Citizenship and Immigration Committee on July 19th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted by the committee on June 16, 2016, the committee will resume its study on immigration measures for the protection of vulnerable groups.

Please note that due to the sensitive nature of the committee's study, and as we hear from witnesses during the course of our study, the content of some witnesses' testimony may be upsetting to participants and the viewing public.

Appearing before us today are Mr. Michael Bociurkiw, here in Ottawa, who is the former spokesperson for the special monitoring mission to Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and Mr. Aleksandr Galkin, director for the Right to Protection, R2P, who's appearing by video conference from Mariupol, Ukraine. Also joining us by video conference from Kiev, Ukraine, are Ms. Iryna Dovhan, Mr. Gennadii Afanasiev, and Mr. Oleksandr Gryshchenko.

We will be providing seven minutes for testimony from each of the witnesses. We'll begin with Mr. Bociurkiw here in Ottawa.

Mr. Bociurkiw, the floor is yours.

[Michael Bociurkiw, Former Spokesperson, Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

Committee members and Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to speak before you today. It is indeed a great pleasure and an honour to be back here in Ottawa.

I've been specifically tasked to address the situation of internally displaced people in Ukraine and to propose recommendations on what Canada can do to assist those affected.

Ladies and gentlemen, a little over two years ago Ukraine had no displaced population. Today it is in the top 10 list of countries around the world with the largest number of internally displaced people, or IDPs.

There are essentially two contributing streams to this phenomenon. One, of course, is the illegal occupation of Crimea in March 2014, which sent a stream of men and women out of the peninsula and into areas controlled by the Ukrainian government. Second, of course, is the occupation of Luhansk and Donetsk by heavily armed individuals, which prompted upwards of two million Ukrainians to abandon their homes and communities for safer ground. You should know that many of those who fled are women and children.

It's the situation of the Donbass IDPs that I wish to address today. In front of you is a map of Ukraine, with the heavily coloured areas where most of the IDPs have fled.

In my two years with the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine, I made several trips to Donetsk and Luhansk where we met with displaced families. We met them in processing facilities, in temporary homes, in collective centres, and some families near Sloviansk were even sheltered in abandoned train cars. Most were forced out of their homes and villages—not having left voluntarily—by intense shelling, while others feared legitimate persecution by rebel groups.

At first most IDPs expected to be gone in just a few weeks or months, and hence they didn't take many of their belongings or much documentation with them, but as the situation in Ukraine devolved into a frozen conflict, the Minsk accords notwithstanding, many are now resigned to the fact that they may never go home.

The extent of the damage after months of intense, indiscriminate shelling is absolutely mind-boggling. Roads, bridges, factories, airports, railway tracks, and essential infrastructure have been severely damaged. Even if peace were to suddenly take hold, as the OSCE has documented, there is still a large amount of unexploded ordnance and land mines that make it very difficult for civilians to travel back.

Among the more than 9,000 killed so far are hundreds who have been struck by land mines. We now know that cluster munitions have been used, including by the Ukrainian side, and this poses a particular threat to children.

Just as a quick footnote, among the some 9,000 killed are 298 individuals from several countries who perished in the downing of MH17. I urge you, when you have time, to remember them because on Sunday, July 17, it was two years ago that the plane was shot down.

As I said, there are many who have legitimate fears about returning to areas under rebel control. Any IDP who has expressed critical opinions about the rebels is at risk. There are well-documented examples of writers and others appearing on so-called blacklists at rebel-run checkpoints. Similarly, there are well-documented cases of journalists and others being detained, tortured, or they have disappeared completely.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recently said that it has investigated the deaths of at least 47 people in rebel-controlled areas. In one particularly troublesome case it obtained forensic evidence showing that a six-year-old girl, her mother, and her grandmother were killed by gunshot wounds to the head in the rebel-held area of Luhansk. It's believed they were abducted by Cossack members of the so-called LPR.

Many of the people who have fled their homes, communities, and jobs were professionals: engineers, journalists, business owners. While many have found employment in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government, many are still unemployed, working well under their previous pay grade, or have been forced to switch to less desirable professions, for example, as taxi drivers.

While the integration of Donetsk IDPs has been mostly smooth, this in itself is extraordinary, given how woefully unprepared the Ukrainian government was to process them. There are reports of discrimination against Donetsk residents in their host communities and regions. For example, they experience problems seeking employment, trying to get apartments, seeking spots for their kids in schools, and opening bank accounts. A lack of civil documentation creates additional problems for the IDPs, and we are seeing a growing number of undocumented children, potentially leading to a risk of statelessness.

