Stories from Crimea: how Alena Lunova fought for freedom of peninsula

To mark February 20, the official date of the beginning of the occupation of Crimea by Russia, Human Rights House Crimea and all its founding organizations (Human Rights Centre ZMINA, Regional Center for Human Rights, Crimean Human Rights Group, and Center for Civic Education “Almenda”) launch an informational marathon “Stories from Crimea”.

In the frame of the information campaign, stories of the activists, about how the occupation of Crimea split their lives into “before” and “after” and how they managed not to give up, rolled up their sleeves, and continued to fight for human rights despite everything, will be told.

In 2019, the book “Crimean album: stories of human rights defenders” by Iryna Vyrtosu was published. It describes 20 personal stories of human rights defenders, including those highlighted in our informational marathon.

One of them is the story of Alena Lunova, Advocacy Director at Human Rights Centre ZMINA.

Throughout her life in Crimea, Lunova fought for freedom which was taken away from the peninsula residents as they were intimidated, assaulted, and kidnapped.

Having left for mainland Ukraine from dangerous native Crimea, Alena Lunova joined the Kharkiv team of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Recalling that period of her life, the human rights activist says: then she could not believe the words of Branka Sesko, her chief at that time, a Croatian who worked at the UN after the outbreak of the war in the Balkans. Sesko said, “It is just the beginning.” How could you imagine back then that the war would drag on for years, that a new generation would be born and go to school, where they are taught according to Russian norms and narratives, and hundreds of people would be kidnapped and deprived of their freedom?

Another page of her life is the activity at “East-SOS” where Alena helped those who got in trouble just like her, providing consultations by phone.

Currently, the human rights activist works as the advocacy director at Human Rights Centre ZMINA and makes every effort for the restoration of Ukraine’s control of the occupied territories.

The full story of Alena Lunova, as well as the other stories, can be found in English.