвісти цивільних осіб, решта – військовополонених.

Згідно з попередніми висновками розслідувань, проведених Фондом, існує кілька сценаріїв того, що відбувається з українськими цивільними особами, які опинилися на території Росії. У деяких випадках російська влада поміщає людей у слідчі ізолятори або в’язниці, що сильно ускладнює відстеження їхнього місцезнаходження через “подвійну” тюремну систему в Росії та відсутність належного зв’язку. У “подвійній” системі в’язниця неофіційно поділяється на одну частину, якою керують тюремні службовці, та іншу, приховану частину, яка контролюється силовими структурами або військовими, і де не діють офіційні тюремні правила. У цій прихованій частині умови утримання ув’язнених часто є нелюдськими. У будь-якому випадку, електронний зв’язок недоступний, а повільна і ненадійна традиційна пошта залишається єдиним способом спілкування.

У деяких випадках українських цивільних осіб, примусово вивезених до Росії, розкидають по різних регіонах і віддалених населених пунктах по всій країні. Поводження з ними та умови, в яких вони живуть, дуже різняться відповідно до підходів місцевої влади. У деяких районах цивільні особи змушені відмовитися від своїх українських паспортів і замість них отримують російські. В інших місцях цивільним особам дозволяють зберігати українські паспорти, хоча ці документи вважаються небезпечними і можуть спричинити потенційні проблеми, якщо їх помітять органи влади. Багато депортованих не мають жодних коштів, щоб залишити Росію і повернутися в Україну. Особливо важка ситуація з переміщеними дітьми. У нещодавньому звіті Єльського університету про депортацію дітей згадуються випадки, коли в Росію передавали дітей з обмеженими можливостями та/або без належної підтримки.

Міжнародні правові стандарти

Хоча міжнародні норми не використовують термін “фільтрація” для позначення потенційних порушень, примусове переміщення цивільних осіб, у тому числі дітей, під час міжнародного конфлікту сторонами такого конфлікту вважається порушенням міжнародного права, незалежно від того, чи застосовується міжнародне гуманітарне право або право прав людини, і такі дії можуть бути переслідувані відповідно до міжнародного кримінального права.

Четверта Женевська конвенція 1949 року та Перший протокол до неї встановлюють, що примусове переміщення цивільного населення з окупованої території на територію держави-окупанта або іншої держави забороняється, незалежно від підстав. Важливим елементом порушення є застосування сили, тобто переміщення або депортація повинні бути “насильницькими”, тоді як згода на переміщення, якщо вона є щирою і добровільною, не є порушенням. Судова практика Міжнародного кримінального трибуналу для колишньої Югославії (МТКЮ) вказує, що якщо цивільна особа дає згоду за примусових обставин, таких як залякування, насильство, затримання, зловживання силою або психологічним тиском, то така згода не буде вважатися добровільною. Окрім того, в іншому рішенні зазначено, що примусове переміщення не допускається, навіть якщо воно здійснюється під виглядом гуманітарної допомоги, якщо гуманітарна криза була спричинена протиправними діями держави-агресора.

Термін “депортація або насильницьке переміщення населення” визначається Римським статутом, яким було засновано Міжнародний кримінальний суд, як “примусове переміщення відповідних осіб шляхом виселення або інших примусових дій з території, на якій вони законно перебувають, за відсутності підстав, що допускаються міжнародним правом” (ст. 7(2)(d)). Крім того, насильницьке переміщення дітей є однією з дій, які можуть становити злочин геноциду: згідно з визначенням статті 6(e) Римського статуту, якщо така дія “вчиняється з наміром знищити повністю або частково будь-яку національну, етнічну, расову чи релігійну групу”. Це також є актом геноциду згідно зі статтею 2(e) Конвенції про запобігання геноциду.

