Violations of human rights during forced passporting in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine (2022-2023)

Abstract

In the article the authors state that the forced privatization carried out by Russian authorities in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is the violation of international legal norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the European Convention on citizenship. At the same time coercion to acquire Russian citizenship contradicts special provisions of the IV Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War on the prohibition of coercion in the acquisition of citizenship of another state during war. As of national legislation, a draft law on amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedural Codes of Ukraine to counter Russian passporting has been developed.
On the basis of testimonies of internally displaced persons the authors describe that with the occupation of the Ukrainian land, Russians with the help of collaborators have launched a propaganda campaign for the transition of Ukrainians to Russian citizenship, and also widely used repressions based on a single fact of having a Ukrainian passport or demonstration of pro-Ukrainian position. The article describes attempts to convince socially vulnerable sections of society to renounce Ukrainian citizenship in exchange for humanitarian aid and monetary payments. The Russian occupation authorities used illegally obtained passport data of Ukrainians to falsify the results of the pseudo-referendum on the accession of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia in the fall of 2022.
In order to accelerate the assimilation processes of the citizens of Ukraine who resist forced passporting, the occupiers deprive them of the right to education, receive medical care, and limit their property and labor rights. However, there are enough criminal procedural mechanisms to bring those guilty of forced passporting to justice in Ukraine.