Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian rights activist whose NGO was co-winner of final 12 months’s Nobel Peace Prize, referred to as Thursday for the world to “maintain Russian conflict criminals accountable,” in an interview with AFP.
“We should break the circle of impunity,” she mentioned, urging the United Nations and the European Union to again Kyiv’s name for a particular tribunal capable of decide high Russian officers all the best way as much as President Vladimir Putin.
Whereas acknowledging that getting a majority of UN member international locations behind that objective was a “onerous process,” Matviichuk mentioned it was indispensable for any post-war peace that may comply with the tip of the battle in her nation.
“There is not going to be sustainable peace with out justice,” she famous.
Her demand got here almost a 12 months after Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which adopted its 2014 annexation of Crimea and help for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s east.
She was talking at Belgium’s College of Louvain simply forward of receiving an honorary doctorate there, alongside Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman and Adelle Blackett, a regulation professor at Canada’s McGill College.
The trio had been being recognised for the battle for civil rights and a fairer society.
– ‘Everybody’s rights protected’ –
The Ukrainian NGO that Matviichuk runs, the Heart for Civil Liberties, final 12 months shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Russian rights organisation Memorial and an imprisoned Belarusian pro-democracy activist, Ales Bialiatski.
Matviichuk’s Heart for Civil Liberties, based in 2007, has campaigned for rule of regulation and democracy in Ukraine.
That battle has solely turn into more durable with Russia’s army offensive, nevertheless it has not been forgotten, she mentioned — on the contrary, the values the NGO campaigns on are central to Ukraine’s efforts to sooner or later be part of the European Union.
“Now we have two important duties: to outlive and to withstand, and to proceed our democratic path,” Matviichuk mentioned.
“We’re nonetheless a nation in transit, and we won’t focus power solely on this reforming path — we now have in parallel the conflict with Russia.
“However after the large-scale invasion began, we nonetheless don’t have any luxurious to pay attention solely on one objective, we now have to battle for our survival. And we now have to maneuver on to affix to European Union,” she mentioned.
Ukraine’s ambition to turn into an EU member state may take a few years, EU officers say, although some EU neighbours of Ukraine are lobbying for a sooner timeline.
Changing into a part of the European Union means turning into a part of the “European civilisation house,” Matviichuk mentioned.
Becoming a member of the EU would imply “we can have an opportunity to construct our nation the place the rights of everyone are protected,” she mentioned.
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