GENEVA, August 7. /TASS/. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) professes double standards, making statements about human rights violations only with regard to persons under the patronage of the Western countries, Gennady Gatilov, Russia's permanent representative to the UN headquarters in Geneva, has said.

On the Telegram channel of the Russia’s permanent mission Gatilov said that he had handed over to the office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker T·rk the Russian Foreign Ministry’s July report and a letter from the chair of the Russian presidential council for the development of civil society and human rights, Valery Fadeyev, on the persecution of parishioners and clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). Gatilov noted that such harassment was in line with the course taken back in 2014 by the Ukrainian authorities to fight "everything Russian and all Russians in Ukraine" with the approval of the West.

"Do you think an ‘impartial and independent’ human rights activist reacted to the brutality against parishioners and clergy of the canonical church in Ukraine? Of course not, as Mr. Turk and his office had a more important task - to hastily condemn the sentence of Russian citizen Alexey Navalny without really understanding the essence of his criminal case," Gatilov said.

The diplomat cited an excerpt from the OHCHR head's statement condemning the sentence handed to Navalny, expressing doubt that the latter "would speak out in similar terms, for example, about the case of Julian Assange."

"In other words, Turk cares about human rights very selectively, only when it comes to individuals under the patronage of the countries of the collective West. This is a typical example of Western double standards, which now guide the UN human rights activists as well," Gatilov wrote.

In late July, the Russian Foreign Ministry published a report entitled On the Unlawful Actions of the Ukrainian Authorities against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its Clergy and Parishioners. It points to the silence in the West about the persecution of believers in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the Kiev authorities and the West of trying to separate the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and ruin the spiritual closeness of the Orthodox believers of the two countries. The Russian Foreign Ministry drew attention to the fact that the problem of canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine was still absent from the priorities of the UN and other specialized organizations.

 

On the situation with the UOC

 

The situation around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, one of the first monasteries of Rus and the oldest monastery in modern Ukraine, escalated in late March. The authorities unilaterally severed the lease agreement with the canonical church and demanded that the monks leave the monastery. The monks of the UOC refused to fulfill the illegal demands. Both sides appealed to the court.

Although the court has not pronounced its verdict yet, the Ukrainian authorities began to develop a strategy for the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra for 2023-2051. On July 1, the UOC received a letter from the Ministry of Culture demanding that the monks vacate five buildings of the Lavra by July 4. The UOC called such demands arbitrary. On July 4, the commission of the Ministry of Culture, created to seal the buildings, came to the Lavra, but the parishioners of the canonical church stood up to defend the premises.

The leadership of the commission turned to the police with a complaint against the parishioners of the UOC and left the territory. None of the five buildings was sealed. Then the museum-reserve Kiev-Pechersk Lavra starting from July 5 limited the time of access for parishioners to the UOC monastery located on its territory. In the morning of July 6, with police support it began to change the locks and seize the buildings. The canonical church complained that some parishioners were beaten up. It described the authorities’ actions unlawful.