У спільному правовому аналізі, проведеному Інститутом “Нові лінії” та Центром Рауля Валленберга щодо порушення Росією Конвенцією про геноцид, дійшли висновку, що існують “обґрунтовані підстави вважати, що Росія несе відповідальність за (i) пряме та публічне підбурювання до вчинення геноциду та (ii) систематичні звірства, з яких можна зробити висновок про намір частково знищити українську національну групу;…” Аналіз від травня 2022 року також вказує на те, що широкомасштабні примусові переміщення українських цивільних осіб можуть бути охарактеризовані як етнічні чистки, посилаючись на визначення у рішенні Міжнародного суду ООН від 2007 року, згідно з яким ““перетворення території на етнічно однорідну шляхом застосування сили або залякування з метою виселення осіб певних груп з цієї території”… може мати важливе значення як ознака наявності конкретного наміру [знищення]”.

Крім того, відповідно до положень міжнародного права прав людини, така практика порушує численні договірні положення, починаючи від Конвенції проти катувань (КПК), охоплюючи порушення основних прав, передбачених Міжнародним пактом про громадянські і політичні права (МПГПП), і закінчуючи порушеннями Конвенції про права дитини. Таким чином, незалежно від того, яка норма права застосовується до випадків примусових переміщень, Росія та її агенти на місцях в Україні порушують ключові міжнародно-правові зобов’язання.

Шляхи подальшого розвитку

Надзвичайно важливо забезпечити встановлення відповідальності та правосуддя за різні злочини, скоєні в межах триваючої війни Росії проти України. Незалежно від того, чи йдеться про керівничий злочин агресії, воєнні злочини, злочини проти людяності або конкретно про насильницькі переміщення, винні мають бути притягнуті до відповідальності.

Міжнародне співтовариство має посилити тиск на російську владу, щоб вона негайно припинила ці незаконні дії. Тим часом, життєво важливо посилити підтримку груп громадянського суспільства, які працюють над припиненням війни і домагаються встановленні відповідальності та правосуддя за злочини, скоєні в Україні та Росії. Ці спільні зусилля є практичним проявом єдності та солідарності міжнародної спільноти, спрямованої на підтримку жертв, постраждалих та їхніх родин, а також на демонстрацію нашої непохитної відданості справі забезпечення справедливості та притягнення винних у цих злочинах до відповідальності.

(Висловлені погляди відображають точку зору авторів. Погляди не були переглянуті або схвалені Палатою делегатів або Радою керуючих Американської асоціації юристів і, відповідно, не повинні розглядатися як такі, що відображають позицію Асоціації або будь-якого з її підрозділів).

СВІТЛИНА: В’ячеслав Воливач (позаду в центрі) та Ольга Табачук (ліворуч), брат і мати Сергія Табачука (не на фото), затриманого в Запорізькій області під час евакуації людей, сидять поруч з Ігорем Талалаєм (праворуч), українським очевидцем російських фільтраційних центрів. Втрьох вони брали участь у дискусії на тему “Фільтрація як невидимий фронт російської агресії проти України” у штаб-квартирі ОБСЄ у Відні 27 липня 2022 року. У доповіді від 14 липня, найбільший у світі орган з питань безпеки висловлює “серйозне занепокоєння” щодо ймовірного жорстокого поводження з десятками тисяч українців у так званих фільтраційних центрах, створених Росією в Україні. Талалай, волонтер з Дніпра, був затриманий росіянами і утримувався у фільтраційних таборах в Донецькій області протягом трьох місяців. Доля Сергія Табачука на момент проведення цієї дискусії була невідома. (Фото зроблене ALEX HALADA/AFP via Getty Images)

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Про авторів:

Олександра Матвійчук (@avalaina) – очільниця Центру громадянських свобод, який у 2022 році став першою українською організацією, що отримала Нобелівську премію миру.

Наталія Арно (@Natalia_Budaeva) є засновницею і президенткою Фонду “Вільна Росія”. Раніше вона працювала директором по державі Росії в Міжнародному республіканському інституті.

Жасмін Д. Кемерон (@JasmineDCameron) – старша юридична радниця з питань Європи та Євразії Програми захисників правосуддя Американської асоціації юристів. Раніше вона багато років служила та жила за кордоном, працюючи в Міністерстві юстиції США та Державному департаменті США.

