On Dec 27, Russia’s Supreme Court allowed the prosecutor’s appeal against Ruslan Zeitullayev’s 7-year sentence (as opposed to the 17-year sentence demanded) and sent the ‘case’ for retrial. The Court rejected the appeals brought by Ferat Saifullayev; Rustem Vaitov and Nuri Primov against their 5-year sentences.

Nedim Khalilov began his hunger strike on Nov 24, in protest at being forcibly ’deported’ from his homeland 9 months after the Crimean Tatar lodged a law suit against Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading and occupying Crimea.

Seven months after Ervin Ibragimov’s abduction from near his home in Russian-occupied Crimea, there is nothing to suggest that the de facto authorities are trying to find him. Instead, they have men following the Crimean Tatar activist’s parents. Ervin Ibragimov had reported such surveillance just before he was abducted.

At least one of the Crimean Muslims facing fabricated ‘terrorism’ charges under Russian occupation has reported being tortured and threatened when brought to court hearings and a lawyer reports that FSB special force officers are present and used as a menacing threat when the men are taken to see the investigator.

Russia appears to be concocting yet another criminal prosecution against 59-year-old Crimean Tatar Mejlis leader Ilmi Umerov over statements expressing the same position on Russia’s occupation of Crimea as that set out in resolutions from the UN General Assembly, Council of Europe and all democratic countries

Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld the 5-year ban imposed shortly after Russia invaded Crimea preventing Mustafa Dzhemiliev from entering his homeland

As well as openly calling Russia’s behaviour occupation, the General Assembly’s resolution is important in identifying the grave rights violations under Russian occupation and demands the release of all unlawfully held Ukrainian citizens.

If, as US intelligence believes, Russia interfered in the US elections to get Donald Trump elected, it is certainly being rewarded for its efforts and expense

It was not enough that the only person punished after Ihor Movenko was brutally attacked was the Ukrainian himself, not his assailant. Now Movenko has been arrested and beaten, this time by the FSB to force him to ‘confess’ to extremism.

A new twist has been reported in the story of Siemens gas turbines which could be used to deliver the turbines to Russian-occupied Crimea without Germany’s Siemens openly bypassing EU sanctions. A check is urgently needed since the scam suggested would cast a shadow over Siemens and demonstrate serious failings in sanction controls.

Two Ukrainians seized by Russia’s FSB and accused of a ‘Crimean sabotage’ plot have lodged formal complaints with Russia’s Investigative Committee. Both allege savage forms of torture applied by the FSB to extract ‘confessions’ and demand proper investigations

A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has ordered that Nikolai Polozov be interrogated as a witness in the prosecution of Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov, giving the FSB grounds to demand his removal from the case.

An OSCE representative should certainly treat Crimea and areas under the control of Kremlin-backed militants as Ukraine, but ignoring Russia’s culpability for flagrant rights violations leads to serious distortion of the facts. This is just one of the concerns about the report by Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Media Freedom.

A special charitable action took place in Kyiv on Dec 11 to raise money and awareness of the youngest victims of Russia’s mounting repression in occupied Crimea.

Emir-Huseyn Kuku, a human rights activist imprisoned in Russian-occupied Crimea on gravely flawed charges has been placed in a psychiatric clinic. This is purportedly for a ‘psychiatric assessment’, but the lack of any grounds and forced hospitalization make charges of punitive psychiatry in his case and that of five other prisoners arrested with him warranted.

Crimean activist Volodymyr Balukh has been arrested by the Russian FSB just 10 days after he hung a plaque on his home in memory of the people killed during Euromaidan.

The FSB’s new Crimean ‘plots’, in their use of torture, televised ‘confessions’ and grandiose claims, bear an eerie similarity to the first Crimean arrests in May 2014 of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and other opponents of Russia’s occupation, but there are some key differences

Russia is extending repressive measures in occupied Crimea to target those who dare ask why when their compatriots are facing persecution

Not satisfied with imprisoning Crimean Tatars on absurd charges regarding a pre-annexation demonstration over which Russia has no jurisdiction, the occupying state is increasingly applying methods of intimidation and repression against prisoners’ families.

57-year-old Nedim Khalilov has declared a hunger strike after Russia ‘deported’ him from illegally annexed Crimea. He says that he will risk his life to fight for his right to live in his homeland as a Crimean Tatar, and not be deported as though a foreign citizen