Matviychuk biography

The place of work, the BBC, Kyiv on October 25 that the Kiev Civil Freedoms Center became the Nobel Prize Laureate, its leader, Alexander Matviychuk learned in the literal sense of the word on suitcases. She was returning from a working trip to New York. The sky over Ukraine has been closed to civil flights since the beginning of the Russian invasion, so Poland most often becomes a window to the outside world for Ukrainians.

And so, as Speaks, smiling, Matviychuk in an interview with the BBC, she goes with her suitcases to the Warsaw Central Railway Station, and she is called the Executive Director of the Center for Alexander Romantsov and says: "A couple of minutes later they will announce that we are the Nobel Prize laureates." But literally a couple of minutes later, the phone began to burst, and I realized: no, this is not a joke, ”says Matviychuk.

That I can be late for the train! In the same way, she has no idea exactly who could put forward her organization to the Nobel Prize: over 15 years of work in the field of human Rights, her organization got a huge number of partners and contacts around the world, so the circle of“ suspects ”can be huge. What is CGS? While dozens of people from all over the world tried to get through to Alexandra Matviychuk, who still managed to train from Warsaw, thousands of people in Ukraine shrugged.

Judging by the notes on social networks, even many Kyiv journalists did not know what the Civil Freedoms Center is, not to mention a wider public. Matviychuk refers to this situation with understanding: Ukraine, she says, is not the country in which human rights activists have the status of stars: "I think that even those people who have never heard about the center of civilian freedoms have accurately heard about our projects and initiatives." For example, it was on the basis of the Center in November of the year, the day after the beating of activists on the Kiev Maidan of Nebulia, the Euromaidan SOS initiative arose.

Her first goal was to provide legal assistance to the victims of the main square of Kyiv, but after that it quickly grown, and throughout the entire protest, several thousand of its participants provided legal and other assistance to the pursued throughout the country around the clock. The author of the photo, CCl. For these initiatives, the Center actively attracted people from the outside of its structure, says Matviychuk, and even from Ukraine.

We are talking, for example, about the global action of Save Oleg Sentsov, which took place in 35 countries in support of the requirements of the director of the convicted director Oleg Sentsov to release all Ukrainian political prisoners. The Nobel Prize of the World was received by human rights activists from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus 21 thousand crimes with the beginning of the full -scale invasion of Russia to Ukraine, the Center for Civil Freedoms resumed the work of the Euro -Maidan SOS network.

The main area of ​​activity of the organization has now been documenting war crimes committed in Ukraine during hostilities. Partners and I covered the territory of the whole country inclusive with occupied territories. And it is important that the information that we collect is not from open sources, as many famous respected organizations do, but "from the Earth", in hot pursuit.

After all, time passes - traces of destruction disappear, ruins are restored, human memory is erased. Therefore, it is very important to restore every war crime committed in the smallest village in each region, ”says Matviychuk. Information about them is entered into a single electronic base and can subsequently be used in the courts - both national and international, both existing and those that will still be created.

BBC: 21 thousand those who have been accumulated by you - these are all expected crimes of Russian The occupying troops are also documented by representatives of the Ukrainian armed forces? Alexander Matviychuk: when you are talking about human rights, you record the human rights violations regardless The vast majority are violations committed by the Russian military, and these are systemic violations, these are war crimes that are committed with the blessings of the highest political and military leadership of the Russian Federation, are sung by Russian propagandists, consecrated in cassors, which are masked under the clergy.

And the second reason is because all these eight years, when we have seen some kind of violation by Ukrainian officials or representatives of the Armed Forces, we had instruments of influence on the situation as Ukrainian human rights activists and human rights activists. We could file an application to initiate a criminal case, we could provide the victim with a lawyer.I will not say that all this was very easily given: we are a country that is in the period transition to democracy, we still continue the reforms of law enforcement agencies, the judicial system.

But at least we had the opportunity to do this. And when we are talking about the crimes of the Russian Federation, there are no tools here. And this is a huge difference. The author of the photo, the EPA signature to the photo, “human rights activists are not looking for, they document all human rights violations that they see. Because for us human rights are value,” says Alexander Matveychuk BBC: should human rights activists seek possible violations by representatives of his country, even if it is obviously a victim of an aggressive war on the stronger neighbor?

Human rights activists are not looking for, they document all human rights violations that they see. Because for us human rights are value. And because in this war with the Russian Federation we are fighting not only for the territory, but also for the people who live here, and for our democratic choice. This war began not in February. It began in February GO, when Yanukovych’s authoritarian regime, and Ukraine received a chance to carry out reforms and become a successful democracy.

Putin began the war to stop us on this path. Therefore, we have a huge challenge. We must defeat the Russian Federation and throw Russian troops outside all temporarily occupied territories, including Crimea, this is unconditional. But at the same time, we should not become their mirror. During the war, the parties can reflect each other, but we must always remember that it does not make sense to defeat in the war with Russia and turn into it.

