The Human Rights Centre ZMINA celebrates its 12th anniversary

The Human Rights Centre ZMINA celebrates its 12th anniversary.

Over the years, our team has implemented dozens of projects aimed at protecting human rights: documenting Russia’s war crimes and helping victims of these crimes; talking about the crimes of the Russian Federation during hundreds of trips to other countries; monitoring the situation of civil society in Ukraine and supported activists, volunteers, human rights defenders; advocated the rights of displaced persons and people who remained in the occupation; drew attention to the crimes that Russia commits against our people in the occupied territories, in particular, in Crimea; worked to ensure that Ukrainian legislation did not threaten human rights, and also fought for the improvement of the judicial system, etc. In addition, we cover the human rights situation in Ukraine and the world daily on our website zmina.info and social networks.

The head of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, Tetiana Pechonchyk, said that the history of ZMINA began even earlier:

“Actually, everything started in 2011, because for the first nine months, our organization did not have the status of a legal entity. We started working as an initiative group of journalists and communicators who supported human rights. These were the times of Viktor Yanukovych’s rule, attempts to curtail democracy began, and values ​​​​​​​​​​were to be defended. Then we, together with Maksym Butkevych and Maryna Hovorukhina, created the Center for Information on Human Rights, because we wanted to inform both the society inside the country. and international organizations about what is happening with human rights in the country.”

Pechonchyk added that the Center for Information on Human Rights, which later became the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, experienced the events of Euromaidan, Russian aggression since 2014, the occupation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas — all this also transformed the organization.

“We have also changed during this time. ZMINA documents human rights violations and war crimes – in the occupation and the controlled territories, opened a media resource where it covers the situation every day, distributes content to more than 150 thousand followers on social networks, and this year we launched audio podcasts and videos on YouTube. We prepare high-quality and in-depth research, work with the authorities to promote laws in the interests of human rights, stop threatening and dangerous draft laws, bring information to international organizations and foreign governments, conduct human rights training for journalists and activists, help human rights defenders in need and victims of torture,” said Pechonchyk.

The photo shows only half of our team

Over the years, the Human Rights Centre ZMINA team has grown to almost fifty people, and the organization’s employees work every day for the mission of building a country where every person can protect their rights.

“Our biggest wish today is for our co-founder and board member Maksym Butkevych to be released from Russian captivity. Let’s continue to fight for Maksym’s release so that we can hug him in Kyiv and celebrate his next birthday together! ” – urged Pechonchyk.