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. >

Almost a year after Russia’s FSB produced videos on which Crimean Tatar Redvan Suleymanov and three other Ukrainians separately ‘confessed’ to taking part in a ‘Crimean sabotage’ plot organized by Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, one of the men has been convicted of something else altogether, and the ongoing trial of Suleymanov also bares scarcely any resemblance to the original ‘plot’

Representatives of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis have lodged a formal application asking for a review of Russia’s ban of this self-governing body of the main indigenous people of Crimea which the UN International Court of Justice has agreed is discriminatory

A Russian Supreme Court appeal hearing in Moscow on July 27 could result in an innocent Ukrainian being sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment and it is of critical appearance that journalists and human rights organizations attend. .

Crimean journalist Alexei Nazimov, who has been in detention since October 2016 on questionable and suspiciously fluid charges, has reported being beaten and subjected to other forms of gross ill-treatment from convoy guards taking him to and from the court.

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.

A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has sentenced Emil Minasov to one year and three months’ imprisonment for supposed ‘incitement to enmity’ on Facebook. This appears to be how the FSB – and judge Anna Klimova – chose to view posts or reposts critical of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Germany’s Siemens Company was unperturbed that it was sending hugely expensive gas turbines to equip a non-existent Russian power plant. It only ‘noticed’ that the turbines had appeared in Russian-occupied Crimea after they were reported by the media and has since claimed, with minimum credibility, to be shocked and indignant

At least one of the mistakes in the faulty translation of Ilmi Umerov’s interview in Crimean Tatar was almost certainly a deliberate distortion to enable charges under Article 280.1, the 2014 addition to the criminal code increasingly used against critics of Russia’s occupation of Crimea

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.

After invading Crimea and faking a ‘referendum’ on ‘joining’ Russia, Moscow is applying strictly selective Russification in its persecution of Ukrainians

A Simferopol court under Russian occupation has fined Bilyal Adilov 10 thousand roubles in the latest move against civic activists coming out in peaceful solidarity with neighbours or other Crimean Tatars facing armed searches and arrest

Russia’s security service [FSB] has clearly become accustomed to using a combination of puppet ‘lawyers’ and torture to obtain ‘confessions’ before most of its extremism cases hit the court. This is not working in Crimea under Russian occupation, with defendants like journalist Mykola Semena, Crimean Tatar leaders Ilmi Umerov, Akhtem Chiygoz and their defence lawyers pointing to staggering depths of shoddy incompetence.

Human rights activist Emir-Usein Kuku has been held in custody in Russian-occupied Crimea for almost 18 months, and has not been allowed even one visit from his wife. If in the first months after Kuku and five other Ukrainian Muslims, all but one Crimean Tatar, were arrested, their wives and children might hope to see them during detention hearings, even this has now ended

With Russia having first invaded Crimea, then set to putting those who object on trial for ‘separatism’, the ‘acquittal’ of Crimean Tatar Mejlis leader Ilmi Umerov seems most improbable. Moscow will surely find ‘judges’ ready to provide the required sentence. What it cannot achieve is any passable imitation of a trial, with this becoming clearer with every court hearing.

Crimean Tatars have categorically rejected a proposal to establish a new ‘cheerful’ festival, ‘Avdet Kunyu’ or Day of the Return to Crimea and see it as an idea coming from "those who are depriving us of our Liberty, our Homeland and national identity"

Ferat Saifullaev will be turning 34 on July 21, his third birthday in detention for his religious beliefs and political views. Please write to him, show him and Moscow that he is not forgotten!

It is a son’s duty to lay his mother to rest. Russia had allowed Crimean Tatar political prisoner Akhtem Chiygoz to see his dying mother for just ten minutes two weeks ago, and it has now prevented him from attending her funeral

Elderly people and mothers with children were among those detained in Russian-occupied Simferopol on June 26 at a totally peaceful protest at plans to ‘nationalize’ the Salute Children’s Camp.