Commenting on the demand of German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to release Ukrainian sailors detained
in Russia, Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
urged the leaders of these two European countries
not to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states and comply with
the resolution on the principle of non-interference in internal affairs adopted
by the consensus by all member states and France and Germany (abstained) at the 136th meeting of the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in April 2017.
Responding to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron’s concerns about the situation with human rights in Crimea, Viacheslav Volodin drew their attention to the fact that they “should handle the situations at their countries before making such comments about other countries.”
“We do not use water cannons, gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters in Russia, like they do in France and Germany, I advise you to pay your attention to this fact at first,” Viacheslav Volodin said.
“It was necessary to express their concern about human rights in Crimea before the referendum in 2014, when the Ukrainian authorities banned the education of children in their native language. Today this right is granted in Crimea. There are three official languages there — Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean-Tatar. This have not been done for 23 years when Crimea was part of Ukraine,” Chairman of the State Duma added.
“As for the demand to release the sailors, there is the national legislation of the Russian Federation, an investigation is ongoing, the court must make a decision. We should live in a common legal space, I think that the leaders of two democratic European countries are well aware that interfering of anyone, despite their positions, in the justice process is not just unacceptable, but can also be the focus of attention of law enforcement agencies. I would like to warn against such statements with regard to our country, which is part of the Council of Europe, and our national legislation complies with all standards of international law,” Vicheslav Volodin stated.
“I want to draw attention to the fact that such statements of politicians cannot be unnoticed in any civilized country in the world. It would be right to think before making such statements,” Chairman of the State Duma emphasized.
