Time to Act to Protect Human Rights and Peace!
What Matters Is life, Human Rights Advocacy Is Absolutely Anti-War!
28 February 2022
We, human rights defenders, reiterate “No to War!” on the fifth day of Russia’s devastating attack on and invasion of Ukraine and would like to remind all of our demands in our statement of 25 February 2022:
War is a massive destruction of both humanity and nature with all its living and non-living beings. War is a gross human rights violation in all respects, most notably of the rights to life, health and security. Conflicts of interest and all kinds of imperialist policies of states that breed war do not justify attacks and invasions. Russia should immediately end its attack on and invasion of Ukraine.
Both publicly available scenes and reports by international human rights organizations clearly reveal that civilians are subjected to gross human rights violations, specifically the rights to life, health, food and security on the fifth day of the war. Such state of affairs is a direct violation of international human rights law and humanitarian law.
Third party countries’, especially NATO members’, military concentration in the region in the name of ending the war and confining support for Ukraine to an “arms aid” parenthesis do not have any material contribution to any resolution. Thus, all actors that are direct and indirect parties to the problem should avoid taking steps that would further escalate the war and accelerate the arms race.
Similarly, the “economic sanctions” proposed by these parties do not mean anything beyond the further impoverishment of peoples under the conditions of global and humanitarian crisis. Such measures that will further deepen poverty all over the world should be avoided.
The United Nations was founded with a goal to establish an international system based on ideals of peace, human rights and democracy in order not to ever go through the massive human destruction created by World War II but international bodies and mechanisms, including the UN, regrettably lag far behind this goal today. Measures should immediately be taken in order to prevent further destruction in the humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, the mechanisms in question as well as diplomatic processes should be put in place to enable all parties to comply with international human rights law and humanitarian law. Necessary measures should be taken to prevent damage to civilian residential areas, health centers and major infrastructure.
Conditions to evacuate all civilians stranded in conflict zones should be created regardless of their nationality. To this end, the parties should urgently declare ceasefire and the ceasefire should be observed unconditionally, with a belief in the creation of opportunities for the peaceful resolution of the problem during this process as well, until evacuation is completed.
Human rights defenders working to monitor rights violations in war, journalists reporting developments and individuals speaking up for peace advocacy should absolutely be protected from oppression and violence.
We know that the hope of humanity and the world is peace. Peace is the very precondition of the solution to all our problems varying from human rights violations to the climate crisis, from deprivation, poverty and income inequality to the right of access to equal opportunities.
We, therefore, invite everyone to speak up to prevent human rights violations, to decidedly object to war, and to push decision-makers to build peace.
Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT)
Human Rights Association (İHD)