UN passes resolution against Crimea. Now what?

The UN General Assembly's Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs passed Ukraine's draft resolution on human rights in the Crimea.

Photo: Source: Kremlin.ru

The draft resolution was supported by 71 states, 25 countries opposed to it and 77 abstained. Most European countries and the United States voted for the document.

Russia, China, Belarus, Serbia, India, Armenia, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan voted against it.

The resolution, which was submitted to the United Nations in October, provides for such requirements as the lifting of the ban on the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and envisages education in the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages.

On April 26, 2016, the Supreme Court of the Crimea banned the Mejlis of Crimean Tatars in Russia as an extremist association.

In December, the UN General Assembly adopted a Ukrainian resolution on the Crimea, calling on Russia "to stop infringing the rights of the Crimeans." The document calls on the Russian authorities to take measures to "immediately put an end to all cases of infringement of human rights."

Director of the Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Anatoly Viktorov, said that the adopted document "has nothing to do either with the real situation in the Crimea, or with opinions and interests of Crimean residents."

However, not that long ago, the third committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism. Russia proposed the draft resolution last year, and only four countries voted against it: Canada, Palau, the USA and Ukraine.

The Crimea reunited with Russia in March 2014 as a result of the referendum held on the peninsula. The results of the referendum were not recognized outside Russia. The referendum entailed the introduction of sanctions against Russia.

Pravda.Ru

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