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Kiev’s attempts to put communism on par with Nazism contravene Nuremberg decisions

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. Kiev’s attempts to put communism on par with Nazism contravene the international law and decisions of the Nuremberg trial, Konstantin Dolgov, Russian Foreign Ministry's Special Representative for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, twitted on Sunday.

"Kiev wants now to put officially communism on par with Nazism banning propaganda of both," he wrote. "This contravenes the international law, including Nuremberg."

"A cynical position," he said commenting on Kiev’s plans to ban propaganda of communism in Ukraine.

The "politicised buffoonery around the 9th of May - a saint day for millions of Ukrainians - demonstrates Kiev’s perverse unwillingness to break up with the neo-Nazis." The diplomat said Kiev continues persistently to violate the international obligations as it deprives the Ukrainian citizens of their legal rights.

"EU and the U.S. should not be ignoring it any longer," he wrote in conclusion.

Ukraine’s government earlier told the parliament to "open archives of the communist regime of 1917-1991." "The initiative is to open the closed archives, which have been absolutely secret, for all the people, including for those who suffered those times," the government said.

Besides, the government has initiated bills on condemnation of communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and banned their propaganda. "According to the bill, the communist regime of 1917-1991 is determined as criminal, thus causing respective consequences for the communist symbols, communist hymns and propaganda, and likewise criminal is the Nazi totalitarian regime, and all symbols and propaganda of National-Socialism are banned in Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Vyacheslav Kirilenko said during a presentation of the document in late March.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk asked the parliament to adopt without delays the bills on de-communism. "We are asking the parliament to adopt these bills and to ban the communist and Nazi ideologies, which are twins, and which are ideologies against humanity," he said. He instructed the parliament to adopt the laws before May 8-9 of the current year.

Presently, Ukraine considers banning the Communist Party in the country. The first court hearings were back on July 24, 2014, and since then next hearings have been postponed several times.

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