I should also add at this point that although their numbers are not huge, there are some minority groups, such as the Meskhetian Turks, who are living in very dire temporary shelters in Donetsk. By some reports there are 2,000 Meskhetian Turks who have been forced to flee their homes in Ukraine since the fighting started.

What can Canada do, ladies and gentlemen? Well, for one thing we should be encouraging the public and private sectors to create more internship opportunities for displaced Ukrainians. Also a very important aspect of this, of course, is liberalizing procedures for young Ukrainians to be able to travel to Canada to take up scholarships and internships, and at the same time encouraging Canadian academic institutions to open more spaces for this category of Ukrainians.

I don't think anyone here can dispute the value of face-to-face contact of young Ukrainians with Canadian values, with Canadian people, communities, and institutions; yet there are many young Ukrainians who have been denied visitor visas to Canada for unexplained reasons. I know, for example, of one particular case in which a young Ukrainian woman, who had worked for at least one Canadian election observation mission in Ukraine and now works for the Government of Ukraine, was denied a visitor visa. I ask you, what kind of example are we showing, when Ukrainians who have worked for our country and upheld our values are rewarded with a “no entry” stamp in their passport?

Ladies and gentlemen, while it's very easy to paint the picture of the plight of IDPs in terms of numbers and trends, there is a human face, much of it, as I've seen for myself, very sad indeed. Along with colleagues from the OSCE, I have followed IDPs along the contact line who were so desperate to check on their properties and belongings that they risked their lives to cross the contact line to see what remained of their bombed-out apartments, to collect precious belongings from piles of rubble, and to take a private moment to trace the faces of long-lost relatives in photos that have been almost completely obliterated by soot and damage.

To close, I want to tell you that when I first came to work for the OSCE as a seconded Canadian spokesperson, our OSCE ambassador to the OSCE in Vienna explained to me how, in many multilateral institutions such as the OSCE, Canada punches well above its weight; for example, contributing a high number of Canadian monitors to the special monitoring mission. When it comes to assisting Ukraine and its enormous numbers of displaced peoples, let's also punch above our weight. Let's think outside the box, be innovative, and clearly demonstrate that we are people whose rhetoric is matched by action.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Bociurkiw.

Now I'd like to ask Mr. Aleksandr Galkin, on video from Mariupol, for a seven-minute statement.

[Aleksandr Galkin, Director, The Right to Protection]

Chair and members of the committee, I am delighted to have such a great opportunity to share with you our regional humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

The Right to Protection is a Ukrainian not-for-profit organization operating in close partnership with the global NGO HIAS. R2P protects the human rights of vulnerable populations, the internally displaced, refugees, the stateless, and those at risk of statelessness.

According to the Ukrainian minister of social policy, at the end of June 2016 there were almost 1.8 million registered internally displaced persons from Donbass and Crimea. The most pressing problem facing the internally displaced is housing. Although the state is legally obliged to provide accommodation to people for the first six months of displacement, the available social housing and collective reception centres have been limited. The latter have only managed to accommodate between 30,000 and 40,000 of the most vulnerable people.

Another acute issue facing IDPs is employment. In the regions with a high concentration of IDPs—for instance, government-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions—the labour market was tight even before the conflict. With increased economic pressure resulting from the crisis, the employment situation is deteriorating further. Discrimination is also common in the workplace, with many job postings openly stating that people from Donbass will not be considered.

From February through June 2016, the government suspended pensions and social benefit payments to about 600,000 internally displaced people and those living in non-government-controlled areas, without prior notification. The prolonged suspension of payments has had dire effects on those individuals for whom these payments were the sole source of income. According to R2P monitoring, 85% of IDPs interviewed were significantly impacted by the suspension of their social benefits and/or pensions. This situation has had a particularly detrimental effect on persons with disabilities, reduced mobility, and/or poor health. According to the government, it has recently resumed pension payments to 80,000; however, this means that around 500,000 Ukrainian citizens previously receiving a pension no longer do so and are presumably living in poverty.

The Government of Ukraine has linked the payment of pensions, which is a constitutional right, with the payment of IDP social benefits. The social benefits to IDPs are about $46 Canadian dollars per month, generally inadequate to meet housing costs or other expenses such as the transportation of children to school.

