A Russian-occupation ‘court’ has found Venera Mustafayeva guilty of infringing regulations during the pandemic over her solitary picket on the day that her prisoner of conscience son, Server Mustafafayev was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment

In the middle of a pandemic, Russia can find nothing better to do than try to intimidate Crimean Tatar activists by warning against ‘offences’ that not one of them has committed

On 9 March, police in Russian-occupied Crimea prevented Ukrainians from singing Ukraine’s national anthem near the monument to the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko on the 206th anniversary of his birth

While cheering that the Rivne Court of Appeal has agreed that 16-year-old Darya Kotsyuruba did not infringe the law by standing on Rivne’s Independence Square with a placard calling for the impeachment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it is disturbing that this absurd ‘case’ should have reached appeal level

Two young Rivne residents ended up at the police station facing administrative charges on 25 May over their peaceful protest with four placards, one of them calling for President Zelensky’s impeachment. The President has himself now intervened

On 8 April, Zarema Mamutova and her daughter-in-law Aliye, were detained in Bakhchysarai while the elderly lady stood with a placard reading: “My son is no terrorist.  Why 17 years?”.  This was the horrific sentence passed on her 43-year-old son Enver Mamutov, a recognized political prisoner, on 23 December. 

Ukraine’s ‘Communist Party# has announced that it is putting forward its leader Petro Symonenko as presidential candidate in the coming elections.  The announcement has aroused bemusement, since it comes over three years after a much publicized ruling banning this very same party.  

Activists for transgender rights were forced to disband a demonstration in Kyiv on November 18 after counterdemonstrators assaulted several protesters and attacked a Canadian journalist trying to cover the event.

In the first week after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, a protester was seen holding a banner with the words: ‘Supporters of Putin!  Under Putin, you won’t speak Russian, you will be SILENT in Russian! Within months, such protests had become inconceivable

One of the main factions in the governing coalition is planning to table a bill on registering ‘foreign agents’ in Ukraine.  The move is purportedly aimed at protecting ‘national interests’, however human rights groups are unconvinced

It is becoming increasingly clear that there was no legal justification for the dispersal of a tent camp of protesters from outside the Verkhovna Rada on 3 March and the detaining of over 100 activists.  The Head of the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Secretariat also reports that the nature of the bodily injuries sustained during the dispersal suggests that the police used excessive force. 

28-year-old Elmaz Akimova was harassed on 25 February for her peaceful protest over the “shocking vandalism under the guise of restoration” which is destroying the Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai

In the latest attack on the Crimean Solidarity civic initiative, a huge contingent of Russian OMON riot police have disrupted the monthly meeting held to discuss ways of helping political prisoners and their families.  There was no real attempt to come up with a credible reason for what was clearly an attempt at intimidation  - one that follows the arrests of several Crimea Solidarity activists on trumped-up charges.

A planned remembrance gathering on January 19 in honour of slain Sevastopol journalist Anastasia Baburova and Russian lawyer Stanislav Markelov was disrupted on January 19 by thugs from the far-right C14 group.  Civic activists monitoring the police officers’ failure to protect people at a peaceful gathering believe that their behaviour indicates disturbing bias.

Police in Russian-occupied Crimea have on several occasions tried to justify detaining Crimean Tatars holding legal solitary pickets by claiming that their protest “aroused dissatisfaction among the Slavonic population”.

By the end of a wave of new repressive prosecutions, Russia will have extorted close on one million roubles from up to 86 Crimean Tatars whose protests were in full compliance with the occupying state’s draconian anti-protest legislation.

Rustem Osmanov, an activist from the civic initiative Crimea Solidarity, was taken from his home by unidentified men without insignia on Monday morning.  In comparison with at least three activists who are facing huge sentences for showing solidarity with political prisoners in Russian-occupied Crimea and their families, Osmanov was ‘lucky’ in merely being fined 10 thousand roubles on trumped up charges

In its zeal to prevent the truth being told about its political repression in occupied Crimea, Russia is even flouting its own legislation.  At very least three Crimean Tatars are now facing administrative charges for entirely legal single-person pickets on October 14.

24-year-old Shevket Razzakov is facing criminal charges in Russian-occupied Crimea for spitting at a Russian National Guard sniper during the armed search of another Crimean Tatar.  None of the officers involved in beating up peaceful activists and hospitalizing one of them during the events that day is under investigation.

Crimean Tatars have reacted to the new arrests on ‘terrorism’ charges of civic activists in Russian-occupied Crimea by holding single-person pickets with placards reading: “Crimean Tatars are not terrorists.  Give children their fathers back” and “Fabricating criminal cases – it’s this that’s TERROR”.  .