The post Насильницьке переміщення Росією українських цивільних осіб: Громадянське суспільство, підзвітність, справедливість appeared first on Just Security.

Since the start of the February 2022 illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia, countless heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by the Russian military and its proxies. Evidence has shown bombings of civilian targets including health-care facilities, as well as rape and other forms of sexual violence, mass killings and mass graves, and destruction of humanitarian convoys and corridors. Some estimates put the number of war crimes reported to date at more than 71,000 cases.

In recent months, increasing attention has been focused on Russia’s so-called “filtration” camps. The process that Ukrainian civilians are subjected to in these locations includes screening (“filtering”) by checking their identity, fingerprinting and photographing them, searching their belongings and phones, and interrogating them, and then most often forcibly transferring and deporting them, children included, from Ukraine to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine or to the Russian Federation.

International law doesn’t specifically define a crime of “filtration.” But the actual forcible transfers and deportations of civilians, including children, from Ukraine to occupied territories of Ukraine or to Russia, the occupying state, is a breach of international law and a violation of a cluster of international human rights norms as well as other relevant statutes.

And the forcible transfers of civilians from Ukraine to Russia or Russian-controlled territory is not only a legal violation. The Russian government also is manipulating reports of the transfers within its propaganda machine to fuel a range of disinformation and nationalistic narratives, such as the false idea that it is “saving” the Ukrainians from Nazis who supposedly dominate Ukraine’s government and military.

Ukraine’s civil society, with the help of international partners, has taken on the arduous, challenging, and laborious work to help document and counter this illegal practice, as we outline in a broader forthcoming report by our organizations – the Center for Civil Liberties (CCL), the Free Russia Foundation (FRF), and the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights (ABA/CHR), respectively. The report will analyze various aspects of the filtration system and examine individual cases based on international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international human rights law and standards.

The Forced Transfers in Practice

Filtration has been used before by the Russian government, during the Chechen war and in Ukraine since Russia’s original illegal seizure and annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014.

Considering the large scale of the current filtration and forcible transfer operations, the Ukrainian government, civil society organizations, and the international community are working to counter various elements of this illegal practice. CCL, for example, collects and documents data, organizes cases in a database, and processes evidence that ultimately will be needed to seek accountability and justice in courts.

CCL’s Oleksandra Drik cited several documented cases during a September 2022 address to the U.N. Security Council. In April 2022, for example, a man and his family were detained and interrogated by the Russian military. Upon learning that his wife was donating money to support the Ukrainian military, the Russian soldiers called her a fascist and a Nazi and attempted to take away their child to send to a so-called re-education camp. They assaulted the husband, striking him in the groin area, and tortured him with electricity. The man also saw evidence of torture that apparently had been meted out to others before him – blood on the floor and white pieces that looked like bone fragments. He was saved mainly because the Russians wanted him to work for them. The family ultimately was able to flee to Europe.

In another case, a 21-year-old student from the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which was under a brutal siege for months before falling to Russian forces in May 2022, went through unimaginable suffering when his father was shot by Russian soldiers, and he had to hide in his basement for 30 days as his home city was destroyed, before being taken by force through two filtration camps (one in Donetsk and one at the Russia border) with his 80-year-old, cancer-stricken grandmother. At the filtration camps, he was fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. The Russians also demanded he surrender his Ukrainian passport, a request he refused. Fortunately, four days later he was able to escape, traveling to Georgia, Turkey, and finally Germany.

Another case cited by CCL was that of a 16-year-old male who was trying to flee Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine and was detained by the Russians. They kept him for three months in a prison cell with no working toilet and forced him to watch the torture of other detainees and clean blood from cells after interrogations.

Most cases of “filtration” and forcible removal have yet to be fully documented or publicized; many likely haven’t even been reported. But CCL and others are gathering, recording, and documenting them as they are reported, painstakingly compiling files in a database, piece by piece. CCL experts, like so many Ukrainian civil society organizations documenting war crimes, often work around the clock, due to the volume of cases. And they are coordinating their work with the international community and various Ukrainian government agencies.