The guiding principles on internal displacement are meant to ensure that displaced persons are able to move freely during displacement. However, restrictions on the right to liberty of movement continue in Ukraine. At the end of June, crossing the contact line was dangerous. Because of the hot weather, many people spent hours in lines under the burning sun without access to shade or water. Journalists reported on the death of elderly persons waiting in line near the checkpoints at Zaitseve and Stanytsia Luhanska.

Electronic permits for crossing checkpoints between government-controlled areas and non-government-controlled areas are required, but there are many people unable to complete an Internet application because of a lack of skills or unavailability of computers.

Overall, people living in non-government-controlled areas continue to experience problems accessing essential services and adequate social assistance. In order to receive social benefits, people must either relocate to the government-controlled areas or regularly travel across the contact line. Some people—for example, unemployed adults of working age and families with lots of children—have become increasingly vulnerable due to lack of social benefits and exclusion from humanitarian assistance.

According to monitoring, 93% of IDPs interviewed who report residing in non-government-controlled areas were significantly impacted by the suspension of their social benefit payments or pensions. The majority, 79% of them, reported that they receive pensions from the Ukrainian government and the pension is either their main or only source of income.

The situation of people residing on both sides of the contact line remains especially dire. Their access to humanitarian and medical aid is impeded due to security reasons and the ban on cargo deliveries.

R2P monitors report that this situation is critical regarding access to health services in the buffer zones or small towns and villages located close to the contact line. IDPs in the rural areas in the south part of the Donetsk Oblast region, as well as inhabitants of buffer zones, complain about the absence of availability of medical services. No medical facilities or physicians can be found in most villages in the southern part of the Donetsk region along the contact line.

In December 2015, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers adopted a two-year comprehensive state program to support the social adaptation and reintegration of the displaced until 2017, along with an accompanying action plan. The program and the action plan provide a framework for addressing various issues related to internal displacement, including durable solutions; however, in view of economic and financial constraints, no budgetary allocations have yet been made available for the program's implementation.

Initially, the institutional framework under which the government has been operating was complicated by many ministries tasked with supporting IDPs but without any real coordination among them. The Government of Ukraine has recently created the Ministry for the Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine; however, it's too premature to assess the ministry's performance.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Galkin.

We now move to Kiev, to our three witnesses who have spent time in incarceration in the occupied territories.

We will begin with the testimony of Ms. Iryna Dovhan.

Ms. Dovhan.

[Iryna Dovhan, As an Individual]

Hello. My name is Iryna Dovhan. I live in a small town near Donetsk. Before the war events broke out in my region, I was the owner of a private beauty salon, where I worked as a self-employed esthetician.

When propaganda started to occur actively in my region in the summer and spring of 2014, I spoke out. I took an active stance and started campaigning among the people in the surrounding area for the unity of the state and I talked about the possible risks if a neighbouring state should intervene.

However, the events were developing very quickly, precipitately, and it was becoming impossible and dangerous to express one’s opinion. In my own town, armed people wearing military fatigues started to show up, who spoke with a distinct Russian accent. Donetsk was completely filled up with military men. Artillery positions were beginning to be set up, there were more and more arms showing up in the region.

I drove out to the free territory, up to the first checkpoint of the Ukrainian army; I introduced myself to the Ukrainian military men, and talked to them. These people were wearing faded and torn clothing, they were starving, and they had no personal care supplies. There were all these horrific things, and this was my Ukrainian army.

On my return home, I became decisively involved in collecting funds for the Ukrainian soldiers. Other women joined me; because of the nature of my business, I was acquainted with a great many of them. We started collecting blankets, clothing, and bedsheets. We cooked meals and virtually daily we took risks to bring the food to the Ukrainian army.

With every passing day it was becoming more and more difficult. For our last trip, we managed to obtain some camouflage uniforms through volunteers in Kiev. We took them to the new deployment site of the brigade that we were helping. Having returned home, I was caught in a serious shelling attack. A shell landed in my backyard. My house was damaged. For several days I hid in the cellar, and my neighbours also hid in my cellar.

To avoid risks, I sent to the free territories all the notes that I took when people were giving me money to help the Ukrainian army. The person who was carrying these records was detained by the terrorists, beaten badly, and to save his own life he said that he was carrying things given to him by a “Ukropian”, gave them my address, and told them that I was…that I had been actively campaigning for Ukraine and that I had a Ukrainian flag in my car.

