Dear colleagues!
On the eve of the G20 Summit we call on the G20 leaders and the world community on the whole to pay particular attention to the issue of political prisoners in the Russian Federation, to repeated infringement of human rights by the Russian Federation on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, to unacceptability of illegal keeping in custody of Ukrainian citizens on the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea, as well as to persecution of pro-Ukrainian, in particular Crimean Tatar activists, lately too often for the Russia-annexed Crimea.
Today, we are well aware of 107 people kept in custody on the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas, and at least nine political prisoners kept in the territory of the Russian Federation. The list includes Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, activists and patriots Oleksandr Kolchenko, Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, etc.
It also stands to mention tens of other Ukrainian citizens and Crimean Tatars detained in Crimea and facing tortures. Deputy Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Ilmi Umerov, is still illegally kept in a mental hospital in Simferopol (Crimea) for his open statements saying that Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014 is an integral part of the sovereign Ukraine.
Umerov's state of health is worsening day after day and he is not provided with all necessary medical services and medicines. Doctors access to him and other prisoners is restricted on the temporarily occupied territories. Ukrainian hostages kept in Russian prisons are not let see Ukrainian consuls, who are also not let to visit the prisoners. This sort of human rights infringement is nothing else but torture.
We believe that the said facts indicate that the Russian Federation continues violating the international law, as well as all agreements reached in Minsk (Belarus).
We strongly condemn such actions of the Russian Federation and call on the G20 to immediately take all possible political and diplomatic measures to release all the hostages and political prisoners kept on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation. We call for paying particular attention to the importance of immediate implementation of the humanitarian section of the Minsk agreement, which obliges to immediately release all the persons illegally kept in custody and to grant free access of international humanitarian missions to the temporarily occupied territories.
We call on the G20 leaders to strongly condemn the persecution of pro-Ukrainian, in particular, Crimean Tatar activists, release all imprisoned activists, inter alia Ilmi Umerov, Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, and other people.
We call for putting the issue of implementation of the Minsk agreement by the Russian Federation, first of all security and humanitarian issues, on the G20 summit agenda. We demand granting immediate access of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross both to the Russian prisons and prisons located on the transportation.
We also would like to thank all G20 countries supporting sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and do not accept illegal annexation of Crimea. We call on the G20 states to continue exerting pressure on the Kremlin until the Russian Federation has fully implemented the Minsk agreement and released all hostages and political prisoners.
Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada
Andriy Parubiy
First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada
Iryna Heraschenko
Member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc Party faction / Deputy Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on European Integration
Mariya Ionova
Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hanna Hopko
First Deputy Head of People's Front political party faction / Chair of Subcommittee on Social and Legal Protection of Servicemen and their Family Members of Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense
Andrii Teteruk
Member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc Party faction / Chair of Subcommittee on International Legal Affairs and Parliamentary Control over Implementation of International Obligations by Ukraine of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs
Iryna Lutsenko
Member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc Party faction / Chair of Subcommittee on Interparliamentary Relations, Bilateral and Multilateral Relations of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs
Volodymyr Ariyev
Member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc Party faction / Chair of Subcommittee on Military-Industrial Complex and Military-Technical Cooperation of Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense / Head of Permanent Delegation of Ukraine to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Artur Herasymov