RELEASE HOSTAGES: A DEMAND FOR FREEDOM CAMPAIGN

The Media Initiative for Human Rights

• 18 September 2013

1 minute of reading

Release Hostages: A Demand for Freedom Campaign calls on the international community for action to save lives and help free Ukrainians taken hostage by Russia.

We launched this platform to draw the world’s attention to the problem of the Russian Federation’s detention of Ukrainian civilians. RF has and continues to abduct them in the occupied territories. We are talking about regular people — drivers, doctors, teachers, journalists, and other people of various professions, ages, and genders, who mainly did not support the occupation. Even minors are detained. According to the MIHR, as of the end of August 2023, 1122 civilians were held hostage by the Russian Federation. The number of such cases may be several times higher as detentions continue even as you read this.

Detentions are arbitrary and without explanation — neither the detainees nor their relatives often know why they are in detention centers and prisons. Our organization has managed to identify more than 80 operating places of detention, both in the occupied territory and in the part of the Russian Federation. People are tortured and kept in terrible conditions there. We know of cases of deaths in captivity.

The Russian Federation is silent about them, as well as concealing the names of all those it detains, refusing to provide information to their families, preventing them from receiving medical care, hiring a lawyer, writing a letter, or sending a parcel. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross is powerless — Russia does not allow its representatives access to places where civilian hostages are held.

We tell the stories of the hostages and their families, and together with them, we ask for help to bring every Ukrainian home. Join the Release Hostages: A Demand for Freedom Campaign and become a part of this important cause.

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