One of the most common reasons for the detention of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in the occupied Crimea and in the newly occupied territories of the Kherson region is the case of participation in the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion.
Indeed, since 2014, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center has recorded 37 arrests on charges of participation in the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion: 16 in occupied Crimea, 21 in the occupied Kherson region after February 24, 2022.
Thus, on June 1, 2022, the Supreme Court of Russia granted the claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office for recognition of the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion as a terrorist organization and a ban on its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation.
We emphasize that when it comes to the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion, they mean the public organization Asker, which is registered under the current legislation of Ukraine. The purpose of this organization is patriotic education.
Why is Russia doing this?
To justify the persecution of indigenous people in the Kherson region;
To blame all the people who are related to the civil blockade of Crimea in 2015;
So that all those detained in the case of the Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion were charged with terrorism and sentenced to maximum terms;
To have grounds for further repression of representatives of the Crimean Tatar people in temporarily occupied Crimea;
To limit the development of public organizations of a patriotic direction in Ukraine.
What reaction should there be from Ukraine?
There must be a symmetrical reaction to these actions of Russia, that is, the courts of Ukraine must decide to recognize all patriotic public organizations in temporarily occupied Crimea as terrorist organizations and ban them in Ukraine. In this regard, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center and the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people reserve the right to prepare claims to the competent authorities of Ukraine to recognize such organizations in occupied Crimea as terrorist;
The competent state bodies of Ukraine must make statements about unlawful decisions of Russian courts in relation to public organizations created and operating on the territory of a sovereign state within the framework of its current legislation.