The event, which was devoted to the issue of the human rights observance in Ukraine and on the temporarily occupied territory during the past 3 months, gathered over 70 representatives of the official delegations, Permanent missions of the Council of Europe States members, members of European Parliament and human rights defenders.

On the part of Ukraine the spokespeople were the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Valeriya Lutkovska, former head of Crimean Tatars Mejlis Mr. Mustafa Dzhemilev and the coordinator of mobile human rights monitoring groups of the Center for Civil Liberties Ms. Oleksandra Romantsova.

Ms. Valeriya Lutkovska, the Commissioner for Human Rights, opened the discussion by presenting a general overview of the situation in the field of human rights in Ukraine and by outlining the most critical areas in which exercise of rights has become extremely complicated or utterly impossible. In her speech the Ombudsperson focused on the lack of possibility to protect the rights of those residing on the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, impossibility of exercising political and socio-economic rights of the citizens of Ukraine, who reside in Crimea, and expressed her deep concern with the violations of human rights in the east of Ukraine. She presented the facts of mass violations by the illegal armed groups, whose crimes resulted in kidnapping of a group of children in the mid June. The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the actions of the Russian border guards that against international law allowed the terrorists to cross without any restriction Ukrainian-Russian border with a bus full of Ukrainian children-hostages without any documents.

Former head of Crimean Tatars Mejlis, dissident and human rights defender, Mr. Mustafa Dzhemilev, told about repressive and discriminatory actions of the Russian authorities, directed both at him personally (in particular, prohibition of entry to his native land), and at the representatives of Crimean Tatars Mejlis, and Crimean Tatar community in general, inter alia in the form of the intimidation, harassment and even kidnapping and murder of Crimean Tatars in Crimea.

Ms. Oleksandra Romantsova from the Center for Civil Liberties analyzed the events, which are evolving during the past three months in the East of Ukraine, where the biggest threat remains to be the illegal armed groups.

The discussion emerged around the issues of biased coverage of the events in Ukraine and purposeful misrepresentation of facts by the Russian mass media, interference with the activities of the journalists and obstacle to their protection, violation of rights of Crimean Tatar people in Crimea and human rights monitoring in trouble spots in Ukraine.

The spokespeople addressed the Council of Europe states members requesting assistance to Ukraine in resolving the problems that are arising due to lack of possibility to ensure the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine and encouraging all the parties, including the highest officials of the CE, to take all measures necessary to settle the conflict and prevention of further escalation.