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.

Human rights monitors in the Siberian city of Irkutsk have reported finding Crimean filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov held in the Irkutsk SIZO or remand prison. It appears he was moved from Yakutia a week ago, with Sentsov himself given no explanation as to why.

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.

 “You have no rights” is what the mother of a young Crimean Tatar woman was told when Russian enforcement officers arrived to search their home.  This, it was claimed, was because the young woman, Zarema* from Bakhchysarai had “behaved badly to the Russian-speaking population”.

The cynical torment of 57-year-old Nedim Khalilov is almost certainly retaliation for his attempt to bring legal proceedings against Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.

Leonid Kuzmin, the head of the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Crimea has become the latest Ukrainian activist to be forced out of Russian-occupied Crimea after receiving both death threats and warnings that he could end up imprisoned

The Russian occupation regime has totally blocked the Cathedral of Vladimir and Olga, the main Cathedral of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Kyiv Patriarchate in Simferopol.  During the seizure on Thursday morning, masked men used force against Archbishop Kliment, injuring his arm.

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.

18 Jehovah’s Witness communities in Russian-occupied Crimea have just been formally banned as supposedly ‘extremist organizations’. This means that members could now face criminal charges for activities linked with their worship. They will not be the only Ukrainians put on trial for their faith since Russia’s invasion of Crimea

It seems a three and a half year sentence against Volodymyr Balukh for his Ukrainian flag in Russian-occupied Crimea was not enough. He is now facing new criminal proceedings brought after he complained about anti-Ukrainian abuse and physical violence from the head of the Razdolne detention centre Captain Valery Tkachenko

The main Russian bank working in Russian-occupied Crimea and one other have been informed that the company providing their connection to the SWIFT network will terminate its services from 31 August.. This is a welcome move and one that can surely be used to put pressure on SWIFT to disconnect other Russian banks implicated in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

There is no proof that Oleksiy Stohniy was tortured by the FSB in November 2016, yet how else do you explain why he ‘confessed’ to being part of a Ukrainian Crimea sabotage plot for Russia state television and the fact that he has now been convicted of something else altogether?

‘Only’ two Ukrainian activists were detained in Russian-occupied Crimea on Ukraine’s Independence Day. That, however, was probably because most Ukrainians celebrated the day with family and friends. As one Ukrainian put it, coming out to any kind of event could cost you your liberty.

Ukraine marked National Flag Day on August 23, remembering Volodymyr Rybak who was tortured and murdered for his defence of the Flag, and with at least three Ukrainians imprisoned in Russian-occupied Crimea or by the Russian-backed militants in Donbas for the same reason

Four men remain imprisoned a year after Russia tried to convince the world that they were part of a Ukrainian military plot to ‘encroach’ upon Ukraine’s own territory. The trial of two has nothing to do with their confessions, and pressure against a third to now ‘admit guilt’ cannot negate his and the fourth man’s detailed accounts of torture and denials of the entire nonsensical ‘plot’

62-year-old Fazil Ibraimov, who suffers from diabetes, has been jailed for five days in Russian-occupied Crimea, after attempting to speak out against building plans which are likely to deprive him and many other Crimean Tatars of their homes. 

The authoritative Moscow Guild of Linguists has totally demolished an FSB-commissioned ’linguistic assessment’ used to back extraordinary ‘separatism’ charges against Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov

The typically heavy-handed measures on August 20 still failed to prevent a hard-hitting resolution warning of grave infringements of Crimean Tatar rights

Ruslan Zeytullaev has, fortunately, ended the hunger strike declared in protest at his increased sentence and the persecution of the Crimean Tatar people, but for a worrying reason.  The 31-year-old Crimean Tatar, whose release has been demanded by European bodies as well as human rights NGO’s is being sent thousands of kilometres from his wife, three small children and elderly mother.