Armed men came in two vehicles to get me. There were local people as well as military men who spoke with a Russian accent. They broke into my house and beat me up badly. I told them the code for my safe right away. They searched through the entire house, turning it upside down and taking everything of value right away—computers, TVs, and jewellery. They found two pairs of my husband’s binoculars, which gave them the grounds to accuse me of being the sighter and spotter for the Ukrainian artillery, and they handcuffed and blindfolded me and took me to Donetsk to the Vostok battalion.

There I was subjected to rough interrogations; they wanted me to give them the names and addresses of the people who took part, together with me, in helping the Ukrainian army. I resisted as much as I could because I understood what this would mean for those people, so they sent me to be interrogated by the Ossetian unit, which was a part of this Vostok battalion. These were very cruel and heartless people. They beat me, stripped me, fired a pistol close to my ear, and threatened me with rape, and I said many of the things that I had not intended to say. I gave them the last names of people whom I knew to have already left town.

After I had told them everything, they took me to a square in Donetsk, put me next to a post, and wrote up a sign saying “murderess of children” and “agent of the punitive forces”, and people passing by were beating me. Vehicles with signs saying “allahu akbar” drove up and those people also beat me and tried to shoot me through the kneecap. This lasted for about five hours.

In the meantime, I saw a man wearing a white shirt take a picture of me. He was a foreign journalist, and that photograph, which was published in The New York Times, saved my life.

Back there in the square, while I stood next to the post for about five hours, another faction tried to grab me, but those who brought me there fought them off and took me back to the Vostok battalion. Again I was subjected to cruel torture. They kicked me in the chest and sprayed gas from a cartridge in my face. I saw…I was in a narrow cell, in a room with about 10 military men. I saw other people brought there, being badly beaten and taken to some other cells for further interrogation.

I cannot tell you about all the horror that I lived through during those five days. I had nothing to eat or drink. I was not given any water. I am still unable to find the strength to talk about some details of what happened to me over there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Dovhan.

Now I'd like to ask Mr. Gennadii Afanasiev for his statement.

Mr. Afanasiev.

[Gennadii Afanasiev, As an Individual]

I am Gennadii Serhiyovych Afanasiev, a released political prisoner. I was born in 1990, on the eve of Ukraine’s independence, in Simferopol. I graduated from university with a degree in law and I was also a professional photographer.

At the time of the occupation of the Crimea by Russia, I helped the Ukrainian military who were in the Crimea and participated in protests against the occupation of the peninsula.

At first I did not accept Maidan because of the Russian propaganda, but later I realized what was happening and became its most sincere supporter.

On May 9, 2014, I took part in the Victory Day parade in Simferopol. I walked in a column holding up a photo of my great-grandfather, the pride of our family, because he participated in World War II. On the way, men in civilian clothes suddenly jumped me and pushed me into a car. It was not until later that I found out that these men were officers of the FSB. In the car they put a bag over my head and they kept hitting me in the stomach and head. They kept questioning me about participants in pro-Ukrainian rallies and threatening me, saying they were going to take me into the woods and make me dig my own grave. They brought me to my apartment, took my keys, threw me on the floor with a bag over my head, and conducted a search, but naturally did not find anything there.

Next they took me to a cold cellar where they kept me for 10 days, not letting me sleep, drink, or eat anything. During this time the FSB officers chained me to an iron table and kept punching me in the head, wearing boxing gloves so as not to leave any bruises. They would put a plastic bag over my head, choke me, and then beat me again, jeering and mocking me, but I said nothing. As it turned out, that was still decent treatment of me on their part, because later on serious torture began.

I had no lawyer with me throughout all this time, but I was surrounded by investigators from Moscow, stout fellows from the Caucasus, and FSB officers. They tortured and pressured me to give them facts that they wanted to hear, and which I did not know. So then they started demanding the most important thing from me—they wanted me to confess that on May 9 I wanted to blow up the Eternal Flame memorial. This was absurd, because they had detained me in public at a time when I was walking in a solemn procession toward the memorial.

This is unpleasant to hear, but I am forced to tell again and again about the things that I had to go through. People need to know what happens to those who are being illegally detained in the Crimea and in Russia, because I am not the only one like this. My eyes have seen many people in over two years, and such cruelty was not applied to all, but to those they needed or those who stood in their way.

They would put a gas mask on my head with a hose attached, and then unscrew the bottom valve and spray gas from a cylinder in there. I would choke on my own vomit. When I lost all connection with reality, they would remove the mask, give me ammonia to sniff, and then repeat the whole thing again and again. As a consequence of this cruel torture, I did confess my guilt in the end.

