Human rights action "Empty Chairs" takes place in Kyiv — photos

Kyiv honored the memory of cultural and media figures during the human rights action "Empty Chairs". In this way, they want to support journalists, cultural figures, writers, and human rights activists who went missing or were imprisoned because of Russia's war against Ukraine.

Novyny.LIVE visited the event.

Why empty chairs were set up in Kyiv

Since the 1980s, November 15 has been observed as the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, a tradition that has gained recognition through various awareness campaigns. It is also referred to as the Day of Empty Chairs, symbolizing writers who have been silenced.

This is how they want to support and remember all the civilians who have been captured or disappeared because of their human rights activities.

A symbolic installation of empty chairs was set up on St. Sophia Square. The backs of the chairs bore the names of prisoners, prisoners of war, and the missing. Among them were notable media workers, authors, artists, and human rights activists.

According to the latest estimates, the Institute of Mass Information stated that at least 30 civilian media workers and two combatant journalists are currently imprisoned in Russia. In addition, human rights activists continue to record cases of persecution and imprisonment of journalists in the temporarily occupied territories.

The Center for Civil Liberties has reported that Russia is detaining over 7,000 civilians unlawfully on temporarily occupied territories. Additionally, by the end of September this year, the Register of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances included data on 55,000 individuals.

We would like to remind you that recently Lviv organized a tree planting in memory of the fallen defenders — see our photo report.

Our journalists also visited the site of the attack by enemy UAVs and have photos of the aftermath of the falling debris.