The FSB in Russian-occupied Crimea has formally charged 54-year-old Crimean Tatar activist Suleyman Kadyrov with making a ‘public call to violate Russia’s territorial integrity’ ffor a Facebook repost, with the comment “Crimea is Ukraine”.  

There are now at least 60 Ukrainians whom Russia is imprisoning on politically motivated charges or for their faith in Russia or in occupied Crimea

A number of Crimean Tatars who on October 14 held single-person pickets in protest at mounting repression have been summoned to the police for questioning.  The summonses, like the detention of 49 Crimean Tatar picketers on Saturday, are in breach even of Russian legislation, and there are fears that Russia may try to concoct criminal prosecution of some supposed ‘organizer’. 

The ‘incriminating’ word used to convict Ilmi Umerov of so-called ‘public calls to violate Russia’s territorial integrity’ has been omitted from the sentence passed on the 60-year-old Crimean Tatar leader.  Correctly omitted, since he did not say it, however the omission makes the political nature of his two-year prison sentence even more glaringly obvious.

It is 110 years since the birth of Petro Grigorenko, Soviet General, founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, victim of punitive psychiatry and defender of the Crimean Tatar people. The anniversary is of acute poignancy at a time when Crimean Tatars are once again facing discrimination and persecution in their homeland under Russian occupation or in enforced exile.

Crimean Tatars have reacted to the new arrests on ‘terrorism’ charges of civic activists in Russian-occupied Crimea by holding single-person pickets with placards reading: “Crimean Tatars are not terrorists.  Give children their fathers back” and “Fabricating criminal cases – it’s this that’s TERROR”.  .

Six more Crimean Tatars have been arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea, charged with involvement in the peaceful Hizb ut-Tahrir organization which is legal in Ukraine.  The six include well-known civic activists, and the entire operation, including the mass detention of people who tried to stream or photograph the proceedings, seemed a cynical warning of what Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians should expect for not keeping their head low. 

Armed searches began early in the morning of October 11 in a number of Crimean Tatar homes in Bakhchysarai.  This was a clear attempt at intimidation, with the six Crimean Tatars primarily people who have taken a firm civic stand and demonstrated solidarity where others faced searches and arrests

The lawyer representing Crimean Tatar political prisoner Emir-Usein Kuku has used all legal avenues available in occupied Crimea and will now be asking the European Court of Human Rights to rule on Russia’s unwarranted use of closed court hearings.  Although Alexei Ladin’s application will be over this clear denial of Kuku’s rights, Strasbourg’s judgement is of immense importance to the ever-increasing number of Crimean political prisoners and their families who are prevented from seeing the men even in court

The European Parliament has demanded that Russia stop its persecution of Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians in occupied Crimea and called on the European Court of Human Rights to give priority status to applications from Crimeans seeking redress

There are over forty Crimean political prisoners in Russian-occupied Crimea or Russia, and that figure is rising. Access to information and contact with them is limited, with Russia clearly hoping that people will forget about them. A letter just received from Yevhen Panov makes it quite clear how much our letters mean to the imprisoned men

Three Crimean Tatars have been remanded in custody and a fourth placed under house arrest in a new chilling offensive in Russian-occupied Crimea which has prompted Said Ismagilov, Head of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Ukraine to ask if the occupiers “hunt Muslims in Crimea like on safari”.

The High Court in Russian-occupied Crimea has balked at the scale of falsification in the conviction and 3.7 year sentence passed on Ukrainian activist Volodymyr Balukh and ordered a retrial.  46-year-old Balukh, however, remains in custody ten months after his arrest on openly fabricated charges

Prevented by international scrutiny from using physical force against Ukrainian filmmaker and Kremlin hostage, Oleg Sentsov, Russia is resorting to other forms of reprisals. 

Plausibility has never been taken into consideration in Russia’s arrests and ‘trials’ in occupied Crimea, but the latest two arrests are still a new precedent.  The FSB is, in all seriousness, claiming that a former Ukrainian soldier who ostentatiously betrayed his oath of allegiance to Ukraine was spying for the latter. 

There has been widespread condemnation of Russia’s two-year prison sentence on Crimean Tatar leader lmi Umerov “for voicing dissent against the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula”. The most poignant was from Roman Sushchenko, the Ukrainian journalist seized by the Russian FSB almost exactly a year ago

In a shock move on September 27, a Russian-controlled ‘court’ in Crimea sentenced 60-year-old Ilmi Umerov, who has multiple serious illnesses, to two years’ imprisonment. Given the suspended sentence of journalist Mykola Semena on analogous charges just one week ago, the conclusion seems clear that the harsher sentence in this case is because Ilmi Umerov is Crimean Tatar

After putting Ruslan Zeytullaev through three ‘trials’ to get the huge sentence needed for FSB paperwork, Russia has now sent the Crimean Tatar political prisoner two and a half thousand kilometres from his wife and three small daughters.   

A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has passed a two and a half year suspended sentence on Ukrainian journalist Mykola Semena for expressing his opposition to Russia’s occupation of Crimea.  It was thus found that an opinion piece written by Semena contained ‘public calls to action aimed at violating Russia’s territorial integrity’.  His position expressed in the article fully coincided with that expressed by the UN General Assembly, EU, OSCE, and all democratic countries, as well as with that in a number of international treaties which Russia has ratified.

Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov has ended his final address (translated here) to a de facto court under Russian occupation by suggesting that they will all meet again at the international courts at the Hague and these are no empty words