Open letter on the discrimination of Romanians in Ukraine

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Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 20:01:05 +0300 (EEST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Open letter on the discrimination of Romanians in Ukraine

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Ion Cretu <[email protected]>

Open letter on the discrimination of Romanians in Ukraine


Dear Sir/Dear Madam,
 
I am writing you again about the situation of the Romanian community
in Ukraine, whose basic rights are permanently violated by the state
authorities.
 
The present case concerns the situation of a group of young Romanians
from Cernauti/Chernivtsy Region (Northern Bukovina, Ukraine), who are
denied the rights to freely travel and maintain relations with
institutions and organisations from their mother-country, Romania.
They are students of Romanian universities and they already completed
one year of studies in Romania (the preparatory year). They are now at
home, in Ukraine, during the holiday, and their provisory passports
expired (those documents are issued for persons less than 18 years
old, as their case was one year ago). The state authorities
unexplainable refuse now to issue new passports for them, so they
cannot go back in Romania to continue their studies. Among others,
some state officials unofficially told them that they refuse to
recognize the certificates they have from the Romanian institution
that has been in charge for their first year of studies (the
preparatory year).
 
The context of the event is the constant refusal of the Ukrainian
state authorities to create a multicultural university in the city of
Cernauti/Chernivtsy (Romanians represent almost 30% of the population
of the Region). In this situation the young Romanians are denied the
right to study in their mother tongue at university level. And now the
only possibility to do this - going at the Romanian universities - is
banned by the Ukrainian state officials.
 
The present case is a clear violation by Ukraine of the Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, legally binding
document of the Council of Europe that Ukraine already ratified. It
violates the art. 5 par. 1 (regarding the right of persons belonging
to national minorities to maintain and develop their culture and to
preserve the essential elements of their identity), the art. 14 par. 2
(regarding the adequate opportunities for minority persons to receive
instruction in their own language), and the art. 17 (regarding the
right to maintain free contacts with their co-nationals). Also there
is a denial of the principle of free movement of persons (in this
case, for education purposes). The discrimination against Romanians
becomes obvious mentioning that those Ukrainian citizens going for
study purposes in other countries in the region (Rep. of Moldova,
Bulgaria, Turkey) do not face such difficulties. Unfortunately, this
sort of cases occurs every year, being not an innovation by this time.
 
We insistently ask for your intervention to determine Ukraine to solve
this issue immediately. We also ask for your consistent action in
order to determine Ukraine to end the constant discrimination against
its Romanian community that has lasted for almost 10 years and has
paradoxically strengthened after the conclusion of the
Ukrainian-Romanian bilateral Treaty in 1997.
 
Ion Cretu
Member of the Local Assembly of Hliboca District
Cernauti/Chernivtsy Region
 
[email protected]
fax: 00380-372-512-551
 
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