How do Russians persecute minors in the occupied Crimea?

One of the tasks of any state is to ensure the rights of children to life, protection, security, health, education, rest and leisure. However, russia does the opposite. Unfortunately, the occupiers spare no one, not even minor children.

According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, during the period of occupation of Crimea, we recorded at least 24 cases of persecution of minors:

1. On July 26, 2018, in the village of Kurske, Bilohirsk district, the Russians conducted mass searches in the homes of underage Crimean Tatars: Mustafa Koki, Umer Abduveliiev, Rizvan Seitkhalilov, Seitumer Asanov, Aziz-Mukhammed Aliiev. All five minors were suspected of removing the Russian flag from the Kurske village council and burning it at the end of June 2018. After the searches, the security forces detained Eskender Abduveliiev and Seitumer Asanov.
2. On April 4, 2019, the court of the Bilohirsk district sentenced 16-year-old Crimean Tatar Abduraman Abduveliiev to six months of restraint of liberty under Article 329 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Desecration of the State Emblem of Russia or the State Flag of Russia). He was accused of removing three Russian flags from the administrative building of the village council in the village of Kurske, Bilohirsk district, on May 21, 2018.
3. In January 2020, in the occupied Crimea, employees of the Saky police detained and tortured a 17-year-old Crimean Tatar Server Rasylchak with electric shocks and beat him in order to confess to stealing money from a car wash, which he actually did not do.
4. On October 14, 2021, Russian security forces detained 16-year-old civilian journalist Amar Abdulhaziiev near the building of the Crimean garrison military court. The occupants asked him questions about his father, political prisoner Tofik Abdulhaziiev, and then released him.
5. On November 9, 2021, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don passed a sentence on two teenagers suspected of preparing a terrorist act in Crimea. They were sentenced to seven years in jail to be served in an educational colony and to four years in prison to be served in a penal colony, respectively.
6. On November 23, 2021, Russian security forces detained two children: 16-year-old Amar Abdulhaziiev and 14-year-old Meriiem Kulametova, who came to meet lawyer Edem Semedliaiev from the temporary detention center. They were kept in jail for days.
7. On November 27, 2021, the Central District Court in the occupied Crimea fined 17-year-old Safiia Yakubova, who came on November 1 to announce the appeal in the Krasnohvardiiske Hizb ut-Tahrir case. She was fined 10,000 rubles under Article 20.6.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
8. On January 20, 2022, the occupants found the underage activist, the son of political prisoner Amar Abdulhaziiev, guilty under article 20.2.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (Organization of mass simultaneous stay and (or) movement of citizens in public places that violated public order) and fined him 10 thousand rubles .
9. On May 2, 2023, the Russians caught a young man who, in a poll in Crimea, said that he was not afraid of the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and supported Ukraine. Law enforcement officers of the temporarily occupied peninsula forced the guy to apologize on camera. The social network claims that he is a 16-year-old student.
10. On March 20, 2023, in the occupied Crimea, in Alushta, four schoolchildren were detained and registered for publishing a video with the destruction of the Russian flag. It is noted that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, ninth grade students – two girls and two boys tore the Russian flag from the building, tore it apart and trampled on it, and the corresponding video was posted online over time.
11. On May 24, 2023, two teenagers from the temporarily occupied Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia region, Tyhran Hovhanisian and Mykyta Khanhanov, received an accusation from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation of allegedly preparing a sabotage on the railway, which provides for 10 to 20 years in prison.
12. On May 26, 2023, the Russian occupiers in Kerch detained three young men who were making inscriptions about Putin, the Russian army of murderers and Crimea’s belonging to Ukraine. The guys were arrested for 15 days, and they also threaten to put them in jail for 5 years.

As a rule, teenagers are prosecuted administratively and the following types of punishments are applied – parents are fined or they are given several days of arrest. But, unfortunately, the number of children persecuted by the occupiers may be higher. Just as the exact number of adults in Russian captivity is still unknown.

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center considers these persecutions illegal, politically motivated and criminal. This policy of the occupiers is aimed at intimidating children in order to suppress any attempts to express their own opinion and protest, as well as to win them over to their side. Such cases will affect the child’s psyche, remain in memory for a long time and affect the future life of children.

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center considers these actions of the invaders a gross violation of the norms of international humanitarian law, which prohibits the application of the legislation of the occupying country in the occupied territories. As well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in which the state within whose jurisdiction the child is located is entrusted with the responsibility to protect the rights of the child without any discrimination, regardless of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other beliefs, national, ethnic or social background.

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center strongly protests and demands the immediate release of all Ukrainian citizens and  bringing to justice those involved in their persecution