Then they demanded that I give evidence against Oleg Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov. I kept refusing, so in response they connected electric wires to my genitals and sent the current through. They kept sending current through for a very long time. That was how they forced me to sign documents prepared in advance.

When they started forcing me to sign an agreement with the investigators, they pressed me against the floor while stark naked and started passing a soldering iron back and forth next to my body, telling me what was going to happen when this burning hot tool was going to get under me. Most importantly, they threatened to get to my mother and do the same things to her, and that had its effect.

It was not until the trial of Oleksander Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov that I was able, in front of many witnesses, to talk about the torture and withdraw my testimony against these innocent people, whom I did not even know until then.

FSB operatives got even with me for that one time in Rostov by beating me up while I was in pretrial detention. Fortunately, thanks to the appearance of independent lawyers and rights advocates, it became possible to document these injuries, though none of the law enforcement people were brought to justice for these actions.

Still, their vendetta against me continued. The FSB sent me by prisoner transport to the gulag in the Komi Republic. The prisoner transportation itself was very hard. Air temperature reached 40-45 degrees Celsius. The railcars became so hot that they had to be cooled using a fire engine. Inside there was no water, no doctors, and completely inhuman conditions. There, in that correctional colony, in that gulag, I fell seriously ill. My body was covered with wounds that would not heal, and when they finally started to give me medications, those caused inflammation of the digestive system.

I was kept in a solitary cell. For more than two months and 15 days I had no way to communicate with anyone except for the prison administrators and the special services. I was kept in solitary confinement, in captivity, under torture, each day like another horror movie.

We could continue telling our story here for hours about the illegal investigations in Russia and about the fate of other young men and women who were near us. To other Ukrainians who end up as prisoners of war in Russia, I can give only one piece of advice: it’s best not to end up there at all, because it is useless to count on a fair trial or humane treatment.

To the international community, I appeal with a plea and a request to fight for those prisoners of the Kremlin who are still in captivity, to support their families, and to maintain the sanctions against Russia until such time as the Kremlin will meet its commitments. Do not forget about the innocent people suffering in Russian prisons every day.

I thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Afanasiev.

Now I'd like to ask Mr. Oleksandr Gryshchenko for his testimony.

I'd also like to note that there have been sketches that have been appearing on the screen. Those are sketches by the artist Serhiy Zakharov, who was incarcerated in Donetsk. His testimony and his preferred method of bearing witness was through sketches of what he lived through.

Mr. Gryshchenko, the floor is yours.

[Oleksandr Gryshchenko, As an Individual]

Honourable ladies and gentlemen, my name is Oleksandr Gryshchenko. Before July 2014 I lived and worked in the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, which is currently occupied by illegal armed groups. I was working as assistant manager of the Luhansk regional veterinary hospital, and on July 15, 2014, I was detained by the Luhansk separatist militia while attempting to enter the building where our hospital’s office was located. Without any justification, I was accused of attempting to install artillery fire spotting devices for the armed forces of Ukraine. They apprehended and searched me.

I had a camera with me, on the memory card of which the separatists found photographs of pro-Ukrainian protest rallies in Luhansk in which I had taken part, as well as some photos of the barricades in the Kyiv Maidan. As soon as they saw those pictures, the separatists said that I should be put before a firing squad on the spot or at the very least they should send bullets through my legs, but, they said, this was going to be handled by the special so-called “counter-terrorism unit”, which they summoned immediately.

They took me to the Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, which had been occupied at the time by a unit of the separatist militia called the Batman Rapid Response Team. “Batman” is the nickname of its commander, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Bednov. In the dormitory basement, which they had converted into a prison, they subjected me to torture, demanding that I confess to working for the Ukrainian army.

They punched me and kicked me, used an electric stunner on me, strangled me with a noose, beat me with a length of plastic pipe, broke my fingers, and used a surgical saw to make cuts between the fingers of my left hand. They put me under enormous psychological pressure and poured a solution of an unknown chemical over me, also pouring it into my mouth. In the following days the separatists frequently came to my cell, humiliated me, punched and kicked me, and beat me with clubs for no reason at all. These abuses resulted in numerous hematomas, bruises, and broken ribs.

As a tool for beating, they also used a hard rubber hammer designed for auto body repair or for laying paving tiles. It was with just such a hammer that this unit’s staff torturer nicknamed “the Maniac” broke my breastbone during a regular beating.

During my time in this basement I witnessed cruel, severe abuse and torture, and murders of the prisoners. In this basement I saw for the first time in my life the colour of human flesh, which was visible in wounds.

