17/05/2024 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) held a public hearing marking the 90th anniversary of Ukraine's Holodomor, or Great Famine, which was livestreamed in English on Tuesday 21 May 2024.
The Holodomor was a mass famine in grain-growing areas of the country which began in the late 1920s and culminated in 1932-33, causing millions of deaths in Ukraine and other parts of the former USSR.
In a 2010 resolution, the Assembly said it had been caused by “the cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime” and in a 2023 resolution it recognised the Holodomor as an act of genocide intended to “break the backbone of Ukrainian nationhood, language and culture”.
The hearing, which took place during a meeting of PACE's Legal Affairs Committee in Paris, will contribute to a report on this topic being prepared by Knut Abraham (Germany, EPP/CD) for plenary debate by the Assembly.
Participants included:
- Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak, Lviv University, Ukraine (online)
- Professor Martin Schulze-Wessel, Professor of Eastern European History, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany
- Andriy Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine (online)