Human rights activists criticized the Ukrainian law on collaborators – CNN

International human rights organizations are criticizing Ukraine’s law on collaborators.

This was reported by CNN, which commented on how prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and Moscow have been unfolding.

During the most recent exchange, 70 Ukrainian citizens were transferred to Russia. Some of them had been convicted under Ukrainian law for switching sides and cooperating with the occupying Russian forces.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) analyzed around 2,000 court rulings under this statute. While some of those convicted were indeed collaborators, many were individuals who, according to international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted, the organization concluded.

According to Yulia Gorbunova, HRW’s representative for Ukraine, violations include cases where the accused caused “minimal or no harm” to the state or had no intent to undermine national security.

Some cases involve people who worked in public service positions at the time of occupation and simply continued doing their jobs.

“Helping people on the street, people who are ill or disabled, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collected trash — they could be convicted as collaborators simply for doing their jobs under occupation,” Gorbunova explained.

In her view, Ukraine’s legislation is so vaguely worded that a very wide range of actions by individuals living and working in occupied territories can be labeled as “collaboration.”

HRW also finds it ethically questionable that Ukraine appears to have disowned its own citizens who were exchanged to Russia.

This refers to the government-linked website “I Want to Go to My Own” (“Хочу к своїм”), which publishes data on collaborators and other convicted individuals who requested transfer to Russia. On this site, those exchanged are labeled with remarks such as: “left for Russia, while real Ukrainians returned home.”

“These people are still Ukrainian citizens, and the phrasing that they were exchanged for ‘real Ukrainians’ — that is very problematic,” said Anysia Sinyuk, a representative of the Ukrainian human rights organization ZMINA.