I have also witnessed several rapes. Let me give you an example. On the orders of the separatist nicknamed the Maniac, a young girl of about 15 was sent as a “gift” to the other gunmen on the front lines, to satisfy their sexual needs, and they took her there more than once.

Before my eyes, they tortured to death a man who, being in the state of alcoholic intoxication and not understanding where he was, said that he was “for the united Ukraine”. Aside from this incident, I saw several corpses of detainees being carried out of the basement. There was an episode when, after beatings and torture, one of the detainees ended up with a ruptured spleen with internal bleeding. His life was saved only after urgent surgery to remove the injured organ at the city hospital.

I am aware of a case of a prisoner being forced by threats to record a video in which he pleaded guilty to engaging in the so-called “sabotage and intelligence operation”. This video later showed up on Russian TV.

Among the members of the Batman RRT militia unit there were many Russian military men, and they didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were from Russia. Some of them were also put in the cells briefly for different transgressions, in most cases for alcohol abuse. Sometimes they were brought in nearly unconscious because of the enormous amount of alcohol they had consumed.

The prisoners’ conditions of detention did not meet any sanitary standards whatsoever. For more than a month they kept us in almost complete darkness.

People were grabbed and thrown in jail based on absurd accusations, just to have enough free labour and also to force these people to give the militants their money, houses, cars, and other property. Sometimes they took people with serious injuries, such as broken limbs, and made them work.

They often used prisoners for looting and plundering, for robbing trading company warehouses, and for renovating the buildings appropriated by the militia.

In order to conceal their crimes, information about which had begun to spread, Batman ordered the physical destruction of the prisoners who had stayed in the basement for a long time and had witnessed these crimes.

A group of prisoners, which also included me, was taken to another basement, which they were planning to bombard with grenades in a few days.

Our liberation became possible only because of the conflict between the leader of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic, Ihor Plotnytskyi, and the unit commander, Batman—that is, Bednov—who had been planning to keep this post, the highest in the so-called LPR, for himself, as well as because of leaked information about the crimes referred to above, and also because of a fortunate coincidence, which I cannot tell you about in detail because of a lack of time.

Overall, I spent nearly six months in captivity. As of this date, hundreds of my compatriots are held in similar conditions in the occupied territories.

I appeal to the progressive world not to forget about them, to demand that the Kremlin release them, and not to curtail the sanctions against the Russian Federation, which is fully responsible for the events taking place on the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.

Thank you. Dyakuyu.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Gryshchenko.

Now we will begin the first round of questions. Mr. Afanasiev, you were initially incarcerated in Crimea. Who were the individuals who tortured you? What organization?

I understand that you were also tortured using electric shock. If you are able to, could you describe some of the torture you underwent? Of course, the first question is, what organization tortured you? Who were the individuals who tortured you?

[Gennadii Afanasiev]

I was detained by FSB officers and former security officials of the SBU, the Ukrainian security service, who had been working for Ukraine but switched sides and joined the invader.

Investigators from Moscow were in charge of the torture. It was Burdin, an operative, and the assistant Oleksandr. They were in charge of the torture, but the actual torture was carried out by the former SBU, the Ukrainian secret service officers who were eager to demonstrate their loyalty to the new occupation regime.

Specifically about the use of electric shock, they would wrap a damp cloth around my genitals, then wrap a wire over the cloth, and, using a device that looked like a field telephone, they would turn the handle and give me electric shocks, alternating as such. That was causing me excruciating pain that could not be tolerated. Then they would strip me naked, put me in uncomfortable positions, and threaten me with sexual assault. They would run a police club over my body, and then take a hot soldering iron while telling me in a twisted way what will happen when it ends up inside me, and what will happen after that, when I remain in prison for another 20 years, and what the other prisoners will do to me after this. This was very frightening.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

This question is to Ms. Dovhan.

We've heard that there is testimony quite regularly of sexual torture that takes place in the occupied territories. You alluded to this. How commonplace is sexual torture in those occupied territories?

[Iryna Dovhan]

At this point I cannot provide any specific proof, but I know about several instances of sexual violence.

The last thing that residents of my town, Yasynuvata, told me—this may have been ten days ago—was that a 17-year-old girl was admitted to the trauma unit of the railroad hospital in the town of Yasynuvata with her wrists and ankles covered in wounds. Apparently she had been held down by handcuffs. X-rays were done, and, while the injuries to her legs and feet were just dislocations, all the bones in her wrists, according to the orthopedic surgeon, were nothing but small shards. He had never seen a thing like that in all his years of practice.

