Eskender
Bariiev
Head of the Board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center
Member of
Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people
In 2014, Russia occupied Crimea, the homeland of the Crimean Tatar people and part of the territory of Ukraine, violating the UN Charter and the UN DRIP.
The Crimean Tatar people opposed the occupation. To suppress the non-violent resistance, the occupiers started persecution, violating the fundamental human rights and collective rights of the indigenous people. The occupation administration uses all instruments of pressure: detentions, arrests, searches, torture, forced abductions, murders, illegal alienation of private property. All these crimes have become systemic.
In the occupied Crimea, there is a tendency of mass detentions on suspicion of involvement in the activities of organizations "Hizb ut-Tahrir" and "Jehovah's Witnesses" banned in Russia, failure to report about the crime, public calls to carry out extremist activities, espionage in favor of Ukraine, illegal acquisition, storage, transportation of explosives, ammunition, and since 2022 began to create new instruments for prosecution. Thus the Supreme Court of Russia declared the battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikhan a terrorist organization, introduced articles into the administrative and criminal codes about discrediting Russian army and propaganda of Nazi symbols. In 2022-2023 35 people were arrested on suspicion of participation in the battalion.
During the occupation 306 people became politically persecuted, 206 of them are Crimean Tatars. As of January 1, 2024, there are 185 political prisoners in prisons, 125 of them are Crimean Tatars. Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy chairman of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, is in jail. In February 2023, political prisoners Dzhemil Gafarov and Kostiantyn Shyring died in prison.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine, mass war crimes by Russian servicemen in the newly occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions have been recorded. Along with "prisoners of war" and "political prisoners", a category of "civilian hostages" has emerged, who are deprived of liberty without court decisions. The occupants created more than 20 facilities for torture and intimidation in Genichesk, Nova Kakhovka and Melitopol where thousands of people are interrogated and tortured. In Simferopol detention facilities, new boxes and buildings have been opened where forcibly abducted Ukrainian citizens from the newly occupied territories are held. Information about these citizens is not available even at the request of lawyers.
Since 2022, activists have been subjected to fines and administrative arrests. Lawyers are deprived of their status, detentions and administrative arrests are carried out, which prevents from carrying out advocacy activities.
The practice of illegal deportation to the territory of Russia in inhumane conditions continues.
In the newly occupied territories, medical examinations of children and forced medical examinations are carried out, children are taken to the occupied Crimea and Russia for treatment. Orphans and children whose parents are deprived of their rights are also taken to the occupied Crimea. School teachers are forced to work according to the Russian curriculum, parents are threatened to be deprived of parental rights if they refuse to take their children to school. Schools in Crimea have introduced lessons about SMO in Ukraine into the curriculum.
In addition to illegal conscription campaigns, partial mobilization has been carried out since 2022. Raids to detain citizens evading mobilization were conducted in places of compact residence of Crimean Tatars, which led to a new mass wave of departure of Crimean Tatars from Crimea.
Occupation courts prohibit testimony in Crimean Tatar language, cases of expulsion from the courtroom have been recorded.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Improve the mechanism of control over the implementation of the sanctions policy with systematic updating of the sanctions list. Introduce a mechanism for the application of personal sanctions against persons responsible for human rights violations similar to the Magnitsky Act
-Initiate the patronage of Crimean political prisoners and their families by public figures and the participation of parliamentary deputies and diplomats in the courts on the territory of Russia
-Engage international lawyers to defend political prisoners
- Include a section on collective rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, in human rights monitoring reports on Crimea/Ukraine
- Develop an Action Plan to improve the situation of indigenous peoples in the CoE and OSCE region.
- Develop a UN Humanitarian Response Plan on Crimea.
- Encourage the OSCE, the Red Cross, and the UN to organize assistance in third countries for Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who evade mobilization into the Russian armyRecognize Deportation 1944 as genocide of the Crimean Tatar people and condemn Russia's policy of persecution and discrimination against Crimean Tatars in the occupied Crimea.