06 April 2022

ENNHRI General Assembly:solidarity and support to the Ukrainian NHRI by ENNHRI members. The statement of the GNCHR President

At the General Assembly of ENNHRI (31-3-2022), members expressed their solidarity and support to the Ukrainian NHRI (Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights) and talked about the situation of people seeking refuge from the conflict in the country. The President of the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR) Professor Maria Gavouneli, made the following statement:

“This is a sad day for Europe and for those of us, whose task is to protect human rights. Most among our generations had hoped that we would never again encounter an aggressive war in Europe.

Today, the gallery of horrors we witness goes against the system of rules and principles we serve, teach to our students, experience as students, secure as National Human Rights Institutions.

We now witness a blatant, brutal, unprovoked attack to our rules-based world. The Russian Federation is in breach of the most fundamental rules of international law: the prohibition of the use of force and the respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of another State.

We stand in solidarity to our Ukrainian colleagues against this attack, that attempts to negate their very identity along with their independence, sovereignty and existing borders, their right to life itself and the life of their children.

International law -and the international system for protecting human rights that we have built on it- is what we, the peoples of the United Nations, decide it to be, what we take care to apply. Let us get our act together and defend the world we wish to live in: in peace, freedom, security and justice”.