On November 9, the world community celebrates the International Day against Fascism, Racism and Anti-Semitism. This day reminds of the tragic events on the night of November 9-10, 1938, when the first mass action of physical violence of the Third Reich against the Jewish people took place.
Racial discrimination is recognized as the most dangerous form of violation of human rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, the issue of preventing and combating racial discrimination remains relevant for many countries of the world.
Since 2014, the Crimean Tatar people and Ukrainian activists have opposed the occupation. To overcome nonviolent resistance, the occupation authorities launched a campaign to persecute them and form the image of an internal enemy using hate speech, violating fundamental human and collective rights, in particular of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. The de facto authorities are actively using all instruments of pressure: illegal detentions, arrests, searches, initiation of fabricated administrative and criminal cases, threats, beatings, torture, violent abductions, murders, refusal to re-register and illegal alienation of private property, destruction of property. For a position or opinion that differs from the official position of the de facto authorities in Crimea, people are accused of terrorism or extremism.
The occupation has been going on for 8 years, but the number of victims of the occupation authorities on the peninsula is growing. Mostly Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars are held in the FSB dungeons. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, during the entire period of the occupation, the number of political prisoners reached 235, 165 of which are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
Trying to suppress any political activity of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, the so-called Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea on April 26, 2016 banned the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people – the representative body of the indigenous people of Crimea. On April 19, 2017, the International Court of Justice issued an interim judgment in the case Ukraine v. Russia in the part of the complaint about the violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, by which it ordered Russia to resume the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. However, the RF has not yet complied with this decision.
Crimean Tatars are also harassed because of the use of the Crimean Tatar language. For 9 months of 2021, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center recorded 13 cases of removal of political prisoners from the courtroom due to the use of the Crimean Tatar language.
In the occupied Crimea, the number of schools with the Crimean Tatar language of instruction decreased from 15 in 2014 to 7 in 2020, and school teachers give parents a completed questionnaire, where Russian is indicated as the native language. In 2021, a case was recorded when a primary school teacher incited ethnic enmity. The woman told the children that the entire Crimean Tatar people were deported because they were traitors.
We call on the international community to increase pressure on the Russian Federation in order to end racial discrimination in the occupied Crimea and help our compatriots achieve justice.