Nobel Peace Prize laureate Matviichuk: People are losing freedom in the world

by Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukrainian human rights defender, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which became one of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

Source: Matviichuk’s speech at the international symposium “Security in Europe: Religious Dimensions of War and Moral Responsibility for Peace,” organized by the Ukrainian Catholic University in Munich as part of the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

I’m a human rights lawyer, and I’ve been applying the law to defend people and human dignity for many years. I have often heard that freedom and human dignity are very important, but economic benefits, security issues, or geopolitical interests are even more significant.

The fallacy of this approach is that freedom and peace are inextricably linked. States that grossly violate human rights, killing journalists, imprisoning activists, dispersing peaceful demonstrations — such states pose threats not only to their own citizens but to peace and security in general.

That is why, when politicians make their political decisions only based on economic benefits, security issues, or geopolitical interests, negating human rights and freedom, even if they benefit in the short term, we are all awaiting a catastrophe in the long term. Russia is a vivid example.

For decades, Russia has liquidated its own civil society step by step. But for a long time, the civilized world turned a blind eye to this. They continued to shake Putin’s hand, build pipelines, and do business as usual.

The world scornfully blinked even at the annexation of Crimea, which was unprecedented in post-war Europe. And now, as a human rights lawyer, I find myself in a situation where the law doesn’t work. Russian troops are deliberately shelling residential buildings, schools, churches, museums, and hospitals. They are attacking evacuation corridors.

They are torturing people in infiltration camps. They are forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia. They are banning the Ukrainian language and culture. They are abducting, robbing, raping, and killing civilians in the occupied territories. And the entire UN system of peace and security can’t stop this. This war turns people into numbers. We are returning their names.

That is what we are literally doing, because people are not numbers, and the life of every person matters. Let me share with you one story from our database. This is the story of 10-year-old Illia Matiienko from Mariupol. When Russia tried to siege the city, they didn’t allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to open a green corridor and evacuate civilians.

Hence, Illia and his mother, like other people in Mariupol, had to hide in the basement of their building from the Russian shelling. They melted snow to have water and made fires to cook at least some food. But when supplies ran out, they were forced to go out and suddenly found themselves in the center of Russian shelling.

Illia’s mother hit her head and the boy’s leg was torn. With the last strength, his mother took her son to the front department. There was no medical assistance because prior to this, Russians deliberately destroyed the maternity hospital and the entire medical infrastructure in Mariupol.

So in this front department, they were laid down on a couch and just hugged each other. They stayed like this for several hours. And this 10-year-old boy, Illia, told my colleague that his mother died and froze right in his arms.

As a human rights lawyer, I have a question. How we, people who live in 21st century, will defend human beings, their lives, their freedom, and their human dignity? Can we rely on the law, or does just brutal force matter?

Continue listening.

Ahead of the February 24th third year anniversary of the Russian full-scale war, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk calls on Ukrainians and friends of Ukraine to support the international People First! campaign, launched by Nobel Peace Prize laureates — the Center for Civil Liberties and Memorial. You can find campaign events, along with hundreds of others worldwide, on the global map.