The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled "
partially admissible
" the application filed by Ukraine against Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, a decision on the merits to be made "
on a date later
”.
Kiev accuses Moscow of being guilty of "
numerous violations of the European Convention on Human Rights in Crimea
", from February 2014 to August 2015, the ECHR recalled in a statement.
Read also: Crimea: the bridge which confirms the annexation
According to the court, which sits in Strasbourg, Russia did exercise "
effective control
" over Crimea, as evidenced by "
the scale and power of the Russian military presence
" in the Ukrainian peninsula.
This presence, "
had been reinforced (...) from January to March 2014 without the consent of the Ukrainian authorities and in the absence of any element suggesting that a threat weighed on the Russian troops stationed in Crimea
", recalls the ECHR.
The court also noted that the “
story
” delivered by Kiev before it was “
coherent and concordant
”.
It contains, she continues, "
detailed and specific information, supported by sufficient evidence indicating that the Russian soldiers had not been passive observers, but that they had actively participated in the alleged events
".
The court thus specifies to have a "
beginning of sufficient proof both of the repetition of the acts as of the official tolerance
" of which they were the object.
These are, she enumerates, "
enforced disappearances
", "
illegal detentions
", "
automatic imposition of Russian nationality
", "
harassment and intimidation of religious leaders
", "
closure of non-Russian media
”,“
expropriation, without compensation
”or even the“
ban on the Ukrainian language in schools
”.
However, warn the European judges, “
this conclusion does not prejudge the question of the responsibility
” of Russia, which will come under the substantive proceedings.
Recourse to this inter-state procedure, by which one state sues another before the ECHR, is extremely rare.
Twenty-seven such cases have been recorded since the entry into force of the European Convention in 1953.
The ECHR also notes that it was not asked to determine "
whether the integration of Crimea, under Russian law, into the Russian Federation was lawful from the point of view of international law
".
Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula was followed by war with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that left nearly 13,000 dead.
