The idea of liberal democracy begins with understanding of an ancient statement according to which freedom of one ends where freedom of another begins. Struggle for life and freedom as the greatest values of life, protection of individualism and sensible egoism as the main factors of progress, understanding the uniqueness of every person, irrespectively of his or hers appearance or personal affections created the system in which the will of society or of a person should not touch the limit where the basic rights of others begin. However, this for centuries this sacred truth had been attacked by the authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, unhealthy societies which existence is based on low common and juridical cultures and nihilism.
In Ukraine, which had been suffering under the soviet occupation for the last 70 years, violation of the basic human rights and freedoms as well as inability and unwillingness to accept diversity of human nature were nurtured in soviet schools and universities and they still have a major influence on our society. Unfortunately, neither police nor political representatives are interested in building the new functioning mechanism of rights protection. Their quasi-reforms only repeat European concepts, but still have a post-socialistic meaning in them. Understanding the government failure to change the structure of social values and establish the Rule of Law, the LDLU is trying to do everything in its power in order to implement the basic ideas of liberal democracy in our country.
The Department of human rights is a structural element of our public organization, which mission is to monitor the situation regarding protection of basic human rights, interaction with Ukrainian as well as international human rights organizations, analysis of Ukrainian legal acts, development of recommendations to public authorities and local government bodies and carrying out educational events concerning the human rights protection.
Among the Department’s main objectives are protection of the basic human rights, including children’s, refugee’s and LGBTI community’s rights, respect for the gender equality and struggle against racial and language discrimination.