In addition to the September U.N. Security Council meeting about the issue, a range of Ukraine’s partner governments, international organizations, and media outlets are exposing and drawing attention to the “filtration” practices as well. In August 2022, the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, as part of a U.S. State Department-supported project, published a report mapping the filtration system in and around Donetsk oblast in eastern Ukraine. Their research found that Russia had created the filtration system weeks before the invasion began. The report identified 21 facilities in or around Donetsk that make up the system and described their functions, including registration, holding of individuals, secondary interrogation, and detention.

Just last month, the lab issued a report on “Russia’s Systematic Program for the Re-education and Adoption of Ukraine’s Children.” It said the Russian government and military had “systematically relocated at least 6,000 children from Ukraine to a network of re-education and adoption facilities in Russia-occupied Crimea and mainland Russia.” Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes both Ukraine and Russia, cited the lab’s report in noting the current count of at least 43 such facilities distributed across an area stretching from the illegally-occupied Crimean Peninsula through Siberia and to Russia’s Far East.

The U.S. State Department has similarly outlined how the classification of the detainees operated in the filtration systems. The detainees were categorized by the level of the perceived threat they allegedly posed. Detainees perceived by Russian forces or their proxies as the most threatening are subject to extended detention and torture in the occupied territories or are forcefully transferred to Russia. Detainees deemed as posing a moderate threat are also likely to be transferred to Russia. The detainees seen as posing no threat are documented and sometimes released in Ukraine, while some in this category are still deported to Russia.

Many human rights organizations also have raised the alarm. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has described specific cases of filtration and forcible transfers of Ukrainian civilians. The authors of one of its reports documented evidence, conducted interviews of 117 people, and attempted to put together a larger picture of the sequence of events the civilians are experiencing. The report demonstrates the wide variation among the cases. Some Ukrainian civilians were forced onto buses, others were coerced to “voluntarily” move to occupied territory or Russia to avoid alleged retaliation by the Ukrainian army later, while others fled to avoid wartime abuses and violence by the occupying Russian military. Still others left for Russia on their own accord, citing the restrictions of martial law that the Ukrainian government imposed from the day of Russia’s full-scale assault last year and has renewed since then. Amnesty International has expressed specific concerns about the most vulnerable populations who were forced to flee, such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

What Happens to Ukrainian Civilians Forcibly Transferred to Russia?

A related concern is the fate of Ukrainian civilians once they are forcibly transferred and deported to Russia: what happens to them, where are they, are they safe, what about the children and vulnerable people? The answers to these questions are hard to find due to the absence of any transparent records, the lack of communications, the magnitude of the transfers, and a variety of other challenges. Even the numeric estimates of civilians transferred to Russia vary greatly from source to source. The State Department site noted earlier says estimates from an array of sources range “between 900,000 and 1.6 million,” including “thousands of children.” One Russian government site, RIA, in an apparent effort to claim the attraction of Russia for Ukrainians over Poland and Germany, reported a year ago that more than 2.9 million Ukrainians entered the Russian Federation from Ukraine. The Ukrainian government quotes more conservative numbers of approximately 100,000 to 200,000 adults and 14,700 children having been transferred to Russia.

One of our organizations, the Free Russia Foundation, has launched an initiative to investigate and gather more information about specific cases in order to piece together a more accurate big picture. The foundation began this work in 2014 and last year created the Poshuk-Polon initiative to help find and return prisoners of war and civilians who have been forcibly transferred from Ukraine to Russia. The initiative has received thousands of inquiries just since last year from Ukrainians asking for help in locating their loved ones. Of those requests, 5 percent to 7 percent relate to missing civilians, while the remainder concern POWs.

