Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 4th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I call the meeting to order.

I would like to welcome Madam Oleksandra Matviichuk.

Madam Matviichuk, welcome to the committee. On behalf of all members of the committee, we would like to congratulate you on your Nobel Prize. It is really well deserved.

Our subcommittee is now beginning a briefing with Oleksandra Matviichuk, chair of the Centre for Civil Liberties.

Madam, you have a maximum of five minutes for your allocution, and after that we will go to questions from the members of the committee and answers from you.

Ms. Matviichuk, I want to welcome you once again. You have five minutes for your remarks.

[Oleksandra Matviichuk, Chair, Center for Civil Liberties]

Thank you very much for providing me the floor. It's a huge honour for me to address this distinguished audience.

I am a human rights lawyer, and I have been documenting war crimes in the war that Russia launched against Ukraine. We united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions and built a national network of local documenters. Working together for only two years on this large-scale work, we jointly documented more than 72,000 episodes of war crimes.

Russia uses war crimes as a method of warfare. Russia deliberately provides enormous pain to Ukrainian civilians in order to break people's resistance and occupy the country. We document not just violations of the Geneva Conventions; we document human pain.

I would like to focus on the human rights violations under Russian occupation, but first let me assure you that people in Ukraine want peace much more than anyone else. Peace doesn't come when a country that was invaded stops fighting. That's not peace; that's occupation, and occupation is just another form of war.

People under occupation have no tools to defend their rights, their freedom, their lives, their property and their loved ones. They live in a grey zone. Russian occupation doesn't change one state of life to another. Russian occupation means torture, forced disappearances, rape, denial of your identity, forcible adoption of your own children, concentration camps and mass graves.

The story of 59-year-old Father Stepan Podolchak illustrates this brilliantly. Two months ago, Russians came to his house. They took the priest away, putting everything in his house upside down. He was taken with a bag on his head and barefoot. After two days, Russians told his wife that Father Stepan Podolchak was dead. Russians tortured him to death only because he refused to transfer his church to the Moscow Patriarchate.

As a lawyer, I am in a very difficult situation. We have no legal tools to stop these Russian atrocities and save Ukrainian civilians. The war turns people into numbers, which I have started to witness myself, because the scale of war crimes grows so large that it becomes impossible to recognize all the stories.

However, I would like to tell you one. This is the story of 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov, who was killed by the Russian military near his house. This tragedy received huge media coverage only because it was the first court trial after the large-scale war started. In court, his wife Kateryna shared that her husband was an ordinary farmer, but he was her whole universe, and now she has lost everything.

What we are doing in reality as human rights lawyers is trying to return to people their names, because only justice can do that. We want to ensure justice for all victims of this war, regardless of who they are, their social positions, the types of crimes they endured and whether or not the media or international organizations are interested in their case, because the life of each person matters.

I'm here to ask you for support for our fight for justice. We must establish a special tribunal on aggression and hold Putin, Lukashenko and the top political leadership and high military command of the Russian state accountable, because all the atrocities that we are now documenting are the result of their leadership decision to start such a war. This is common logic. If we want to prevent wars in the future, we have to punish the state and the leaders who start such wars in the present.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Now we'll open the floor for questions and answers.

We'll start with Mr. Majumdar.

You have the floor for five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you for your testimony, for your presence and for your continued fight for the people of Ukraine.

Let me start by asking a question about what you just raised and presented.

Present international institutions do not provide the tools that the Nuremberg trials provided to go after the people who ordered atrocities, as opposed to individuals who committed atrocities. In your view as a lawyer, how can a special tribunal be constituted? What are the political and legal obstacles to making that happen?

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

How many minutes do I have to respond?

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

We'll share the time.

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

I believe that we have to establish a special tribunal on aggression in the forum of the International Court of Justice because only it can overcome immunity, which Putin has according to international law. This is very essential because if we create such a tribunal as a hybrid court without this possibility, we will never be able to explain to the people of Ukraine and the people of Canada why the international community created a special tribunal to prosecute persons responsible for crimes of aggression with no possibility of prosecuting the most responsible ones.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

That's an excellent response. Thank you for that.

As you look at Ukraine and the humanitarian issues that Ukrainians are facing today, from your perspective, what is the best way that Canada can provide humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians?

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

Probably for the human rights lawyers this will be very weird, but I will be very honest: We need weapons. You can send dozens of generators, but one F-16 can secure the Ukrainian sky from rockets that destroy the energy systems in Ukraine. I think it's much more essential to not just work with the fire, but start to repair the root of the problem.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I appreciate that.

It's frustrating sometimes to watch it from here in Ottawa, where promises are made and not delivered upon, including on defence production, weapons supplies and other things that have been procured but not distributed to the Ukrainian people. I think it's a malpractice of government that we need to focus on.

Let me ask about the persecution of Ukrainian cultural heritage.

