The law on the unhindered access of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to people taken into custody has come into force in Ukraine.
The law was published in the Ukrainian parliament's official newspaper "Holos Ukrainy" on December 21, RFE/RL's Ukrainian service wrote on Sunday, December 22.
The document supplements Ukraine's law on pretrial detention with the paragraph: "Administration of a pretrial detention facility gives representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross unhindered access to detainees without limiting the number of such visits and their duration. That is provided in cases and in line with the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims, with notification to the investigator or court conducting criminal proceedings, and when detainees are free from investigative actions and court hearings."
According to the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, about 55,000 people were in Ukraine's penal colonies and pretrial detention centers as of September 1, 2019.
