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STORY: UN / SIMONOVIC
TRT: 3.28
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 14 MARCH 2014, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT
1. Exterior shot, UN Secretariat
14 MARCH 2014
2. Wide shot, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“The whole idea is that this mission will be if necessary investigating human rights violations as they occur, preventing any sort of cover-up, but also preventing from over blowing human rights violations and using them as a pretext for some sort of manipulation and political agenda oriented to spread fear and insecurity in the country.”
4. Cutaway
5. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“We consider that mandate of the monitoring mission includes whole Ukraine, including Crimea. However, in case of physical access being denied, we will rely on other reliable sources of information and we will be cross-checking them and reporting on human rights violations.”
6. Cutaway
7. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“As far as various paramilitary troops in Crimea are concern, we are receiving a lot of reports on various troops being present in Crimea. We have extensive reports on violations against primarily journalists and civil society.”
8. Cutaway
9. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“In Crimea, there is a violation of right to information, because some Ukrainian, or better to say all Ukrainian channels have been blocked. So, citizens who inhabit Crimea are deprived of information.”
10. Cutaway
11. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“There is no freedom of assembly, no freedom of expression of opinion. That issues that will be presented as option at the referendum, had not been discussed publicly.”
12. Cutaway
13. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“Yes, we can confirm that we got allegations of taking passports away from a number of people related to participation in referendum.”
14. Cutaway
15. SOUNDBITE (English), Ivan Šimonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights:
“This short visit was enough to indentify that there are some chronical human rights violations in the country some of them dating since the time of the Soviet Union. There are some violations that are specific, that are protest related including excessive use of force and some other violations.”
16. Cutaway
United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonovic, announced today the immediate deployment of a UN monitoring team in Ukraine with the mandate to monitor and report on alleged human rights violations in entire country, including in Crimea.
Speaking via video conference to the journalists in New York, Šimonovic said that the newly deployed human rights monitoring team, which will be headed by Armen Harutyunyan, who is also the UN Regional Representative for Central Asia, has the mandate to monitor human rights violations on entire territory of Ukraine, including Crimea.
He and his team have been denied entry to Crimea by the Crimean authorities, but he said that will not be a problem and that they “will rely on other reliable sources of information and we will be cross-checking them and reporting on human rights violations.”
Šimonovic told the journalists that he had received reports that various paramilitary troops are present in Crimea. There are also extensive reports on human rights violations, mainly against journalists and civil society.
According to Šimonovic right to information is also denied to those who live in Crimea, since all Ukrainian media had been shut down.
Referring to forthcoming referendum, Šimonovic said that the issues that are going to be presented as an alternative at the referendum have not been discussed publicly, since there is no freedom of assembly and no freedom of expression.
His visit was short, he said, but it was enough to identify that there are some “chronical human rights violations in the country some of them dating since the time of the Soviet Union. There are some violations that are specific, that are protest related including excessive use of force and some other violations.”