You described a horrific situation in which religious freedom was undermined. It involved bowing before the Moscow Patriarchate. To what extent are Protestant and Catholic persecutions occurring in Ukraine today?

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

Several years ago, we established a religious round table. We invited different churches, confessions and religious organizations to work together with human rights organizations to secure a situation with religious freedom in occupied territories.

Russia pretends that it is a religious country, but it sees religion as a collective category. If you are not part of the Russian military machine, your religion will be persecuted. That is why Russia deliberately organized a system of religious persecution in occupied territories. This is a real problem.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

We have about a minute left, I understand.

When you are engaging capitals like Ottawa and other countries around the world, what is the number one message you wish for the world to understand, noting that the fight in Ukraine is linked to authoritarians whose encroachments are hitting the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region? When you look at that bigger picture, what's the best advice you would offer legislators in the democratic world?

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

I want everyone to know that this is not just a war between two states. This is a war between two systems—authoritarianism and democracy. With this war, Putin attempts to convince the entire world that democracy, the rule of law and human rights are fake values because they couldn't protect anyone during a war. With this war, Putin wants to convince us that a country with strong military potential and nuclear weapons can break international order, can dictate its rules to the entire international community and can even forcibly change internationally recognized borders.

If Russia succeeds, it will encourage other authoritarian leaders in different parts of the globe to do the same.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Oleksandra, thank you very much for being here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Majumdar.

Madam Vandenbeld, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here and for your very powerful testimony. Please be assured that we all stand with you, with the people of Ukraine and with all the victims of war crimes for whom you are seeking justice. I know that many of those war crimes victims and survivors are women, particularly when it comes to sexual violence.

I also know that women in Ukraine are agents of change. I wonder if you could talk a bit about to what extent Ukrainian women are participating in documentation and participating in other ways to win the fight against Putin's Russia.

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

I know an enormous number of fantastic women in different fields of Ukrainian society. Some 60,000 Ukrainian women joined the Ukrainian armed forces. Ukrainian women make important political decisions. Ukrainian women coordinate civil initiatives. Ukrainian women document war crimes. Women are at the forefront of this battle for freedom and democracy because bravery has no gender. From a gender perspective, the value dimension of this war is very visible.

In democratic countries, women can play any role they want in family and society. In Russia and in autocracies, women play only the role assigned to them in family and society. This is a basis for an authoritarian regime because established relationships between people and society always reflect how a government behaves towards its own people.

To be clear, in this fight with Russia, we Ukrainian women are fighting for our daughters. We want it so that our daughters never face situations where they have to prove to someone that they are human beings.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I think that is extremely powerful.

I want to comment on something you said. We know that the organization you lead—and therefore you—is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. At the same time, you're here before our committee asking for weapons. That can sometimes seem discordant.

I wonder if you could explain what peace means to you and to the people of Ukraine, and why you're here today—rightly I think—asking for the weapons you need in this fight to restore peace.

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

The problem is that sometimes international communities don't define the word “peace” properly. Peace means freedom to live without fear of violence and to have a long-term perspective for the future. This is something we don't have in Ukraine, being under Russian attack.

As a human rights lawyer, I have no legal instruments that I can use to stop Russian atrocities. Russian troops are deliberately shelling residential buildings, schools, churches, museums and hospitals. They attack evacuation corridors. They're torturing people in the filtration camps. They're forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia. They're abducting, robbing, raping and killing civilians in the occupied territories. The entire international system of peace and security can't stop this. That's why I'm in this position. When someone asks me how to protect people in Ukraine, I have to answer, “Give Ukraine weapons.”

As a human rights lawyer, I believe this is temporary and that we will be able to restore international order with legitimate force. We will be able to demonstrate justice and break the circle of impunity that Russia has enjoyed for decades in Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Mali, Libya and Syria. We will be able to provide peace in our part of the world.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

You are, indeed, fighting for peace for all of us, for all of the democratic world. We are very thankful to you and we support you in that.

I have a very quick question about what you need most. I can only imagine that the task of documenting is enormous. What specifically would you need most from us in direct support to do that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Answer within 25 seconds, please.

[Oleksandra Matviichuk]

We need professionals on the ground, not just training and consultants, because we have to investigate 130,000 criminal proceedings at the current moment.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Madam Vandenbeld.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Matviichuk, thank you for being with us today. We are truly honoured by your presence. You represent courage and strength as well as love for your country.

I had the pleasure of knowing Ms. Victoria Amelina, with whom I spent a few days. Every conversation I had with her opened my eyes in many ways. She too embodied courage, strength and love for her country and her people. We mourn her loss every single day, of course. We think of her every day.

You talked at length about the creation of a special tribunal. I think this is one of your most important proposals. This tribunal would work in parallel with the International Criminal Court and would immediately bring to justice those responsible for war crimes.

Could you tell us more about the tribunal and its objectives? How are you proposing that it be set up?