Saturday, November 23, 2013
The day of remembrance of the Ukrainian genocide, the Holodomor, is on the fourth Saturday of November. In 1932-1933, several million people were systematically starved to death in Ukraine. The Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee demands an official apology for this genocide from the Soviet Union's legal successor, the Russian Federation.
In November 2006, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that defined the Holodomor as a genocide. Altogether seventeen countries have recognised the Holodomor as an act of genocide. Finland is not one of them. In January 2010, an appeals court in Kyiv found the Bolshevik leaders of the Soviet Union guilty of genocide in Ukraine.
Such inhuman atrocities like the Holodomor are only possible in societies with systematic violations of people's basic rights and the fundamental principles of the rule of law and democracy. Remembering the atrocious crimes that have taken place in our common European history will help prevent similar crimes in the future.
