In preparation for the 210th session of the UNESCO Executive Board, a report of the UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay on the situation in Crimea is available on the website of the Organization. It is prepared in response to the decision of the 207th session of the Executive Board “Follow-up of the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine)” and concerns the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea in the fields of education, science, culture, dissemination of information and media functioning.

The report includes updated information on the situation in Crimea within the competence of UNESCO for the period since November 2019 until July 2020, provided by the ministries and authorities of Ukraine and human rights organizations.

It notes the data on a further deterioration of the situation on the peninsula within the spheres of UNESCO mandate. This information is submitted by Ukraine, as well as by UNESCO’s institutional partners, namely the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Council on Monuments and Sites and Amnesty International. It stresses the problems of preservation of cultural and natural heritage, illegal archaeological research and excavations, illicit transfer of cultural property and persecution of religious traditions. The information contains concrete facts of gross violations of human rights and freedoms of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, fundamental principles and standards of the Organization, in particular on ensuring educational and cultural rights, obstruction of free dissemination of information and media activities, numerous cases of persecutions, repressions and illegal arrests of journalists. Among the discriminatory practices is deprivation of education right of ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars to learn and to be taught in their native languages, that is a flagrant violation of the UNESCO’s Convention against Discrimination in Education 1960.

A draft decision of the 210th Executive Board’s session on the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea is provided along with the report.

Ukraine highly values the efforts of Director-General and the Secretariat of UNESCO, aimed at creation of a comprehensive monitoring mechanism designed to address the problems in the occupied Crimea within the competence of UNESCO, and appreciates professionalism and commitment of the Secretariat’s team, which is putting into practice the direct monitoring  activities  by  organizing  the  programmatic  visits  to  Ukraine.

The 210th session of the Executive Board that will take place on 4-18 November 2020 in Paris. A proposed draft decision, containing the information on the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea, is available on the UNESCO website: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374521.