PRESS RELEASE : International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances 2024 – Joint statement to the OSCE [September 2024]

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 5 September 2024.

Deputy Ambassador Deirdre Brown delivers a joint statement condemning enforced disappearances of Ukrainian civilians by Russia.

Thank you Chair.

I have the honour of delivering this statement on behalf of Canada, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and my own country, the United Kingdom.

30 August marked the annual International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. As such, at today’s Permanent Council, we would like to state our strong condemnation of enforced disappearances.

We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to ending this serious human rights violation. In addition, we recall and reiterate the OSCE commitments we all made in adopting the 2020 Tirana Ministerial Council Decision on the Prevention and Eradication of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Enforced disappearance is inexcusable and despicable, wherever and whenever it takes place in our region.

However testimonies collected by this year’s Moscow Mechanism experts, international organisations and civil society actors suggest that the Russian Federation has consistently and deliberately used incommunicado detention with respect to Ukrainian civilians. In some cases the Moscow Mechanism experts found that family members had received no information about detained family members for periods of more than two years. In these circumstances, they concluded that the Russian Federation had violated the absolute prohibition on incommunicado detention and enforced disappearances under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

We unreservedly condemn the actions of the Russian authorities. Russia must confirm who it is holding, where, and why. It must also comply with its obligation to grant unhindered access to the ICRC and other appropriate humanitarian organisations. Russia must cease committing enforced disappearances and release all of those who have been detained in contravention of international law. Or, to repeat the Moscow Mechanism experts’ recommendation to the Russian Federation, Russia must:

“Immediately cease the practice of holding people incommunicado and/or subjecting them to enforced disappearances … ensure that persons deprived of their liberty are held only in  officially recognized places of detention and accurate information on the detention of such persons and their place or places of detention … is made promptly available to their family members, their counsel or to any other persons having a legitimate interest in the information”.

In closing, we jointly reaffirm our commitment to ending enforced disappearances. We stand in solidarity with the victims and survivors of enforced disappearances, as well as their loved ones, in Ukraine, across the OSCE region and around the world.