CrimeaSOS: detention of Sevastopol resident Serhii Hrishchenkov contains signs of an enforced disappearance 

The detention of Crimean resident Serhii Hrishchenkov has all the signs of an enforced disappearance. This was reported by CrimeaSOS project manager Oleksii Tilnenko. 

“As far as we know from public sources, Serhii was detained by the FSB, but the occupation authorities have not yet provided any information about his whereabouts or the fact of his detention. This is a classic case of the practice of enforced disappearances carried out by the russian federation in the occupied territories. During such a “secret” detention, the most serious violations of rights, torture, etc. usually occur. It makes it impossible to seek legal protection and leaves a person in a situation of complete defencelessness”, – Oleksii Tilnenko noted. 

The disappearance of Serhii Hrishchenkov became known only on May 29, although FSB officers took him to an unknown destination on the night of May 6-7. The man’s fate still remains unknown. Serhii’s daughter informed the Ombudsman of Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets, about this.

In order to establish information about the whereabouts and status of the missing person, the Ombudsman appealed to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the russian federation, Tatyana Moskalkova, and noted that the abduction of a resident of Crimea violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. 

We would like to remind you that on May 6, the occupiers abducted 24-year-old Crimean Tatar Khatizhe Buiukchan. That day, she left Staryi Krym for Simferopol by bus, after which contact with her was lost. On May 7, it became known that the girl had been detained by russian security forces, but the reasons for the detention and official details of her whereabouts are still unknown, and her disappearance contains elements of an enforces disappearance.