Russia has sentenced Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz to eight years’ imprisonment for upholding Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty during a demonstration that took place on Ukrainian territory and under Ukrainian law.

89-year-old Lutfi Bekirov is one of the many Crimean Tatars who have been warned that they will be arrested for gathering outside the Russian-controlled High Court in occupied Crimea on September 11 as sentence is passed on Crimean Tatar leader and political prisoner Akhtem Chiygoz.

If Mykola Karpyuk’s involvement in two nationalist organizations made him an obvious target for Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine, Klykh’s link to any nationalist group was fleeting and far in the past.  He was, however, Ukrainian and no more proved needed for a breathtakingly cynical ‘trial’ which disregarded not only alibis and evidence of torture, but even historical fact.

At a ceremony in St Petersburg on September 1 marking the beginning of the academic year for future ‘investigators’, a little girl solemnly promised Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee that she would shop her mother if that were required by her work

Solidarity events marking the 2nd anniversary of the sentences passed on Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko are important to ensure that the two political prisoners, are not forgotten, but also to ensure that the role played by the three judges in sentencing two innocent men to 20 and 10-year sentences is also remembered

Oleksandr Kolchenko is one of at least 45 people illegally held prisoner in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea. He and Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov need our letters of support, and our advocacy with politicians and the media to ensure international pressure on Russia to release them.

Nuri Primov, who turned 41 on July 31, is one of the ‘Sevastopol 4’, the first four Ukrainian Muslims to have been arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea for unproven involvement in the peaceful Hizb ut-Tahrir organization which is legal in Ukraine.

The sentence is awaited of Akhtem Chiygoz, Deputy Head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis and recognized political prisoner. He and other Crimean Tatars are on trial, as Chiygoz said in his final address, for upholding the law and for defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity, with Russia’s prosecution carried out by people who themselves turned traitors..

The de facto prosecutor in Russian-occupied Crimea has demanded an 8-year sentence for Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz in a ‘trial’ that breaches even Russian law and which has openly targeted only Crimean Tatars.  This has been recognized as a political trial from the outset, and Russia is clearly hoping to get Chiygoz convicted during August when many people are on holiday in the hope of attracting less publicity.

After three attempts. Russia’s FSB has obtained almost the 17-year sentence it demanded against Ruslan Zeytullaev, a 32-year-old father of three and recognized political prisoner.

Crimean Tatar Rustem Vaitov, who turned 31 on July 28, is one of the first four Ukrainian Muslims to have been arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea and later sentenced by a Russian court to five years or more for unproven ‘involvement’ in the peaceful Hizb ut-Tahrir organization which is legal in Ukraine. >

The imitation of a court trial in Russian-occupied Crimea of recognized political prisoner Akhtem Chiygoz is exposing highly incriminating details about Russia’s invasion for the International Criminal Court, and even more evidence of discrimination for the case already under consideration by the UN’s International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Ferat Saifullaev turns 34 on July 21, imprisoned in Russia, two and a half thousand kilometres from his wife and three children in Sevastopol, Crimea. He is one of the first four Ukrainian Muslims to have been arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea for unproven involvement in the peaceful Hizb ut-Tahrir organization which is legal in Ukraine.

Oleg Sentsov’s trial and 20-year sentence in August 2015 were condemned as ‘ideologically motivated terror”, and his release has been demanded from the outset by all international organizations and democratic states. The Kremlin’s repeated claim that Sentsov was given a fair trial and justly convicted of ‘terrorism’ are in stark conflict with the facts.

Crimean Tatars are for the fourth time facing bans and likely arrests on the 73rd anniversary of the Deportation in 1944 of the entire Crimean Tatar people from their homeland

February 23 marks the 73rd anniversary of the Deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples from their homeland

Please join in remembering the millions of men, women and children in Ukraine and Kuban who were starved to death during the man-made famine known as Holodomor 1932-1933.

A girl holds a lamp next to a monument with inscriptions of locations that suffered in the Holodomor famine, during a commemoration ceremony for the victims

It is surely a telling sign that monuments and posters of Joseph Stalin, one of the bloodiest dictators of the twentieth century, should be emerging in both Russian-occupied Crimea and areas of Donbas under Kremlin-backed militant control.