08/31/2017
Ex-Chancellor reaffirms his commitment to Rosneft
Human rights activists contradict Schröder: Russia is not being “demonized”, but has broken international law (Press Release)
Schröder is a clearly against the EU’s sanctions, and has publicly demanded them to be ended. Photo: Campus Symposium GmbH via Wikimedia Commons
According to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), it is “misleading” of former Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to claim that Russia is being “demonized” in the dispute over his possible engagement with the Rosneft Group. “If a state decides not to keep to the international legal regulations, this must have consequences – for the sake of global peace,” stated Ulrich Delius, the STP’s director, in Göttingen on Thursday. “A former Federal Chancellor should be more aware of that than anybody else. It is thanks to the rules of international law that there has been peace in central Europe for 70 years now. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a serious and deliberate violation of the basic principles of international law. If there aren’t any sanctions, this will be seen as an invitation to commit further violations of international law.” Schröder is a clearly against the EU’s sanctions, and has publicly demanded them to be ended.
As Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, it was clearly a violation of international law. “If we get used to powerful states occupying parts of smaller neighboring countries, international political order is at stake. Reliability and trust are the cornerstones of a good relationship between neighboring countries,” Delius emphasized.
Russia did not only violate international law with the annexation, but is also guilty of human rights violations against the native Crimean Tatars over the past three years. For example, the self-representation body of the Crimean Tatars, the Mejlis, was banned in April 2016. According to the STP, the Russian authorities are trying to keep human rights activists from doing their work by means of intimidations, arbitrary arrests, and attempts to criminalize and silence them. Crimean Tatars who dare to be politically active and demand human rights for Crimean Tatars are risking long prison sentences.
There are measures to systematically “russify” Crimea’s society. Since the beginning of the occupation, about 60,000 people have fled from the peninsula – and only 280,000 of the 2.5 million inhabitants of Crimea are indigenous Crimean Tatars.
Header Photo: Campus Symposium GmbH via Wikimedia Commons
