On June 6, Ukraine celebrates the Journalist’s Day. The Crimean Tatar Resource Center congratulates all those involved on their professional holiday and thanks them for their courage, endurance and dedication to truthful coverage of events during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
However, we want to remind you that journalists who have been working in the occupied Crimea since 2014 are also worthy of attention.
Yes, at first professional journalists continued to work on the peninsula, but as pressure increased, most of them were forced to leave for mainland Ukraine, while others remained and secretly prepared materials for the Ukrainian media. As a result, civic journalism began to develop in the territory. Ordinary people, who were forced to live under temporary occupation, picked up mobile phones and turned on the camera to record numerous offenses against representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
Russian security forces during searches in the homes of activists or during court hearings in Crimea could simply knock out the phone and camera from journalists who recorded everything on video. Sometimes the occupants also used physical force against them. Russian legislation was used as an instrument of pressure and reprisals against activists. Journalists were brought to administrative responsibility allegedly for organizing or participating in an unsanctioned rally.
Already now, among the numerous political prisoners of the Kremlin, there are a number of activists, citizen journalists, bloggers from the Crimean Solidarity public association.
15 Crimean journalists paid for their position and are currently in the dungeons of the FSB: Server Mustafayev, Timur Ibrahimov, Marlen Asanov, Seyran Saliiev, Remzi Bekirov, Ruslan Suleymanov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheykhaliev, Amet Suleymanov, Riza Izetov, Emir-Huseyn Kuku , Oleksii Bessarabov, Nariman Dzhelyalov, Vladyslav Yosypenko and Iryna Danylovich.
The peninsula was turned into a territory of lawlessness with the least level of freedom of speech.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 marked a new stage of brutal repression against independent journalism in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, according to the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, the occupants have killed more than 30 Ukrainian and foreign media workers. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reported that more than a hundred regional media in the temporarily occupied territories were forced to stop working due to threats, the destruction of editorial offices, and the inability to work under temporary occupation.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center calls on the international community to continue to increase pressure on the occupying state so that our compatriots can continue their professional activities.