A/HRC/44/21 I. Introduction 1. The present interim report of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 74/168, in which the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to report to it at its seventy-fifth session on the progress made in the implementation of the resolution, including options and recommendations to improve its implementation, and to submit an interim report to the Human Rights Council at its fortyfourth session. 2. The present report is the second report of the Secretary-General on the human rights situation in Crimea. The first report (A/74/276) covered the period from January 2014 to 30 June 2019. The present report covers the period from 1 July to 31 December 2019. 3. In accordance with General Assembly resolution 68/262, which affirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, and Assembly resolutions 71/205, 72/190, 73/263 and 74/168, the present report refers to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation as “Crimea”, and takes into account, inter alia, the fact that the General Assembly urged the Russian Federation to uphold all of its obligations under applicable international law as an occupying Power. II. Methodology 4. In its resolution 74/168, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to continue to seek ways and means, including through consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant regional organizations, to ensure safe and unfettered access to Crimea by established regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, in particular the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, to enable them to carry out their mandate. With the objective of implementing the resolution, on 31 January 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) transmitted a note verbale to the Russian Federation seeking its cooperation to conduct a mission in Crimea. In its reply, the Russian Federation expressed “principled non-acceptance” of the General Assembly resolutions “on Crimean and Ukrainian issues”, while noting that it was willing to host missions undertaken “in full compliance with the procedures applied for visiting any other subject of the Russian Federation”. 5. Given those conditions, OHCHR has not to date been able to find appropriate modalities to conduct a mission to Crimea in line with General Assembly resolution 74/168. The present report is, therefore, based on information collected through remote monitoring conducted by the OHCHR human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, which has worked in Ukraine and remotely monitored the situation in Crimea on a continuous basis since March 2014, including through regular monitoring at the crossing points of the Administrative Boundary Line between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine. The report is primarily based on direct interviews with victims of alleged human rights violations and abuses in Crimea. The monitoring mission verifies allegations through the collection of information from a range of other sources, including relatives of victims, witnesses, lawyers, government officials, civil society representatives and official government documents and court registries. It also analyses legislation from Ukraine and the Russian Federation that affects the enjoyment of human rights in Crimea. 6. Unless otherwise specified, the information contained in the present report was documented and verified by the monitoring mission, in accordance with OHCHR methodology.1 Information is considered verified by OHCHR when there are reasonable grounds to believe that the events took place as described. OHCHR is committed to 1 2 Training Manual on Human Rights Monitoring, Professional Training Series No. 7 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.01.XIV.2). The original 2001 version of the Manual is currently under revision. The updated chapters are available at www.ohchr.org/EN/PublicationsResources/Pages/MethodologicalMaterials.aspx.