WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:

Ongoing Human Rights and Security Violations in Russian-Occupied Crimea

Thursday, November 10, 2016
2:00 PM
Rayburn House Office Building
Room B-318

In Russia’s ongoing illegal occupation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, occupying authorities persistently and egregiously violate the human rights of those perceived to oppose Russian annexation of this Ukrainian territory, especially Crimean Tatars.  At the same time, with Russia’s militarization of the peninsula, the security situation in the surrounding Black Sea region is becoming increasingly perilous.

The briefing will examine the current state of affairs in the region in the face of Russian aggression, analyze the response of the international community, and discuss how – 40 years after the Ukrainian Helsinki Monitoring Group was formed to  monitor the Soviet Government’s compliance with the Helsinki Final Act – Ukrainians continue to defend Helsinki principles in the face of violations by Moscow.

The following panelists are scheduled to participate:

• Oksana Shulyar, Embassy of Ukraine to the United States
• John E. Herbst, Director, Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council; former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine  
• Paul A. Goble, Editor, Windows on Eurasia; Professor, The Institute of World Politics
• Taras Berezovets, Founder, Free-Crimea Project, Kyiv, Ukraine