Russian repressive machine in Crimea: for every 3 people released from captivity, 5 new arrested – Zarema Bariieva

Despite the joy of the release of the Crimean Tatars, the situation with repression on the occupied peninsula remains tragic. This was reported by Zarema Bariieva, manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center.

️“It is sad to see this whole repressive conveyor belt that releases some and takes others. Unfortunately, for every 3 people released from captivity, 5 new people are arrested,”-  Bariieva noted.

A few days before the release of the political prisoners, another wave of searches took place in Crimea, as a result of which 5 Crimean Tatars were arrested after security forces planted banned literature on them.

“The repressive machine has stolen 9 years of innocent people’s lives, their physical health, which needs to be restored with a long course of treatment and no one will pay for it, the opportunity to raise their children, even the opportunity to say goodbye to their relatives who died prematurely due to unbearable separation and total injustice,” – said the CTRC manager.

During the less than 11 years of occupation:

– 19 waves of arrests in the “Hizb ut-Tahrir case” have been carried out. All detainees were arrested and accused of involvement in the activities of this organization;

– the largest number of political prisoners in Crimea are held in this case, namely 122 people, 119 of whom are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people;

– 23 people have fully served their unlawful sentences from bell to bell, with some still under administrative supervision. 8 out of 23 people served their sentences in the so-called Hizb ut-Tahrir case;

– Crimean Tatars, who are involved in this case, are taken 6-7 thousand kilometers from Crimea to serve their illegal sentences in the most remote regions of the Russian Federation;

– not a single political prisoner of Crimea, who is involved in this case, has been transferred closer to Crimea to serve their illegal sentence;

– 1 political prisoner – arrested in the case of “Hizb ut-Tahrir” – died on February 10, 2023, in the SIZO-3 in Novocherkassk, Rostov region. Dzhemil Gafarov was a second-group disabled person;

– none of the political prisoners in this case were released as part of the exchanges between Ukraine and Russia. The political prisoners are forced to serve their illegal sentences in the colonies and prisons of the Russian Federation;

️“Despite the pressure, torture and repression, not a single Crimean Tatar convicted under Article 205.5 has made a deal with the occupiers and is worthily resisting the occupation regime,” the CTRC manager emphasized.

Zarema Bariieva emphasized that the defendants in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case are given extremely harsh “punishment” terms – up to 19 years in a strict regime colony, and they spend the first years in prisons with the most severe conditions of detention.