Human rights take a hit in Crimea
Thousands of Crimeans have been forced to leave their homes to escape the repressive occupation government and military units, prompting the peninsula’s citizens and human rights activists to speak out about ongoing repression.
According to local residents, Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian language speakers are the main targets of the so-called Crimean Self-Defence, a voluntary union of Crimean citizens, formed by occupation authorities.
Those who complain against the occupation authority or protest its activity risk criminal charges, Abmedzhit Suleymanov, one of the co-ordinators of the Committee on the Crimean Tatars Rights Protection, told SETimes.
“They [occupation authorities] began to press and intimidate from the very beginning,” Sinaver Kadyrov, of the Committee on the Crimean Tatars Rights Protection, told SETimes. “There was no period where people disappeared one week and then there was a lull. No, the first people disappeared in March and they were found dead. Then people disappeared in September, and so on, the trend has never stopped.”
Elina, 30, of Simferopol, who asked that her surname not be published for security reasons, holds a poster painted by a Crimean child: “Country cannot be broken. It is the law. Therefore Crimea is Ukraine.” [Ruslan Sharipov/SETimes]
People sing the Ukrainian anthem during the “Crimea is Ukraine” demonstration on February 28th in Kyiv. [Ruslan Sharipov/SETimes]
Crimean Tatar activists suffer most because they have opposed the new regime since Russia first annexed the territory. Human rights activists cite cases of discrimination, kidnapping and ongoing searches of Crimean Tatar homes conducted by local authorities.
“Crimean Tatars didn’t accept the situation and the arrival of Russia, and opposed the Russian invaders and did not participate in the referendum and elections [organised by the local government],” Kadyrov said.
News conferences on human rights protection organised by Suleymanov and Kadyrov in Simferopol were disrupted. In January, a court expelled Kadyrov from Crimea for violating the new authority’s passport regime — he did not apply for Russian citizenship and still has only a Ukrainian passport.
“I assume that there were many others who did not apply for Russian passports in Crimea. Now they [occupation authorities] will probably tighten regulations [for these people], imposing some limitations on medication, through healthcare and workplaces,” Kadyrov said.
Kadyrov now lives in Kyiv and is not planning to go back to Crimea because the occupation authorities opened a criminal case against him. He is accused of an assault on the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
According to civil activists, about 10,000 out of 300,000 Crimean Tatars have left the peninsula since the beginning of the occupation and moved to Kyiv and Lviv.
“There was a very big wave of those who decided to leave in the early days of the occupation. But I think that the number is even higher than 10,000,” Kadyrov said. Human rights activists call Crimea a “zone without legal mechanisms,” as people whose rights are violated on the peninsula are not able to defend themselves.
“There is no legal mechanism in Crimea,” Skrypnyk said. “In terms of normal laws, there is no legal system — because if we talk about a legal system it is necessary for there to be remedies so that people have legitimate ways to protect themselves.”
As a result, residents in Crimea are afraid to speak openly about human rights’ violations.
Elina, 30, of Simferopol, who asked that her surname not be published for security reasons, said that recently secret services began to interfere in the lives of ordinary Crimeans.
“Telephone conversations are tapped,” Elina told SETimes. “One of my friends in Crimea was summoned by the FSB [The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] and held in their office for six hours because of her ‘honest’ phone conversation with her relatives in Ukraine, where she was talking about real situation in Crimea.”
She said the main targets in Crimea are Tatars and Ukrainian language speakers.
“Ukrainian language is very much oppressed in Crimea,” Elina said. “For example, the director of the Ukrainian school in Simferopol was fired and since then everything is being done to discourage people from learning the Ukrainian language.”
Olha Skrypnyk, deputy head of the Crimean Field Mission on Human Rights, which monitors human rights issues in Crimea, said there are two systems on the peninsula providing repressive measures.
“The first system responsible for repression uses legal means and it is done through the prosecutors, courts, and their preconceived decisions,” Skrypnyk told SETimes. “The second system uses so-called non-legal means: intimidations, kidnappings, and the presence of Crimean Self-Defence.”
The Crimean Self-Defence group appeared on the peninsula last year when Russian forces began the occupation. Since then, the organisation has repeatedly been at the epicentre of scandals involving kidnapping and extortion.
Human rights activists said they don’t expect the situation to improve under the occupation government because human rights’ violators are connected with local authorities. Suleymanov said Crimean Self-Defence responds directly to the occupation authorities, including Sergey Aksyonov, head of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea. “Aksenov’s Self-Defence is a union of former criminals and racketeers,” Suleymanov said.
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