“Grave human rights violations, such as arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and torture, and at least one extra-judicial execution were documented,” the report** says.

“Failure to prosecute these acts and ensure accountability has denied victims proper remedy and strengthened impunity, potentially encouraging the continued perpetration of human rights violations,” the report continues.

“Persons holding a residency permit and no Russian Federation citizenship do not enjoy equality before the law and are deprived of important rights,” the report says. “They cannot own agricultural land, vote and be elected, register a religious community, apply to hold a public meeting, hold positions in the public administration and re-register their private vehicle on the peninsula.”

“The citizenship issue has had a major impact on the lives of many residents of Crimea,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

“As the report states, imposing citizenship on the inhabitants of an occupied territory can be equated to compelling them to swear allegiance to a power they may consider as hostile, which is forbidden under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Zeid added.

“Ukrainian laws were substituted by Russian Federation laws, in violation of the obligation under international humanitarian law to respect the existing law of the occupied territory,” it says. “Among other implications, this led to the arbitrary implementation of Russian Federation criminal law provisions designed to fight terrorism, extremism and separatism, which have restricted the right to liberty and security of the person and the space for the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms.”

“Courts frequently ignored credible claims of human rights violations occurring in detention,” the report says. “Judges have applied Russian Federation criminal law provisions to a wide variety of peaceful assemblies, speech and activities, and in some cases retroactively to events that preceded the temporary occupation of Crimea or occurred outside of the peninsula in mainland Ukraine.”

“Education in the Ukrainian language has almost disappeared from Crimea,” it adds, highlighting numerous impacts across civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22140&LangID=E