According to preliminary insights from FRF investigations, there appear to be several scenarios for what happens to Ukrainian civilians once in Russia. In some cases, Russian authorities place the individuals in detention facilities or prisons, making it very difficult to trace their whereabouts because of Russia’s “dual” prison system and the lack of reliable communications. In the “dual” system, a prison is divided unofficially into one part managed by prison officials and another, hidden part that is controlled by security or military forces and where official prison rules do not apply. In that off-the-books area, conditions for detainees often are inhumane. In any case, electronic communication is not available, and notoriously slow, and unreliable regular mail is the only way to communicate.

In some instances of Ukrainian civilians forced to Russia, they are dispersed throughout various regions and remote locales all over the country. How they are treated and the conditions in which they live vary greatly based on different approaches by local authorities. In some areas, civilians are forced to give up their Ukrainian passports and are assigned Russian passports instead. In other places, the civilians are allowed to keep their Ukrainian passports, though the documents are deemed to be dangerous and can cause potential problems if spotted by authorities. Many deportees do not have any means by which to leave Russia and return to Ukraine. It is an especially dire situation with transferred children. The recent Yale report on child deportations cited cases of children with disabilities and/or no appropriate support being transferred to Russia as well.

International Legal Standards

Although international norms do not use the term “filtration” in outlining potential violations, the forcible transfers of civilians including children during an international conflict by parties to the conflict is considered a breach of international law, whether international humanitarian or human rights law applies, and may be punishable under international criminal law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its First Protocol state that the forcible transfer of civilians from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying state or another state is prohibited, no matter the reason. An important element to constitute a breach is the existence of force, i.e. the transfer or deportation must be “forceful,” whereas consent to transfer, if genuine and voluntary, would not constitute a breach. Case law from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) specifies that, if a civilian gives consent under coercive circumstances such as fear of duress, violence, detention, abuse of power, or psychological oppression, that consent would not be considered voluntary. Notably, another  judgment held that forcible transfer is not allowed even if it is under the pretense of humanitarian assistance if the humanitarian crisis is triggered by the unlawful activities of the aggressor state.

The phrase “deportation or forcible transfer of population”  is defined under the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, as “forced displacement of persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law.” (Art. 7(2)(d)). Also, forcible transfer of children is one of the acts that can constitute the crime of genocide — as defined in Article 6(e) of the Rome Statue — when “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” It is also a genocidal act under the Genocide Convention’s Article 2(e).

A joint legal analysis of the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre of Russia’s breaches of the Genocide Convention concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe Russia is responsible for (i) direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and (ii) a pattern of atrocities from which an inference of intent to destroy the Ukrainian national group in part can be drawn;…” The May 2022 analysis also indicated that large-scale forcible transfers of Ukrainian civilians may be characterized as ethnic cleansing, citing a definition in a 2007 International Court of Justice judgment as “‘rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area’…may be significant as indicative of the presence of a specific intent [to destroy].”

Furthermore, under international human rights laws, this practice violates numerous treaty provisions, ranging from the Convention Against Torture (CAT) to violations of fundamental rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Thus, no matter what body of law is applied to the cases of forcible transfers, Russia and its agents on the ground in Ukraine are in breach of core international legal obligations.

Ways Forward

It is of paramount importance to ensure accountability and justice for various crimes perpetrated as part of the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine. Whether the leadership crime of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or forcible transfers specifically, the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

The international community should press harder on Russian authorities to halt these illegal acts immediately. In the meantime, it will be vital to increase support for civil society groups working to end the war and seeking accountability and justice for crimes committed in Ukraine and in Russia. These joint efforts are practical manifestations of the unity and solidarity among the wider international community to support the victims, survivors, and their families and to show our unwavering commitment to seek justice and accountability for these crimes.

(The views expressed represent those of the authors. The views have not been reviewed or approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the position of the Association or any of its entities.)

The post Russia’s Forcible Transfers of Ukrainian Civilians: How Civil Society Aids Accountability and Justice appeared first on Just Security.

