• Press release
    May 1, 2012
    The Ukrainian authorities should conduct a prompt, impartial, and thorough investigation into allegations that Yulia Tymoshenko was beaten by guards at the penal colony where she is being held.
  • Press release
    Feb 1, 2012
    The Ukrainian authorities should immediately stop police harassment and threats against Somali asylum seekers held at the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre.
  • Letter
    Jan 31, 2012
    We are writing to raise our concern about the arbitrary detention of some or all of a group of 125 Somali nationals detained at the Zhuravychi Migrant Accommodation Centre (MAC). Some of them are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the Ukrainian authorities as asylum seekers. Around 80 have told UNHCR they want to apply for asylum in Ukraine, but have not been allowed to do so.
  • Commentary
    Jan 10, 2012
    Twenty years ago, in July 1991, I was poised to start a job researching human rights violations in the Soviet Union. A month later, the failed coup to unseat Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev precipitated rapid political changes that would lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25. Watching these events, my family told me I would no longer have a job. Like many others, they assumed that the end of communism would usher in a new era of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in the Soviet Union’s successor states. I started my new job as planned and it only took five minutes to see that those assumptions were wrong.
  • Letter
    Oct 16, 2011
  • Press release
    Oct 16, 2011
    The Ukrainian parliament should reject a bill that would unlawfully censor information about homosexuality. The bill is incompatible with Ukraine’s international obligations and could deny people information they need for their health and safety.
  • Press release
    May 12, 2011
    Tens of thousands of patients with advanced cancer in Ukraine unnecessarily suffer from severe pain every year because they cannot get effective, safe, and inexpensive pain medications, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
  • Letter
    Apr 15, 2011
  • Commentary
    Apr 6, 2011
    I was not prepared to document torture and severe abuses when I started researching the human rights situation for migrants in Europe. After all, I was working on Western Europe, the developed world with a rule of law, independent judiciaries, functioning social services, and oversight bodies.
  • Letter
    Feb 8, 2011