This young woman was brought in the custody of the Vostok battalion, had X-rays done, and then she was taken away by the Kalmius battalion. I don’t have any further details, and what happened to that young girl no one can say now. It’s the latest case of what I am aware of, but I know about many cases like this one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Yesterday we heard from an official from the UNHCR that in 2015 there were an additional 800,000 internally displaced persons in Ukraine. That's on top of a million internally displaced persons from 2014, when the Russian military invasions began. The small piece of land that's currently occupied in Donbass had a population of about five million. Approximately 40% of the population is no longer there.

What are the conditions that have led to and continue to lead to what appears to be the wholesale depopulation of the, I guess, ironically so-called people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk? What is causing this huge movement of hundreds of thousands of people?

[Michael Bociurkiw]

I think there are two answers to that question. As I recently told CNN, I've worked in some of the worst places in the world. I don't know what put me in that spot, but for UNICEF, for example, I've been in Gaza and the West Bank. I've been to spots in Donetsk that seem even worse than Gaza, in terms of destruction. It's that bad. I catalogued some of the infrastructure damage.

Then the other thing that is happening is that essential infrastructure isn't working in many places, including on both sides of the contact line. One of the roles of the OSCE special monitoring mission to the Ukraine, of course, is facilitation of access. The mission has been working on a weekly basis to facilitate the access of repair workers on both sides of the contact line. This obviously takes a lot of coordination on both sides. They have been able to repair a lot of crucial infrastructure, especially downed power lines, water mains, and that sort of thing. But then what happens is shelling occurs again and this infrastructure is downed once again. I will table it with the clerk later, but the OSCE special monitoring mission does have a thematic report on IDPs, and in there you'll find a catalogue of infrastructure that has been damaged.

The other aspect, of course, is the erosion of freedom and liberties. Also what is happening is what I call a creeping institutionalization by the rebel groups. For example, what they managed to do over the past few months is establish a new Russian curriculum in the schools and new business registration procedures, introduce the ruble and switch to the Moscow time zone.

On the erosion of civil liberties, I cited the report, from five days ago, of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. What it said—it was quoted in the BBC—is that there's a climate of “pervasive impunity” in eastern Ukraine and very few people have been held accountable for a catalogue of alleged summary executions. The OHCHR says that some of the cases could amount to war crimes.

What does this mean—I won't go on too long—for the people who have remained in the occupied regions? Well, a lot of them don't have a choice. They don't have the funds to go back, or many of them are disabled, or many of them just want to stay in their homes. We've met some elderly people who refuse to leave for government-controlled Ukraine. What they do, however, is that they cross over regularly to the government side to collect pensions, to shop for groceries, to get money out of the ATM. Remember that most of the banks are closed in the occupied territory, so they have to go back and forth at great, great risk to their lives. The gentleman there also did mention that many of them have to wait hours, or sometimes a couple of days, to cross the contact line.

Life, in short, to sum up, is terrible. As I've said, it's comparable to some of the most dire places on the planet. As I've said many times, the worst thing that could happen would be the international community, including Canada, averting its gaze from this humanitarian disaster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

I have a quick final question of Mr. Galkin.

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Mustafa Dzhemilev and Mr. Refat Chubarov, and they related that 18 Crimean Tatar leaders were once again arrested last week. What they say is that there's clearly a methodical and meticulous plan that appears to be put in place of ethnocide of the indigenous people of Crimea, the Crimean Tatars.

Would you like to comment on that?

[Aleksandr Galkin]

Thank you for the question.

We mostly work with those who reside on the government-controlled territories, so I think that Mr. Afanasiev may answer this question better, if he's willing to do so. I'm sure about that, but I won't be able to add something more to what Mr. Chubarov and Mr. Dzhemilev have already briefed you. What we've heard from the few Crimean field missions is that indeed there is a deterioration of the situation vis-à-vis the Crimean Tatars in the peninsula. That's my concern generally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Saroya.

The floor is yours.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for coming out and speaking to us, especially for the three victims. You have our sympathy. I can speak for all Canadians, we are with you any day of the week.

Michael, two years ago, there were no IDPs, and all of a sudden there are two million. It's unbelievable, unimaginable. There are people sleeping in the shelter stations, I think you mentioned, and there's the idea they would never go home. It puts tears in your eyes. My heart beats for these people from the bottom of my heart.

