For the first time in the history of the association’s existence, the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation Tatiana Moskalkova was excluded from the members of ENNHRI, the European network of the global alliance of national human rights institutions, said Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets.
“Today I took part in the voting process for the exclusion of the Institution of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation from ENNHRI members. The voting was attended by members of ENNHRI with the status of A. I emphasize that this is the first time in the history of the association when one of the members is excluded,” Lubinets said on the Telegram channel on Tuesday.
According to him, the reason for the vote was that “the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation carried out her activities in a way and contrary to the purpose defined by the charter of ENNHRI.”
As Lubinets informed, Moskalkova during her speech “announced her withdrawal from the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, probably anticipating a negative result of the vote for their institute. She also used narratives of Russian propaganda about the U.S. biological laboratory in Ukraine and mentioned human rights violations in France during the protests, which was very strange to hear from a representative of the aggressor country,” Lubinets said.
As the Ukrainian Ombudsman stressed, “Russia does not pay attention to human rights violations on their part: it kills, fires rockets at peaceful cities, tortures, destroys houses, kidnaps Ukrainian children, holds civilians captive and does not comply with the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Russia commits genocide of our people and violates all norms of international humanitarian law, therefore it should be excluded from all international organizations. The world sees the truth and draws conclusions.”
Lubinets thanked his fellow ombudsmen, “who voted for the exclusion of the institution that does not correspond to the purpose of the Institute for Human Rights as a whole and uses European platforms to express political slogans from Russian propaganda.”