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Nearly a year into the Ukraine war and amid renewed missile attacks targeting the eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, the UN’s top human rights experts* made a strong call for Russian forces to end their the deliberate destruction of the country’s cultural treasures.
According to aid workers, at least six people were killed on Tuesday after Russian missiles hit a busy street in the city of Kherson. Most of the victims were at the bus stop, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told New York reporters.
Targeted identities and shelters
Independent experts also expressed concern about the “continued denigration of the history and identity of the Ukrainian people as a justification of war and hatred”.
These rapporteurs, who report to the UN Human Rights Council, mention in their reports that places of significant cultural importance in Ukraine have been the target of intentional attacks, when they should be protected, according to international law, especially by the convention of The Hague for the protection of cultural properties of 1954.
Such places attacked include “clearly marked” buildings as shelters for residents, including childrenas well as museums, libraries and churches.
“The indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on densely populated areas, and the damage done to civilian infrastructure in the process, are of such magnitude as to suggest deliberate campaigns of destruction,” the experts said in a statement.
More than 240 Ukrainian heritage sites have been damaged since the Russian invasion on February 24 last year, according to the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO).
But the true number of attacks could exceed the amount of 1000according to legal experts.
A residential building in Makariv, west of the Ukrainian capital kyiv, shows signs of damage from a bomb blast.
Right to identity
According to experts, repositories of Ukrainian literature, museums, and historical archives are being destroyed.
There is “a widespread narrative of demonization and denigration of Ukrainian culture and identity” promoted by Russian officials, who call for ideological repression and strict censorship of the political, cultural, and educational, they point out.
“Let’s be clear: the Ukrainian people have the right to their identity. No one can violate this right”, they affirm.
In eastern Ukraine and Crimea, annexed by Russia in March 2014, experts argued that attempts were being made “erase local culture, history and languagesin cultural and educational institutions.
Instead, the communities faced replacement by the Russian language and by Russian and Soviet history and culture.
Ukrainian books called ‘extremists’
“Ukrainian history and literature books deemed ‘extremist’ have been confiscated from public libraries in cities and towns in the occupied territory of Lohansk, Donetsk, Chernihiv, and Sumy Oblasts and destroyed by the current occupying power. ”, mention the experts.
And they added that the same has been reported about history textbooks in schools in some cities.
The experts are part of what is known as the special procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN human rights system, is the general name for the council’s independent investigative and monitoring mechanisms that address specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent of any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