Michael, when you were observing in Ukraine, did you go through difficulties as an international observer? Can you speak to us on that topic?

[Michael Bociurkiw]

Sure. I'll be totally honest with you, and I don't think anything I'm saying has not been in our, for example, OSCE daily report or weekly thematic reports. One of the difficulties is freedom of access for the monitoring mission. This is happening on both sides of the contact line, the Ukrainian side and the side that's controlled by the rebels, but of course, it's much worse on the rebel side.

As most of you know, the Minsk accords require both sides to, for example, move heavy weaponry away from the contact line. There are prescribed distances that they should be removed to. Then what happens is that these heavy weapons are meant to be stored in monitored storage sites, but many times the special monitoring mission has been prevented from going to these storage sites to see if the weapons are still there. In fact, as we speak, over the past few weeks there's been a gradual escalation of violence and a big reason for that is that the heavy weaponry has been moved back into place and is being used.

The other thing is that there have been lots and lots of difficulties accessing the Ukraine-Russia border under rebel control. Believe it or not, the length of the Ukrainian border under rebel control is almost 500 kilometres. That's more than the distance from here to Toronto. On many occasions the mission has been prevented from going to the border, and this is a problem especially at night because a lot of railway lines cross the contact line and no one really knows what types of materials are taken over.

If I can speak from a personal point of view—maybe that was part of your question—working there is very difficult. As I've said, I've worked in many places around the world and the destruction you see...the psycho-social distrust among many of the children is a huge factor right now. It's very bad. Do you know that some families in Donetsk have spent weeks in underground shelters without seeing any daylight, without breathing any fresh air? There's a town called Shyroka Balka near Mariupol and that has been shelled constantly. There's no one there now, but a lot of the residents spent weeks in a shelter there. It's very difficult.

Finally, I should say that I mentioned MH17, and I've just come back from Malaysia by the way. I was there for the second anniversary. The special monitoring mission was the first international presence on the site of the plane crash, 24 hours after that plane came down. I can tell you that the images we saw were absolutely horrific. We were threatened by armed rebel groups, some of them intoxicated, some of them in very vicious types of states of attitude. Yet day after day we did gain more access and were able to get experts there to deal with the site, but on many occasions we were blocked. We were blocked while we were trying to get Malaysians there, and Dutch investigators. In fact, just quickly to wrap up, the Dutch have been trying to finish off their criminal investigation, but they have been blocked, especially in Luhansk, to do things like, for example, triangulate cellphone tower communications among the rebels.

It's a very difficult operating environment, but I'm glad that Canada is part of the mission to document what is going on and to facilitate access.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

What would you like to see Canada and international society do to help? What sort of help do you need for the IDPs, especially in Ukraine?

[Michael Bociurkiw]

First of all I would like Canada to continue support to the special monitoring mission. It plays a crucial role. It's helped a great deal to alleviate suffering on both sides of the contact line. At the moment I think we have almost 30 Canadian monitors there. I think we could go a bit higher, and Canada should maintain, if not increase, its financial commitment to the OSCE. It does good work there.

I did mention a couple of ideas, such as encouraging the private sector to open up more internship opportunities for young Ukrainians and have more scholarship opportunities.

I mentioned the visa problems. I understand this has been alleviated. I have been told that under the previous government the reason there was a visa clampdown was because that government believed that people from Donetsk and Luhansk were coming to Canada as visitors and overstaying. I don't think the actions of a few bad apples are a reason to have a blanket clampdown on visitor visas from Ukraine. If anything, now is the time to allow them more access to Canada.

Finally, among that huge group of IDPs there are a lot of professionals, such as journalists, IT experts, and even fashion designers. I had hoped to wear my Ukrainian-made suit today. It was designed by a fashion designer in Donetsk who is incarcerated, but Air Canada lost my baggage so I couldn't wear my Ukrainian suit for you.

Many professionals, as I think all of us have indicated, have had problems seeking opportunities now that they have left their places of residence. Perhaps there could be a special temporary program in place to help IDPs, even from the professional class, to come to Canada to gain more experience and also to contribute to Canadian society.

We have a domestic overseas worker program for Filipinos. It's targeting a special country. Why can't the same be made for Ukraine, at least on a temporary basis?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Absolutely, thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Galkin. You are a director of a charity called the Right to Protection. From your side, what would you like to see from Canada? How can Canadians help from your charity's point of view?

[Aleksandr Galkin]

I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Would you please repeat the question?