METROPOLITAN THEODOSIUS (SNIGIREV) AND LAWYER ROBERT AMSTERDAM APPEALED TO UN HIGH COMMISSIONER VOLKER TURK REGARDING THE CRIMINAL PERSECUTION OF BELIEVERS IN UKRAINE.
On 09-11 July 2024, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk presented the report of the UN Monitoring Mission on Ukraine at the 56th session of the Human Rights Council.
During the UNHRC session to consider the said report of the UN High Commissioner, Metropolitan Feodosiy (Snigirev) of Cherkassy and Kanev addressed the UN High Commissioner Volker Türk, delegations of UN member states and international organisations in the format of a video statement in the UNHRC meeting room. Vladyka drew the attention of the meeting participants to the criminal trials of UOC bishops who are being tried for rhetorical statements about the non-canonicality of the confession, in violation of international legal standards, which qualify such rhetoric as freedom of speech and legitimate expression of religious beliefs.
Metropolitan Theodosius stressed that the Rabat Plan of Action, approved at the international level as a consensus on the assessment of rhetorical statements, - allows responsibility for rhetoric only if it is followed by calls for violence and concrete actions to violate the rights of other confessions. Hierarchs of the UOC who have been brought to criminal responsibility in Ukraine today - did not allow such calls in their speeches, unlike representatives of other confessions, who openly, including through the use of social networks, called to seize churches, expel UOC clergy from Ukraine and commit other violent acts against the faithful of the UOC.
However, so far there have been no examples of criminal prosecution by the law enforcement system for rhetoric hostile to the UOC believers, which demonstrates the double standards of the law enforcement system and the destruction of religious freedom in Ukraine.
Also at the meeting of the 56th session of the UN HRC on the observance of human rights in Ukraine, Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer of the international law firm Amsterdam and Partners LLP, who was engaged by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to defend the rights of believers, made a speech.
The lawyer in particular pledged that:
"The Ukrainian Rada is trying to pass Bill No. 8371, which will actually ban the church completely... Ukraine has brought false criminal charges against the priests, it is holding the priests hostage in order to exchange them for Russian prisoners of war. This is a war crime in itself... In prosecuting the priests, the government is using psycholinguistics, resurrecting the worst form of Soviet psychiatric persecution, charging the priests under Article 161 with inciting religious hatred and, in effect, charging them with thought crimes. The government is violating its own constitution by mixing church affairs with state affairs and essentially making the OCU a state church..."
During the 56th session of the UNHRC, written statements with specific facts of violations of the rights of believers of the UOC were distributed and information about criminal cases opened against believers was updated.
Comments and recordings of the statements are available at the link:
https://youtu.be/ebt4a38ZPF4