In a declaration today, the Swiss National Council recognised the Holodomor in Ukraine as an act of genocide. 123 members of the National Council voted in favour of the recognition, 58 voted against and 7 abstained.
Presentation of the petition by Libereco and Campax to the Swiss National Council
In recent years, the Holodomor has already been recognised as genocide by 37 countries as well as the EU and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Previously, the international community had remained silent on the crime of the Holodomor for decades. With today’s declaration, the Swiss National Council is also following other neutral countries such as Austria, Ireland and the Vatican.
Libereco and Campax had previously also called on the National Council to recognise the Holodomor as genocide with an online petition. The 6,000 signatures on the petition were handed over to National Councillor Christine Badertscher by Libereco board member Fabian Kohler immediately before the vote. Badertscher had submitted the request for today’s declaration to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council.
On the occasion of today’s adoption of the declaration in the National Council, Libereco board member Fabian Kohler explains: ‘By recognising the millions of dead of the Holodomor as victims of an act of genocide, the National Council is sending an important signal for worldwide respect for international law. Just as Stalin once brought death by starvation to millions of people, Putin is also threatening the people of Ukraine – today with death by cold. Due to Russia’s deliberate destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, millions of people are facing a humanitarian catastrophe. ’
Background information on the Holodomor
Raphael Lemkin, an expert in international criminal law and the founder of the genocide concept used in law today, called the Holodomor and the associated persecution of Ukrainian culture and identity ‘the classic example of Soviet genocide’.
The bloodiest political cleansing campaign in the history of the Soviet Union up to that point was directed against the Ukrainian national communists and the Ukrainian national intelligentsia. However, anyone suspected of being close to Ukrainian culture could become a victim. Tens of thousands of politicians, teachers, artists and intellectuals were arrested, deported to labour camps or executed.
Libereco winter aid for Ukraine
In Ukraine, people will only have electricity for a few hours a day in the coming winter and the heat supply will be severely restricted. The human rights organisation Libereco is providing humanitarian aid in the Kharkiv region in the form of mobile soup kitchens and firewood deliveries for elderly people in rural communities.