We are fighting for another. The world and justice The task that Alexander Matviychuk puts on himself is fundamentally change the approach of the world community accountable for war crimes. At the same time, Matviychuk states: often the approach of the West to the solution of the "Ukrainian issue" seems unacceptable to her. The first months of the war, she says when Russian troops tried to take Kyiv in the ring, she remained in the city and went on a foreign trip only in May.

I came to these meetings with a request for justice, to talk about how the international community sees this justice. How we will act in order to hold Putin, Lukashenko, and war criminals who committed these crimes with their own hands, who made decisions. But I did not see this request. I saw a request for the world. The world is, of course, it is important, it is indisputable value.

But in our part of the world, where Russia uses the war as a method of achieving geopolitical interests, and war crimes as a way to win this war will not be a sustainable world without justice. Now our narrative will sound from the position of Nobel laureates, and it will be more significant. BBC: That is, the key request for justice should be the key ... And the world, it turns out, is secondary?

Russian troops committed war crimes in Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Syria, Mali, Libya, in other countries. They remained unpunished ... This taught the Russians to the idea that they could do whatever they want. And until we tear this circle of impunity, until we show that justice is not just words in conventions and declarations, that these are actions and practice, it will be repeated.

Therefore, peace and justice are interdependent. Some things will be investigated effectively, and some will not, because there are too many of them. The author of the photo, the EPA signature for the photo, crimes in Buch became the subject of investigation of both Ukrainian human rights defenders and the International Court in the Hague in his interview with Matviychuk often addresses the words that the widow of the Mirian residents killed by him, who he had killed by the Russian military criminal, said in the trial of the first Russian military criminal, summer residents of the summer, Alexander Shelipov.

Matviychuk recalls how Katerina Shelipova spoke of her husband: "He was a whole universe for me." Matviychuk says that the “complex justice strategy” should proceed from the fact that the life of every murdered person, the fate of every deported family, each “universe” should be so important for the world public that the restoration of the truth about every military crime should become a priority, even if very expensive legal mechanisms have to be founded.

The war is erasing people ... Our task is to make his name in this approach to the justice of war crimes to return to each person from these numbers, ”she says. Models of how this new system may look, Matviychuk says, can be different. According to her, some of them are discussed at the expert level, however, it continues that justice does not depend on the“ Putin's strength ”.She explains: “Comprehensive Strategy of Justice” and additional mechanisms in the form of, for example, “International Tribunal for punishing Putin, Lukashenko and other war criminals” should earn now, without waiting for the end of the war.

Is this a figure of speech? Or do you really believe in the creation of the tribunal, on the bench of which the current Russian president will be?

And I expect that in court there will be not only the highest political and military leadership of Russia, but also other people. Including the journalists who called themselves, all these years artificially created the image of the enemy and who, following the example of their, say, predecessors on the Nuremberg Tribunal, will say: “We are not to blame, our words did not have to perceive literally I interviewed a young girl captured in Donetsk.

She was pregnant, she went through beatings and torture. She begged her not to beat, because she was waiting for the child, and she was answered: "You have pro -Ukrainian sympathies, your child simply has no right to be born." She agreed to release it on one condition: she had to give an interview to Russian journalists and say that she is a sniper of the Tornado battalion.

She agreed to everything. And now the detail that she remembered in a conversation with me and which crashed into my memory. People who call themselves Russian journalists come - by the way, we then found this plot - they understand what they are doing, they understand who is in front of them. For the first time, this girl was given some clothes and allowed to wash after being in captivity.

They see that she is pregnant. And they tell her: "Sit so that your stomach is not visible." Because this would destroy their propaganda picture that in front of the camera is a sniper "Tornado". People involved in evil should be responsible for the actions that they perform. BBC: Is this possible within the framework of existing ships, tribunals? We are talking about how to strengthen the ability of the national justice system ...

We are talking about creating new mechanisms - for example, the "Commission of Pravda" or the International Tribunal or, possibly, some other institutions that will close different tasks in this "integrated strategy". More and more states understand that this war is value. Ukraine now is a battlefield between two systems: authoritarianism and democracy. And more and more states understand: if they do not help us stop Putin here in Ukraine, he will go further.

Putin is trying to win this war, showing the whole world that allegedly our values ​​are false, supposedly the rule of law does not exist. He says: if democracy, freedom, the rule of law exist, why do they not protect you? Why cannot the entire UN system stop Russian atrocities for eight months? Indeed, you can quote the Geneva or Hague Conventions in bomb shelters, but they will see that reality does not correspond to them at all.

Therefore, in order for us, humanity, the civilized world can continue to honestly and convincingly say that the rule of law, democracy and freedom are working values, we must give justice. And then we will have the opportunity to say: “Yes, there was a period of legal arbitrariness when Russia was grossly violating the international order, but this was temporary.