A/HRC/45/CRP.8A/HRC/45/CRP.8 107. OHCHR is further concerned that social services for homeless persons are unevenly spread across Ukraine because they depend on the good will and funding of local authorities. While six regions lack municipal shelters for homeless persons, other regions only open their shelters in winter, or have not accepted new people due to the quarantine. In one region, the municipal shelter accepts only homeless men, excluding women. Although the shelters have taken measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, they often lack the space needed to enable new arrivals to self-isolate. VIII. Human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation89 A. Administration of justice and fair trial rights 108. During the reporting period, OHCHR documented a pattern of reprisals against Crimean residents who resisted pressure from Russian Federation law enforcement authorities and courts in Crimea to incriminate or “sell out” third parties. Courts also continued to pass judgments in apparent disregard of fair trial guarantees. 90 109. In one emblematic case, on 11 June 2020, a former witness in a Hizb ut-Tahrir trial was arrested by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) near Sevastopol and charged with providing ‘false testimony’, a criminal offence under Russian law.91 In August 2019, during a court hearing in Rostov-on-Don, he had retracted his pre-trial statements against a man accused of membership in a terrorist organization and complained that FSB officers had ill-treated him in their office during the interrogation to obtain testimony against the defendant. Despite credible allegations of ill-treatment, the court dismissed the witness’s retraction of his previous testimony, stating that it was intended to assist the defendant in avoiding criminal liability. The witness is currently facing five years in prison. No proper investigation of his complaint of ill-treatment has occurred.92 B. Freedom of religion and belief 110. International human rights law protects the right to have or to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice and the freedom, either individually or in community with others, and in public or private, to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.93 111. During the reporting period, the occupying Power in Crimea continued to apply Russian Federation anti-extremist laws, commonly referred to as the “Yarovaya package”94, to the exercise of religious practices.95 These provisions limit the manifestation of one’s 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 For more information on the human rights situation in Crimea, see Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, A/HRC/44/2 (19 June 2020), available from www.undocs.org/en/A/hrc/44/21. See OHCHR, Human Rights in the Administration of Justice in Conflict-Related Criminal Cases in Ukraine April 2014 – April 2020, available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraineadmin-justice-conflict-related-cases-en.pdf. On the same day he was released under an obligation not to abscond from justice. HRMMU interviews, 24 June and 22 July 2020. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art.18. Charges are pressed under paragraph 4 (illegal missionary activities) and paragraph 3 (conduct of activities by religious organizations without indication of the full name, including production of printed and digital content) of article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. It is recalled that the Russian Federation made wholesale changes to the legal system that was in place in Crimea before the beginning of the occupation, including by applying the entirety of its criminal legislation to Crimea. By doing so, the Russian Federation acted in violation of international humanitarian law (Hague Regulations, art. 43) which requires the occupying Power to take all measures in its power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while 27