Russia has formally begun the procedure of banning the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People citing as formal grounds the law on countering ‘extremism’, while claiming, in Soviet style, that this is because of requests from Crimean Tatar organizations.

The European Parliament’s resolution on the human rights situation in Crimea was important also as the first time a major international democratic body has explicitly acknowledged Crimean Tatars as ’indigenous people of Crimea’.

Men claiming to be from the Russian Migration Service have appeared at the home near Feodosiya of Mustafa Dzhemiliev’s daughter and tried to take her son Erol Abdulzhelilov away.

Almost two years after Russia banned world-renowned Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev from his native Crimea, a court in Simferopol has ordered his arrest, claiming that he "is hiding from the investigators"

A ‘trial’ is about to begin in Russian-occupied Crimea which flies in the face of all principles of law and which is openly targeting Crimean Tatars.

The FSB, or Russian Security Service, in Russian-occupied Crimea have tried to force a Crimean Tatar to collaborate with them using not only threats against the man’s wife and children, but also physical torture.

All of Russia’s Crimean victims have had to confront varying forms of lawlessness, but none demonstrates contempt for the law quite so flagrantly as the criminal proceedings against Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz and other Crimean Tatars.

Since the case underway in Russian-occupied Crimea is in breach of Russian law, the prosecution has opted for an easier option: detention without trial. Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz was first arrested on Jan 29, 2015, and a court in Simferopol has just extended his detention until Jan 29, 2016. The same court extended the detention of two other Crimean Tatars – Ali Asanov and Mustafa Degermendzhy – for three months

In what veteran Crimean Tatar leader and Ukrainian MP Mustafa Dzhemiliev calls « the first step towards restoring justice », Ukraine’s parliament has declared the 1944 Deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar People from Crimea to have been genocide.

There are strong grounds for believing that both Mustafa Degermendzhy and Ali Asanov remain in detention on legally grotesque charges because they have refused to give false testimony against Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz.

Three Ukrainian citizens are in detention in Russian-occupied Crimea in a legally absurd prosecution which is openly targeting only Crimean Tatars. The prosecution over participation in a pre-annexation demonstration has resulted in constant searches, interrogations, and detentions - always of Crimean Tatars.

So if the Crimean Blockade is ineffectual, why the armed searches against yet another of its organizers? Why did FSB men in masks, brandishing machine guns, turn up at the home of Lilya Budzhurova, former director of the silenced Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR, terrifying her 83-year-old mother and 8-year-old granddaughter?

To discredit Cemilev’s reputation and the Crimean Tatar leadership’s nonviolent conflict resolution strategies, pro-Russian media invents these types of rumors to construct a space for a directed disinformation campaign

Russia’s Civic Chamber has publicly asked the Prosecutor General to investigate the Mejlis, or Crimean Tatar representative assembly for so-called ‘extremism’. This new move follows a similar threat made a month ago and ‘advice’ to the Crimean media not to mention it at all

A memorial plaque in memory of the Victims of the 1944 Deportation in the settlement of Koreiz has been vandalized.

The first sentence has been passed in a criminal prosecution over a pre-annexation demonstration that Russian-occupied Crimea had no right to initiate and which is overtly directed against Crimean Tatars. In a particularly nasty twist, the court claimed that Eskender Nebiyev had not only admitted ‘guilt’, but had also testified against Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz. The claims have been rejected as "cynical provocation".

Eskender Nebiyev, a cameraman for the independent Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR, has been taken into custody again on absurd charges relating to a pre-annexation demonstration in Crimea on Feb 26, 2014. The occupation regime is holding Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz and two other Crimean Tatars in custody over a protest they have no jurisdiction over

The de facto authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea have publicly claimed via Russia’s official RIA Novosti that Mustafa Dzhemilev and other leaders are recruiting Crimean Tatars to become Islamic State fighters. The allegations are especially ominous given Russia’s current military involvement in Syria which Moscow asserts, in the face of considerable evidence, is directed against the Islamic State.

One Crimean Tatar leader is currently imprisoned in Russian-occupied Crimea, but his fate could be shared by all others, as well as any Ukrainian national opposing Russia’s annexation, according to the argument put by Natalya Poklonskaya, the occupation regime’s de facto prosecutor.

The Mejlis, or Crimean Tatar representative assembly could face a ban, making it illegal in the Russian Federation and Russian-occupied Crimea. The threat comes just days after the media in Crimea was informed that the Mejlis does not legally exist and “strongly advised” not to give it any coverage. And after an attempt to have a prominent Crimean Tatar figure taken into custody on spurious charges.