Eskender Bariiev, Head of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, took part in an international event on the topic: The introduction of personal sanctions as a mechanism for ensuring the protection of human rights in the occupied Crimea. In his speech, he spoke about the activities of the CTRC in this area.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!
In the first quarter of 2021 alone, Russia conducted 11 military exercises on the territory of the peninsula with the participation of more than 3,800 military personnel and more than 600 units of military and special equipment.
Since March 2021, Russia has been escalating the conflict by deploying two armies and three airborne units to the borders of Ukraine.
Tension is also growing at sea, so 15 ships of the Caspian flotilla were sent to the Black Sea. Recently there was a conflict with British and Dutch destroyers.
As a result of the policy of genocide, the Crimean Tatar people became a minority in their homeland.
The population of Crimea is being replaced. Using repression, intimidation of the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians is carried out, who are purposefully squeezed out of the Crimea, as a population disloyal to Russia. More than 500 thousand Russians were brought from Russia to Crimea, and about 50 thousand Ukrainian citizens were forced to leave it.
In Crimea, they are forced to obtain Russian passports, and people who refuse to be deprived of their property rights or are deported from Crimea.
In accordance with the analysis of human rights violations in Crimea in 2020, the following trends can be distinguished:
– conducting searches due to lack of information;
– detention of activists who come to support political prisoners at the so-called court sessions, including on ethnic grounds;
– persecution of entire families, as well as the wives and mothers of political prisoners;
– strengthening of Russian legislation and its application in the persecution of Ukrainian citizens;
– the imposition of long terms for political prisoners of the Crimea;
– massive cases of non-provision of proper medical care and deterioration of the health of political prisoners in Crimea in pre-trial detention centers and prisons, as well as cases of moral pressure and physical violence against detained activists and political prisoners.
In 2020, the record for the last 4 years was recorded in terms of the number of arrests, detentions, violations of civil liberties and human rights.
At the moment, in accordance with the CTRC classification:
231 political prisoners and prosecuted in criminal cases during the occupation of Crimea, 158 of whom are the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people:
60 convicted and serving time in a colony on the territory of Russia, of which 36 are Crimean Tatars;
59 are in jail, of which 44 are Crimean Tatars;
30 have restrictions or probationary periods, of which 19 are Crimean Tatars;
33 are persecuted, 27 of them are Crimean Tatars;
55 killed during the occupation of Crimea, 25 of them are Crimean Tatars.
21 victims of violent abductions during the occupation of Crimea, 15 of which are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
In violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, a mass conscription into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Russia is carried out, if people refuse, then criminal proceedings are opened against them.
The actions of the Russian Federation are criminal, politically motivated, and grossly violate international law.
Sanctions are the most important tool to contain the aggression of the Russian Federation and the ongoing repression.
Currently, the EU has imposed sanctions on 95 people and 23 legal entities, and the UK Consolidated Financial Sanctions List includes 180 people and 48 legal entities.
Until now, EU sanctions against Crimea have been applied only against persons involved in the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and not against those involved in human rights violations in the occupied peninsula.
I would like to note that the lists do not include judges, investigators, prosecutors, FSB officers and representatives of law enforcement agencies who are directly related to the violation of human rights in Crimea. Therefore, these lists can be considered incomplete both qualitatively and quantitatively. And those who directly commit human rights violations go unpunished.
Currently, the Crimean Tatar Resource Center has prepared a list of 166 people violating human rights from the abovementioned categories.
I want to give an example of 3 persons from this list:
1. Abdullaiev Vadym Valeriiovych – Head of the Investigative Authority – Head of the Investigation Department of the FSB of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, Colonel;
2. Burdin Artem Oleksiiovych – Senior Investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Department of the FSB of Russia, Major of Justice;
3. Volkov D. A. – Military Prosecutor of the Department of the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Southern Military District, Major of Justice;
On 7 December 2020, the European Parliament called on the European External Diplomacy Service to promptly implement the EU's global human rights sanctions regime. The European Parliament invited Ukraine to follow this example and present its Ukrainian version.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center is systematically working towards the adaptation of laws analogous to the Magnitsky Act in order to introduce personal sanctions against persons responsible for human rights violations in Crimea, a Methodology for assessing the feasibility of introducing personal sanctions against persons in the temporarily occupied territories who collaborate with the occupying authorities of the Russian Federation has been developed.
This technique can be applied both in Ukrainian legislation, and also contribute to the universal formation of sanctions lists for international partners.
We are confident that only with active joint opposition to gross violations of human rights in Crimea, we will be able to protect not only the indigenous people of Crimea – the Crimean Tatars and Ukraine, but also Europe and the whole world.
Thanks for attention!