Will the President finally hear the human rights defenders?

To the President of Ukraine V.A. Yushchenko

Most Esteemed Mr President,
I, Chairman of the public human rights organisation 'Donetsk Memorial', and my colleagues Alexander Betsa, an independent expert on penitentiary issues, and Yevheny Zakharov from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, recently awarded by you with the Order of Liberty, have twice this year appealed to you with Open Letters, in which we expressed our concern about systematic and widespread violations of human rights in penal institutions. To substantiate our position, we cited examples of facts known to us.
We are particularly troubled by the formal attitude of the department's leadership to the verification of reports of brutal violations of the rights of convicted prisoners, attempts to conceal the true circumstances of numerous extraordinary incidents in penal institutions and detention centres.
We also expressed concern about the closed nature of the preparation of the Concept for the Reform of the State Criminal and Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, which was approved on 25 April 2008 by your Decree No. 401/2008. I genuinely do not know whether you personally read our Open Letters, or whether they were 'processed' without your acquaintance with them. But we received response No. 43-02/2321 dated 14.07.2008 signed by Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Secretariat Mr I. Pukshin, which caused us considerable concern and bewilderment.
Indeed, in our letters we wrote concerning the aforementioned Concept that 'it is no secret to anyone that there were gross violations of procedure in its preparation', but in the response received from Mr I. Pukshin about this – not a word.
In this response, it is also claimed that our letter concerns 'allegedly unlawful, in our opinion, actions of officials of penal institutions' and we are informed that it has been sent 'for verification to the State Department of Ukraine on Execution of Sentences, which will report on the results'.
Such a position, expressed in Mr I. Pukshin's letter on your behalf, cannot be perceived as anything other than mockery of common sense.
First, the Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Secretariat took actions directly prohibited by law, namely Article 7 of the Law of Ukraine 'On Citizens' Appeals', which proclaims that 'it is forbidden to refer complaints of citizens for examination to those bodies or officials whose actions or decisions are being appealed against'.
Second, our appeal with the proposal 'to seriously consider the question of the appropriateness of further tenure in office of V.V. Koshchynets and his deputies, who, in our view, demonstrate an inability to manage such a complex and specific department,' was referred on your behalf for examination to Mr Koshchynets himself, twice a laureate of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union anti-award 'Thistle of the Year' for the most brutal violations of human rights.
Esteemed Mr President,
How can one respond in such a manner to the human rights defenders' concern for the observance of human rights in prisons?
Do you truly expect Mr Koshchynets to make a specific proposal for his own resignation?
It should be noted that the Department did respond to us. And the main content of the letter sent to us – information about human rights violations allegedly was not confirmed. Allegedly, nothing except a few examples we cited was of interest to us. But our Open Letters contained information about violations in the system only as an example. Questions of legislation, transparency of the system for civil society, the most important points of our appeals concerning 'respect for the dignity of both prisoners and system staff, strict observance of the standards of social justice, real, not simulated, transparency of its activities to the public, particularly to human rights organisations and the media' – on all these issues of our letters, neither you nor Mr Pukshin provided any response. All of this remained unnoticed either by you personally or by Mr Pukshin.
By such a response to our appeals, you only confirm the sad conclusion of our Open Letters about the indifference of the country's highest leadership to the problems of the penal system and to the problems of its staff. We hoped to learn your personal, Mr President, attitude towards the brutal violations of human rights in the penal system.
But we did not receive such a response.
That is why we again emphasise the urgent consideration of our appeals on the merits, the objective analysis (assessment) of the problems of the criminal and penal system. We insist on the disclosure of your position as President of Ukraine regarding brutal violations of human rights in the criminal and penal system.
In our view, only in this way can you demonstrate your commitment to the values of human rights.
Alexander Bukalov,
Chairman of the Council of the human rights organisation 'Donetsk Memorial'