Russia has carried out four ‘bulk’ arrests thus far in occupied Crimea which enable the FSB to claim ‘good statistics’ on fighting ‘terrorism’ while terrorising Crimean Tatar families.

55-year-old Viktor Stashevsky has been sentenced by a Russian-controlled court in Crimea to six and a half years’ imprisonment for reading the Bible and praying together with fellow believers

In occupied Crimea, Russia has not been able to totally conceal its human rights violations, but it is undoubtedly trying. including by imprisoning civic journalists and activists

The first day of Russia’s ‘trial’ of journalist Remzi Bekirov and four other civic and human rights activists ended with all five being removed for speaking Crimean Tatar

A Russian-controlled court in Simferopol has placed 42-year-old Ukrainian Taras Kuzio under house arrest following mass armed searches of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ homes in occupied Yalta

Teymur Abdullayev has spent virtually all of the last year in a Russian SHIZO or punishment cell, where the conditions are tantamount to torture

A ‘secret prosecution witness’ in Russia’s latest trial of Crimean Tatars was outed on 17 February as a person whom the FSB have already used to imprison other civic activists and journalists and who has a vested interest in doing what the FSB demand

The FSB and heavily armed Rosgvardia officers were clearly interested only in books, and in at least one case, claimed to find the so-called ‘prohibited literature’ that they pulled from their own bag

On the brutal reprisals and massive prison sentences it would use to silence human rights activists and other ‘dissidents’, including the terrorization of their children.

The 7.5 year sentence against Alexander Ivshin marks a new record in Russia’s persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses and comes just months after a new escalation in repression against believers in occupied Crimea.

Russia is already in flagrant violation of international law through its persecution of Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists, and their effective deportation to Russia, and has now added torture to that list

Even a Russian court balked at handing down the monstrous sentence demanded, but the FSB were having none of it and organized remakes of Ruslan Zeytullaev’s ‘trial’ until they got the sentence needed for their paperwork.

A Russian court has sentenced three Crimean Tatars, including a father and son, to horrific terms of imprisonment without any crime, on the basis of discussions about their Muslim faith and political subjects, including Russia’s persecution of Muslims

Children in Russian-occupied Crimea have seen their father, grandfather and uncle all taken away. Will they come for their mother next? Or for the children themselves?

Childhood ended abruptly for 20 Crimean Tatar children in 2020, when armed and masked Russian enforcement officers burst into their homes, turned them upside down and took their fathers away

Russia has begun its most overtly repressive mass trial of Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists three days before New Year in an obvious attempt to minimize publicity for ‘trials’ aimed at c silencing those who tell the world about Russia's violations in occupied Crimea

A Russian prosecutor has demanded sentences of 19, 18 and 13 years against three Crimean Tatars who are not accused of any recognizable crime

Together with its invasion and annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine, Russia brought devastation to the religious pluralism and freedom that Ukrainians had enjoyed since 1991

Yet another ‘trial’ of Crimean Tatar political prisoners has begun, with this one dangerously likely to cause the death of one of the ‘defendants’ well before the predetermined verdict.

After Russia’s most flagrant offensive against 25 Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists in March 2019 elicited huge international condemnation, Moscow is clearly trying to minimize publicity for the puppet trials expected to rubberstamp 15-20 year sentences