Kira Rudik, leader of the liberal party Golos, or “Voice,” in the Ukrainian Parliament, has a striking backdrop for her Zoom calls. It’s an array of four flags, with the now-iconic blue and yellow bicolor of Ukraine and the red flag with white emblem of her party in the center, flanked by the flags of NATO and the European Union. She calls the latter “the two institutional requirements of the Ukrainian people that are written in our Constitution — to join the EU and NATO.”

“This is not like a political statement of somebody,” she says. “It is something that we have all agreed on…And I do hope it will happen really, really soon.”

In the interview below, Rudik, a former tech entrepreneur, describes the harrowing year in Ukraine’s Parliament (the Verkhovna Rada, or “Rada” for short) since Russia’s full-scale assault, including periodic bombings of the capital Kyiv, and far worse massacres and leveling of entire towns, cities, and swaths of countryside in the east and south. Even as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy captures the world’s attention – and admiration — for staying in the country during the war and for his inspirational rallying cries to Ukrainians and the world, the Rada has labored mostly behind closed doors. News cameras and reporters are largely absent as the Parliament meets without public notice, for security.

Still, Rudik says, the Rada has played a crucial role in supporting the Ukrainian people, adopting legislation needed for wartime – up to and including the particularly grim requirement for local governments to set aside property for cemeteries. With regular trips around the country and abroad to garner support for Ukraine, members have been unified and focused on meeting the country’s singular goals of defeating Russia’s aggression and gaining EU membership. Ukraine is due for parliamentary elections this year, but under martial law, if the Rada’s term expires, it remains intact until after the emergency is lifted.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How has the Rada functioned under the extreme conditions of the past year, in practical terms — operational logistics, security, members and staff facing personal difficulties and tragedies, resources, etc.?

On Feb. 23, 2020, we were in the Rada until late at night. We had some information that Russia may push forward in the [already partially occupied eastern Ukrainian area] Donbas, but nobody expected that they will attack the next day. So we were negotiating whether we were going to call for some extra measures in the east of Ukraine. We left late that night. At 5 a.m., we woke up with the sound of explosions. Kyiv was under bombardment. I checked my phone and saw that the full-scale invasion had started.

The main obligation and responsibility of the Parliament at a time like this is to gather in the chambers of the Verkhovna Rada and vote for martial law to begin. This is basically our main mission. We have to do it according to the Constitution. So we started calling each other, as parliamentary party leaders, to see how many people we could get into the chambers. Generally, there was lots of panic and traffic, and people didn’t know what to do and how they are going to get there. And then we started hearing from security – at first, they said absolutely no gathering in the chambers. If you have ever been to Ukraine, you will see that the Parliament building is located in the middle of a park, so it’s like a no brainer to hit it if you’re flying over. But at some point, security said that we may have, like probably 10 minutes in the chambers. And then the question was how many people would actually gather, and will they be physically able to be present. So we agreed on a certain time, and we started gathering our people.

So imagine what was happening: The bombardment was still going on, and in this building with no lights and many military people in it, and of course, windows covered with bags of sand, all of us trying to get in, knowing that we have a very short time until the next attack. When we got into the chambers, there were many people who were already wearing military uniforms because they were going to the front from there, or people who had their clothes with them and their suitcases because they would be traveling to be with their families. And even though we hadn’t been sure how many would come, when we looked around, we saw that, of about 420 members of Parliament, hundreds came.

And for the next 10 minutes, we were desperately clicking our buttons [to vote on legislation] calling for the whole world to help us stand against the aggressor, calling for martial law to begin. and showing to the Ukrainian people that we are not running and that we will be executing our duties, as we have since then. And during those 10 minutes, we also sang the National Anthem — it was one of the most emotional moments of my life. We also made a vow between political parties that we will try to stay united for as long as it takes, and no matter how painful it could be — we will be acting as Team Ukraine, and not just political parties. And right now, almost a year in, I can tell you that, no matter how painful it was, we never regret this moment.

