On September 7, 2019, a plane with 24 sailors and 11 political prisoners who were illegally held in Russian prisons and pre-trial detention centers landed at the Kiev Boryspil Airport. All prisoners were released as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
This was the result of the enormous work of state authorities, public organizations, human rights activists, and, of course, relatives of political prisoners.
Three years passed, there were no more exchanges. The number of political prisoners is growing rapidly. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, 262 political prisoners and prosecuted in criminal cases during the period of the occupation of Crimea were recorded, 188 of them are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people. There are 148 people in the dungeons of the FSB, 111 of them are Crimean Tatars.
Moreover, with the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, the practice of persecution and repression against the pro-Ukrainian population spread to the newly occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, where the CTRC recorded more than 250 detentions.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center continues its active work at the local, national and international levels to draw attention to the criminal actions of Russia in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Such a policy of the Russian Federation is a demonstration of the struggle against freedom of speech and belief, as well as the religious and political beliefs of people in the occupied territories.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center demands the immediate release of all political prisoners.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center calls on the international community to increase pressure on the Russian Federation and the occupation authorities of Crimea in order to stop political persecution, as well as to apply personal sanctions against persons involved in human rights violations in the temporarily occupied territories.