⚠️ Violation Context

🏛️ About

Sich Human Rights Group#

A first-time entrant that delegated three of eighteen members

The Sich Human Rights Group is a human rights organization registered in Dnipro in July 2014, with a branch in Kramatorsk. It is documented on CrimeaWatch because in 2025, entering the process for the first time, it delegated three members to the Public Integrity Council’s fourth composition — the body whose Indicators of Integrity place visits to temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory in the same enumeration as visits to the Russian Federation.

Why This Profile Exists#

Sich has no history with the Council before 2025. It does not appear in HQCJ decision No. 40/zp-23 of 27 July 2023, and none of its members served in the first three compositions. Its entire documented involvement consists of a single cycle — and in that cycle it placed three of the Council’s eighteen members.

That is what makes the entry notable rather than incidental. An organization joining the process in 2025 did so nearly five years after the revised Indicators were unanimously adopted on 16 December 2020, and after the Council had issued negative integrity conclusions against judges over travel to occupied Crimea, property held there, and family resident on the peninsula. Nothing about the methodology was undisclosed at the moment of entry.

A Human Rights Organization and the Freedom of Movement#

The organization’s stated field is human rights. Paragraph 1.5 operates directly on a right: freedom of movement within one’s own country, guaranteed by Article 33 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Ukrainian law is explicit that the occupied peninsula remains Ukrainian territory. The Constitution defines Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine (Articles 2, 73, 133–134), and the Law on the Temporarily Occupied Territory (No. 1207-VII, 2014) creates a legal regime for it that is deliberately distinct from the regime governing a foreign state. A judge travelling to Crimea to see a parent is travelling inside Ukraine.

The Indicators do provide an exception for journeys made out of urgent need. The exception confirms the default rather than displacing it — and leaves the assessment of whose need was urgent enough to a body a human rights organization has helped staff.

Sich has published no analysis of that tension.

What This Profile Does Not Claim#

CrimeaWatch documents no statement by the Sich Human Rights Group recognizing Crimea as Russian territory, and none is alleged here.

Delegation is not a vote: the organization’s three delegates vote on the Council’s conclusions; the organization does not. What is documented is the nomination itself, established by a published state act and the PIC’s own roster, together with the absence of any public objection to the methodology.

Nomination Record#

In the assembly that formed the Council’s fourth composition in 2025, the organization put forward 3 candidates and 3 were seated. Its nominations overlapped with those of DEJURE and Nova Kraina. Across the assembly as a whole, twelve organizations submitted 41 nominations covering 24 distinct people for 20 seats, and 14 of the 18 members elected were nominated by two organizations at once.

Cross-nomination is permitted by the procedure and is not in itself irregular. It is recorded here because the authority of the Council’s Indicators of Integrity rests on the breadth of the body that adopts them, and the published candidate tables are the only public measure of that breadth. See Who Vetted the Vetters for the full arithmetic.

Response and Corrections#

The Sich Human Rights Group may submit a response or a correction request to [email protected]. Submissions are assessed against the underlying sources. Where a statement on this page is shown to be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, the profile is amended and the correction is recorded.

CrimeaWatch does not publish responses verbatim and gives no undertaking to reproduce them. What a verified response changes is the content of this profile.

Summary#

The Sich Human Rights Group is documented on this site as a first-time delegating organization of the Public Integrity Council, admitted by HQCJ decision No. 138/zp-25 of 21 July 2025 and represented by three of the eighteen members of the Council’s current composition.

A human rights organization entered the process nearly five years after the adoption of a methodology that treats travel to temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory in the same terms as travel to the Russian Federation, and has not publicly addressed the contradiction between that methodology and the constitutional right to move freely within Ukraine.

ℹ️ What Else We Know

👥 Leadership

📅 Activity Timeline

📋 Documented Instances