In December 2022, human rights organization, ‘Front Line Defenders’ strongly condemned the enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of Ukrainian human rights defenders and other citizens in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. FLD is deeply concerned about the illegal abduction, among others, of woman human rights defender and civic activist Iryna Horobtsova from her home in Kherson on 13 May 2022.
On that day, Iryna Horobtsova’s relatives reported that in the morning two cars with “Z” marks – the criminal symbol of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – arrived to the house where she lived with her parents. A number of persons in Russian military uniforms raided the apartment and forcefully took Iryna into a vehicle. Since then, there has been no information about Iryna Horobtsova’s whereabouts for a long time.
On 31 August 2022, the European Court of Human Rights granted interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, and urged Russia to provide information about Iryna Horobtsova’s whereabouts.
The Russian Federation refused to comply with the request, in spite of its obligation to comply with the Court’s decisions until 16 September 2022, after which it ceased to be a party of the Europen Convention on Human Rights. As the human rights organization “Crimea SOS” reported, on November 24, the woman was criminally taken from the illegal so-called “pre-trial detention center No. 1” in the Russia-occupied city of Simferopol to the criminal “headquarters” of invaders’ punishers in the Crimea.
Ukrainian human rights organization ZMINA has reported that during Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, aggressor’s military have abducted, forcibly disappeared and unlawfully detained at least 386 volunteers, activists, and human rights defenders, including human rights journalists from Nova Kakhovka Serhii Tsyhipa and Oleh Baturin, journalist from Kyiv region Dmytro Khyliuk and humanitarian volunteer from Spain Mario Garcia Calatayud. Serhii Tsyhipa and Mario Garcia Calatayud have been transferred criminally to Russian-occupied Crimea.
According to ZMINA, more than 10 individuals who engaged in humanitarian work were later found dead, or died after being released due to torture they faced in captivity.
