Ukraine, Nobel Matviichuk: “No to geopolitics, human beings first”

Dire's interview with the director of the Center for Civil Liberties

ROME – “We need to listen to human beings and their needs and not get lost in political and geopolitical debates”: this is the appeal of Oleksandra Matviichuk, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2022 as director of Kiev from the Center for Civil Liberties, in Ukrainian Tsentr gromadjanskih svobod. A reflection, his, entrusted to an interview with the Dire agency on the sidelines of the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, starting today in Rome and the Vatican. “I work on the human dimension of war,” said Matviichuk. “Unfortunately, however, in political and geopolitical discussions we lose sight of attention to human beings and their needs”.

The Center for Civil Liberties was established in Kiev in 2007 with the aim of pushing the Ukrainian government in the direction of strengthening democracy and protecting human rights. This commitment crosses the experiences and suffering caused by the conflict with Russia which began in 2014 and worsened in 2022. “By working with people who have been victims”, underlines
Matviichuk, “I make myself I realize that they must regain not only their lives, their families and their visions of the future that have been destroyed but also the belief that justice is possible, even if postponed in time.” According to the director of the Center, it is important that the abuses committed during the conflict are not only recognized as “immoral” crimes but also as something “illegal”. Matviichuk points out, citing cases of people imprisoned, beaten and tortured after 2014, particularly in the east