The Chairman A.Parubiy delivered his address to the Forum “The 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Ukraine’s agenda”, that took place in Kyiv on December 3
“…Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people”.
With these words, taken from the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the United Nations in 1948, started his forum speech the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy. He then spoke about human rights as a point of grave importance for establishment of the free world values, having made a broad excursus in the history of the document and the negative role the USSR played then and modern Russia continues to play now upon the discourse.
“The confrontation between Ukraine and Russia is not only an armed, not only militaristic collision, not just the matter of defending our independence against the Russian aggression. It is a confrontation between two civilizations. It is a confrontation between two worlds, which are deeply, naturally, conceptually distinct from one another,” stressed the Speaker.
“Nowadays, we stand united about getting out our sailors from the Kremlin’s dungeons to demonstrate that the rights and dignity of the Ukrainian military is of the highest value for us. And the entire free world has echoed us in this our strong endeavour, in this our pressing demand,” added the Chairman in conclusion.
He then wished the forum a productive work and fruitful discussions.
The forum was organized by the Ukrainian ombudsperson’s secretariat with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme.
The discussion platform was attended by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the UN Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Ukraine Osnat Lubrani, the Parliamentary Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova, the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Marten Ehnberg, the Head of the UN Monitoring Mission for Human Rights Fiona Fraser, Deputy Minister for the Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs Heorhii Tuka, representatives of the government and local self-government bodies, non-governmental organizations, human rights defenders and leading human rights experts.