Fears that a new law criminalizing ‘non-denunciation’ would give Russia’s FSB a new weapon against victims of political or religious persecution and their families have proven well-founded

In yet another eerie echo from the Soviet past, around 50 Crimean Tatar activists were detained on 11 July in Moscow. as they stood outside Russia’s Supreme Court, peacefully demonstrating their support for four Crimean Tatar political prisoners sentenced to huge terms of imprisonment

It is five years since four members of an Evangelical Church in occupied Sloviansk were abducted by militants and murdered. Although the methods have changed since 2014, the basic policy of terror and persecution in the so-called ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics ‘ has not

The Russian occupation regime in Crimea has made its plundering of the main Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Crimea ‘official’

A Russian court has sentenced five Crimean Tatars to a total of 68 years, for no crime, just for alleged ‘involvement’ in a totally peaceful movement which is legal in Ukraine

Alexander Kompaneitsev, a former SBU officer who breached his oath to Ukraine and now works for Russia’s FSB, is known to have been directly behind a believed attempt to abduct Emir Usein Kuku and threats and torture of other political prisoners

The Russian FSB has carried out new armed searches and arrests of Crimean Tatars, with an elderly mother, whose second son has been taken from her, threatened with a pistol and told that the FSB will get around to shooting them all

New armed searches by FSB and special force officers have been carried out of the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in occupied Sevastopol, with one man, Viktor Stashevsky, arrested and facing a possible 10-year sentence for his faith

A prominent human rights NGO has condemned the recent operation against Crimean Tatar activists and declared all 24 men political prisoners imprisoned for their civic position and human rights work

A Russian court has upheld the six-year prison sentence imposed on Dennis Christensen for being a Jehovah’s Witness, with the ruling feared likely to intensify the already mounting persecution of believers in Russia and in occupied Crimea

Just as the presumption of innocence and need for evidence are concepts that find no place in Russia’s system of repression in occupied Crimea, so too are mercy and fundamental humanity

A Ukrainian Orthodox church in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] is to be forcibly taken from its congregation and handed over to the Moscow Patriarchate, with other Ukrainian Orthodox congregations also in danger of losing their places of worship

Another Crimean Tatar activist was arrested on 17 April, bringing the number of activists, most of them from the Crimean Solidarity civic initiative, whom the Russian occupation regime has taken prisoner over the last month to at least 24

The Russian-controlled ‘justice ministry’ in occupied Crimea is making problems over the application for registration of a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation, an application forced on the Church by mounting attempts to drive it from Crimea

Remzi Bekirov has been a major force within the Crimean Solidarity movement, working tirelessly to report on the mounting repression in occupied Crimea. He is now potentially facing a life sentence, on of 23 civic activists arrested in Russia’s worst attack to date on Crimean Solidarity and on Crimean Tatars

Russia’s abuse of ‘extremism’ legislation is notorious, and suspicions about this ‘operation’ are only exacerbated by the fact that the FSB and other enforcement officers appear to have been accompanied by several Russian and Russian-controlled TV channels

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. 

Russia has announced plans for a ‘rehabilitation centre’  in occupied Crimea to ‘re-educate’ Muslims considered to be under the influence of ‘extremist ideology’

The Russian occupation regime has begun construction work on land allocated to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church back in 2012 for a new Christ the Saviour Cathedral

Although Mykola [Nikolai] Muratov and several other people were released after being interrogated and held for many hours, they faced ‘prosecution’ for supposedly ‘illegal’ worship.