The Crimean Tatar Resource Center sent a report to the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the topic The militarization of the occupied Crimea and the persecution of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
The report will be presented by the Expert Mechanism at its annual session in July 2022. The document will also be finalized and submitted to the Human Rights Council at its 51st session in September 2022.
The CTRC provided information on the situation with the militarization of Crimea occupied by the Russian Federation, on systemic military exercises, on the transfer of weapons to the peninsula, on illegal conscription campaigns, as well as on the formation of a cult of war among children.
“Since 2014, Crimea, the land of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, has been in a state of protracted interstate armed conflict. The Russian occupying power deploys military bases, imports heavy military equipment into the territory of Crimea, there are suspicions that nuclear weapons were brought to the territory of Crimea”,- the report says.
It is noted that all armed conflicts and militarization affect the lands and natural resources located in the territories of indigenous peoples. Due to the location of military bases, access to the forests in Crimea is limited, which is an obstacle to the preservation and development of such a traditional Crimean Tatar livelihood as çayır.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center demands from Russia to stop the militarization of Crimea and the use of so-called security forces to persecute the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, as well as stop the illegal occupation of Crimea, the land of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
We remind you that, according to the CTRC for 2021, the Russian authorities conducted 44 military exercises on the territory of the occupied peninsula with the participation of more than 47,550 military personnel and more than 2,900 units of military and special equipment.