A second ‘judge’ in Russian-occupied Crimea has sentenced Volodymyr Balukh to three years and seven months’ imprisonment on overtly falsified charges after an identical sentence had to be revoked. The second ‘trial’ was just as flawed as the first, leaving no doubt that Balukh is being persecuted for the Ukrainian flag he continued to fly over his home after Russia’s invasion and for his unwavering opposition to Russian occupation.

Mustafa Dzhemilev says that the armed searches that Russia’s FSB carry out now in occupied Crimea are far worse than those of their Soviet predecessors. This is not the first time that the veteran Crimean Tatar leader who spent 15 years in the Soviet political labour camps, has pointed to a level of lawlessness under Russian occupation which goes beyond that of the Soviet totalitarian regime

Russia is continuing to violate international law by conscripting young Crimeans into the army of an occupying state, and prosecuting those who refuse to do military service.  Conscription is also forming part of Russia’s mounting persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

There are compelling grounds for fearing that Russia’s so-called ‘restoration work’ on the world-renowned Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai could forever destroy this vital monument of Crimean Tatar cultural heritage.  While Russia is denying the accusations, photos smuggled out of the site are alarming, as is the lack of any experience in restoration work of the construction company and Moscow architectural firm commissioned to carry out the work.

Ukrainian political prisoner Vadim Siruk has been beaten up by Russian OMON police just a week after lawyers received reports that he and human rights activist Emir-Usein Kuku had been subjected to torture. Siruk, Kuku and four other Crimean Muslims are being taken ‘for trial’ to Rostov in Russia, with such journeys often used as a way of putting pressure on prisoners. 

The scale of repression and the number of political prisoners rose massively in 2017 and 100 children are now growing up without their fathers. Many were present when armed and masked men burst in to their homes and are deeply scarred by experiences no child should go through

Kabir Mohammad, a Ukrainian citizen originally from Afghanistan, was held prisoner in Russian-occupied Crimea for a year because a person with a different name but same country of origin was on Interpol’s wanted list. He remains a hostage to this insane situation with his life now placed in grave danger.

For FSB officers in Russian-occupied Crimea, armed searches, arrests and imprisonment of Ukrainian Muslims are the road to career success.  According to human rights expert, Vitaly Ponomaryov, Russia has used anti-extremism legislation to launch “a conveyor belt of political repression where you can be sentenced on the basis of spurious cases which have little in common with reality”.

A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has passed a 2-year suspended sentence on 54-year-old Larisa Kitaiska, a businesswoman and former Maidan activist, over supposed ‘Russophobic’ posts on Facebook .

Moscow is holding over 60 Ukrainian political prisoners in occupied Crimea and Russia, with many. like Oleg Sentsov and Ruslan Zeytullaev, held thousands of kilometres from their children.  Every letter sent to them is “a breath of freedom”, civic activists stress.  It is also an important message to the Kremlin that the men are not forgotten, with this having very direct impact on their treatment.

An exiled member of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis [representative assembly] has issued an angry statement after his elderly parents became the latest target of the FSB in Russian-occupied Crimea.  The summoning of Eskender Bariev’s 84-year-old father, 79-year-old mother and other close relatives for interrogation comes less than a month after an extraordinary attempt to arrest 83-year-old Vedzhie Kashka led to the death of that internationally renowned veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement

The ‘trial’ has begun in Russian-occupied Crimea of Suleyman Kadyrov who is facing a possible 5-year sentence for a Facebook comment stating that Crimea is Ukraine – just like Russian presidential candidate Ksenya Sobchak who has spoken out in Kadyrov’s defence

The UN General Assembly has passed a vital resolution on the human rights situation in Crimea which recognizes that Russia’s illegal occupation is an international armed conflict and gives victims of abuse wider scope to defend their rights.  Ukrainian human rights organizations played a major role in drawing up the document which refers to binding international law and covers abuse that had previously received too little attention.

The High Court in Russian-occupied Crimea has upheld the two and a half year suspended sentence passed on 67-year-old Ukrainian journalist Mykola Semena for expressing the position of the UN, EU, Council of Europe and international community regarding Russia’s occupation of Crimea.

By the end of a wave of new repressive prosecutions, Russia will have extorted close on one million roubles from up to 86 Crimean Tatars whose protests were in full compliance with the occupying state’s draconian anti-protest legislation.

An appeal written by Vedzhie Kashka over forty years ago was made public * two weeks after Russia’s attempt to arrest the 83-year-old veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement caused her death.  Her questions back in 1974 as to why the Soviet authorities were trying to drive her family out of Crimea seem bitterly relevant to the present situation where Crimean Tatars are once again under attack. 

Since its seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Russia has used a statute criminalizing public calls for separatism to jail at least a half dozen people for criticizing that land grab. It appears presidential hopeful Ksenia Sobchak, who has voiced similar dissent, won’t be added to that list.

After causing the death of 83-year-old veteran Crimean Tatar activist Vedzhie Kashka, Russia is endangering the life of 57-year-old Bekir Degermendzhy, arrested as part of a particularly cynical FSB attempt to discredit the Crimean Tatar Mejlis.

Crimean Tatar leaders, the sister of Russia’s youngest Ukrainian political prisoner and prominent Ukrainian human rights organizations have warned the Council of Europe against compromising its own values by giving in to pressure from Russia. There can be no grounds for reinstating Russia’s voting rights within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] while Russia continues its occupation of Crimea, military aggression in Donbas and escalating human rights abuse

Rustem Osmanov, an activist from the civic initiative Crimea Solidarity, was taken from his home by unidentified men without insignia on Monday morning.  In comparison with at least three activists who are facing huge sentences for showing solidarity with political prisoners in Russian-occupied Crimea and their families, Osmanov was ‘lucky’ in merely being fined 10 thousand roubles on trumped up charges