PUBLIC COMMITTEE FOR THE DEFENSE OF NINA STROKATA was the first attempt to create a legal human rights organization in Ukraine. After the arrest of N. STROKATA on December 6, 1971, Lviv residents Vyacheslav CHORNOVIL and Iryna STASIV-KALYNETS decided to create an open human rights organization in Ukraine, similar to Moscow's independent associations (the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR and the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR). In addition to the initiators, the Committee included Kyiv resident Vasyl STUS, Odesa resident Leonid TYMCHUK, and Moscow human rights defender Pyotr Yakir. The Committee’s only action was the release of a bulletin (No. 1, December 21, 1971) with a statement on the creation of the association and a note titled “Who is N. A. STROKATA (KARAVANSKA)?” The statement emphasized that the Committee was being created on the basis of rights guaranteed by the USSR Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee’s goals were declared to be: collecting facts and documents related to the STROKATA case and presenting them to legal authorities and the public; collecting signatures on an appeal in defense of STROKATA; creating a fund to help STROKATA and her husband, political prisoner Svyatoslav KARAVANSKY; and monitoring the observance of STROKATA’s legal rights to a defense, a public trial (if one were to take place), and an appeal of the verdict (if it were a conviction).
On January 12, 1972, the three Ukrainian members of the Committee (CHORNOVIL, STASIV-KALYNETS, and STUS) were arrested during the second wave of arrests, and its activities effectively ceased.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group