After that, we left the Parliament. And since that time, basically every single morning when you are waking up, you are asking yourself a question: `Where or how should I be the most useful to my country to be able to bring the victory closer.’ It has been not an easy year for us as a Parliament, but it also has been incredibly productive. Since that time, we have gathered almost every other week — gathering in secrecy, but in the chambers, according to the Constitution. We prepare everything and conduct all the negotiations in advance, to minimize the amount of time people have to be in the chambers. There have been many times when the air raid sirens sounded and we had to go to the shelters and wait there until we could continue our sessions.

What I can say that we are super, duper proud of is that we fulfilled our strategy, which was that we would be acting in service to our military. And there has not been a time when they asked us something and we did not deliver on that. A second priority was, of course, logistically making sure that people can get out (of Ukraine) if they needed to, and that international support could get in with minimal issues. A third priority was to make sure that the country can operate in terms of business and that what remains of the economy can somehow work. A fourth priority was that we will clean up everything that we did not clean up previously, in terms of collaborators with Russia who have committed treason and in terms of Russian influence that we had in our country.

The second-most emotional time I had occurred a few days before the [June 23, 2022] European Council vote to grant Ukraine candidacy status for the European Union. Ukrainian soldiers, when they went to the front, had two flags tied to their backpacks – the Ukrainian flag and the EU flag. The EU flag is because there are so many people who truly believe in seeing that we are in the EU — that we should be there really soon. And my main fear during all these international negotiations on giving Ukraine EU candidacy status was, if we do not get it, how would we explain that to our soldiers and to the people who went to the front as volunteers? I mean, they could ask, “Did we fight under the wrong flag?”

So as the EU was making its decisions and we were in negotiations with them, we met with some of those involved, and they advised us that Ukraine needed to take some huge step to persuade the final skeptics. And they asked us whether we thought Ukraine might ratify the Istanbul Convention [formally the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence]. As leader of the first liberal party to ever win seats in the Ukrainian Parliament, one of the promises that we made to our people was to have the Istanbul Convention ratified. This simple convention calls for equal rights and for specific rules and processes to prevent and fight violence against women and special measures to ensure equality. But when our party entered the Ukrainian Parliament, we were not able to get even 150 signatures to bring it to a vote for ratification, because Ukraine was — and still is — a pretty conservative country, with huge influence by the Orthodox church, and church leaders didn’t support ratification.

So it was a really tough fight. With the EU decision pending, the question for many members of Parliament was whether they would put their political careers on the line to deliver EU candidacy status. In the end, we voted with an overwhelming majority for the Istanbul Convention, something that was unbelievable for this Parliament just a few years ago.

So once we were granted EU candidacy status, we got another task – a huge task – and that was to fulfill the conditions [for reforms, such as anti-corruption measures]. And I can tell you, without bragging, that we fulfilled all seven of those conditions before the new year. Now, there will be a lot of questions about implementation, but when we needed to go into the Rada chamber, create the legislation, and pass it, we did it.

So I think this is something we can all be proud of, especially considering that this all happened while members of the Rada were relocating their families or going to the front to volunteer and so on; we were still standing up to do everything we could for EU membership, to remove all obstacles, all the potential questions that might be raised. So when the EU-Ukraine Summit happened [in February 2023], we were coming as a good student who had fulfilled all their homework and were expecting a good grade. Now, what we are expecting is a concrete plan for next steps.

Q: How would you describe the relationship between the Rada and the Zelenskyy administration in the past year, in terms of cooperation and checks and balances?

Well, it is hard, because under martial law, we deliberately gave up many parliamentary powers. For example, we meet in secrecy for security, so the Ukrainian people don’t really know what we are doing. We have given lots of control to the military and to the Cabinet of Ministers, including budgetary oversight so that they can spend according to the needs. We know that, for the situation as it was, it was the right thing to do. I think for the most part, the relationship is one of collaboration between the administration and the Parliament. However, as I said, it’s also very painful for us not to have the usual parliamentary oversight, not to have the ability to be vocal about things that are going wrong or what should have been done differently.

We know that political unity is one of the things that the world and our partners admire, so we are keeping it, because we know it’s for the good. But of course, we hope that the limitations on our powers are temporary, and we will be able to restore the democracy as it should be the minute the war is over.

