After the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, thousands of activists were repressed for their civic position.
Criminal cases have been opened, detentions, searches and arrests are systematically carried out, and people are subjected to enforced disappearances. The peninsula has become a territory of lawlessness.
Russia, in violation of international law, continues to carry out mass repressions and exert pressure on Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists on the Crimean peninsula.
Moreover, this practice is spreading to the newly occupied territories of Ukraine – Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions, where the occupiers are trying to intimidate people in the same way. And in the occupied Crimea, after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation has only worsened…
Currently, according to the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, there are 194 political prisoners who stay in detention, 134 of whom are Crimean Tatars. Before 2022, 124 people were registered, 93 of whom were Crimean Tatars.
In addition, according to the CTRC:
At least 342 searches were recorded since the beginning of the occupation of Crimea and until 2022 (256 against Crimean Tatars), and 115 searches were registered after the beginning of the full-scale war (71 against Crimean Tatars).
Since the beginning of the occupation of Crimea and until 2022, at least 1,215 detentions (1,006 against Crimean Tatars) and 1,036 arrests (781 against Crimean Tatars) were recorded, and after the outbreak of full-scale war – 294 (214 against Crimean Tatars) and 410 arrests (282 against Crimean Tatars).
From the beginning of the occupation of Crimea until 2022, at least 97 verdicts were recorded, and after the beginning of the full-scale war – 110 verdicts.
In addition, at least 344 people (97 of them Crimean Tatars) have been detained in Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions and 45 arrests have been recorded, 26 of which were against Crimean Tatars. At least 31 people, including 19 Crimean Tatars, were held in pre-trial detention centres in Crimea.
We can see how the Russian Federation illegally uses its legislation for political purposes, in particular, to suppress the non-violent struggle of Crimean Tatars and their protest against the occupation of Crimea.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre calls on the international community to increase pressure on the Russian Federation to stop political persecution in Crimea, as well as to impose personal sanctions on those responsible for human rights violations in the temporarily occupied Crimea.