On Tuesday, 10 December, the world celebrates the International Human Rights Day – it was on this day in 1948 during the third session of the UN General Assembly that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. This document proclaimed fundamental civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights at the international level and thus established their standards. However, not all countries adhere to the principles of the Declaration. In particular, since the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, the human rights situation on the peninsula has been steadily deteriorating.
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 indigenous Crimean Tatar people are in a particularly difficult situation and are subjected to repression. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, the number of political prisoners and those prosecuted in criminal cases has reached 370 over the entire period of occupation of Crimea, 228 of whom are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
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. According to the CTRC, in 2017-2024, the following violations were recorded on the peninsula:
519 searches (362 of them in relation to the Crimean Tatars)
1599 detentions (1238 of them in relation to the Crimean Tatars)
1554 interrogations (1136 of them in relation to the Crimean Tatars)
1579 arrests (1116 against Crimean Tatars)
3418 violations of the right to a fair trial (2137 in relation to the Crimean Tatars)
628 violations of the right to health (424 of them in relation to the Crimean Tatars)
404 transfers (317 of them in relation to Crimean Tatars).
In total, in 2017-2024, 10,018 violations of fundamental human rights were recorded in the occupied Crimea, 6,730 of which were committed against representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre would like to remind Ukrainian society about the occupation of Crimea, human rights violations on the peninsula committed by the occupiers, the systemic repression of the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar peoples by the Russian Federation and the fact that after ten years the situation is only getting worse.
Moreover, this practice is being spread to the occupied territories of Ukraine – Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, where the occupiers are trying to intimidate people in the same way.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center not only records human rights violations, but also systematically informs the international community about the crimes of the Russian Federation in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Dear friends, we urge everyone to spread the word about the repressions in the occupied Crimea. Together, we can help bring freedom back to those who are now suffering unjustly. Crimea was and remains Ukraine, and its people deserve peace, freedom and justice.