Q: Understanding the extreme conditions of wartime, what have been the main obstacles to getting things done in Parliament?

Honestly, we are super happy about the results we have delivered. I can’t say that there have been obstacles. In 95 percent of cases, we reach agreement among the heads of the parliamentary factions [one kind of formation in Parliament], even on legislation where we have a right to a veto. That allows us to move forward pretty quickly on things that we all agree on. It has also been interesting that, because we’ve agreed not to conduct the usual public politics where we need to establish differences with others, it turns out that there are many things that we do agree on – like EU integration, like supporting our army, like making sure our economy doesn’t completely die, like supporting small businesses.

Also, in many cases, the things that we had to get done, to develop and pass legislation on, were things that nobody ever taught you to do. For example, we had to pass legislation requiring local councils to allocate land for cemeteries. This is something that no local council would ever want to do deliberately. Or we had to figure out what to do with children who were left with no paperwork, no information, and no adults. We had to define these cases of children of the war. We had to do so many things that do not call for controversy – you just have to do it.

Q: Ukraine is facing significant pressure to deliver effective anti-corruption reforms. How well do you think the Rada is doing on that score, and what are the obstacles to faster progress, in specific terms, other than, of course, the pressures of the war itself?

This is something that we, as a country and a society, have been fighting not for the last two years, but for the last 30 years, with different levels of success. Among the key things that we were able to do during this time was voting for certain legislation on transparency of military purchasing, and on a general anti-corruption strategy.

On the other hand, we had to weigh the need to make people’s lives easier during martial law and wartime against the need for anti-corruption safeguards. A good example is procurement regulations for local councils. People working in those councils were calling and saying most of the staff were gone to the front lines, fighting, or they had moved their families to safer areas in other parts of Ukraine or abroad. “How do you expect us to continue operating, much less deal with this too?”

I think right now the main issue for us is to ensure that our processes and procedures are being harmonized with EU legislation, in terms of anti-corruption oversight as well. This is something that we should and can do, so that the amount of money that we hope will be brought into Ukraine for reconstruction will be spent in the most transparent way.

What scares me the most is that we may end up in a situation in which we just grow another batch of oligarchs instead of building a new, progressive country of the kind we want. And for that, it will not be enough to just have parliamentary legislation, because we have passed legislation previously that was needed to fight corruption and reform the judiciary. But there was not much movement in executing on that legislation. So right now, we are calling for the President to show the political will to make sure that it’s not only on the paper that we are fighting corruption but also that we’re showing results from it.

And it’s impossible to fight corruption just from the top down. There are institutions that you have to build – for clean elections of judges, for transparent hiring and firing of prosecutors,

Q: What does Ukraine’s Parliament need from the international community?

We need the international community to respond to our calls for certain action. We are being very careful with what we are asking, and almost every time we meet, we call for the next step of what we need. These are requests that also are coming from our Cabinet of Ministers or from our political leadership and sometimes from our military. So when we are saying, please, designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, and we are sending that to all the parliaments of the world, we have been very clear on why it needs to be done. Or when we are saying please confiscate Russian assets and use them for the sake of Ukraine, it is the result of long deliberations. Or when we are saying please forbid Russian athletes from participating in the Olympics, we are expressing what Ukrainian society needs from the international community.

And of course, we are calling right now to clear the way for us to join the European Union. This is a priority of the whole Ukrainian leadership, so tell us what we need to do – 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on – and it will be done. We are very good in doing our homework right now. We still have this window of opportunity when we are acting united, have political will, and have like the ability to push for things that were unspeakable before – like the Istanbul convention, but not limited to that.

IMAGE: This picture taken by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) shows visiting Ukraine lawmaker Kira Rudik (2nd R) speaking next to Taiwanese legislator Huang Shih-chieh (2nd L) at the Parliament in Taipei on October 25, 2022. (Photo by STR/CNA/AFP via Getty Images)

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