Statement on Genocide in Ukraine

Submitted by Stacey Breitberg on

Statement on Genocide in Ukraine

The Department of Scandinavian Studies denounces the Russian invasion and genocide in Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. We call for the immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine.

The Scandinavian Department published a Statement on War in Ukraine in March 2022, echoing similar statements by other units on campus. The current statement recognizes that Russia has committed and continues to commit genocide.

 

We refer to the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [un.org], where genocide is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Any one of the following acts constitutes genocide:

 

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 

Evidence of Russia’s war crimes has been documented in United Nations investigations [news.un.org]. Evidence of intent to commit genocide appears in numerous public statements by Russian government officials, and in Russia’s government-owned mass media.

 

We urge our colleagues, “Don’t look away. See genocide while it is happening. Say that it is genocide.”  

 

Share