The world’s attention keeps slipping off what’s happening on the Crimean peninsula, seized by Russian forces in a military invasion in 2014, only days after the EuroMaidan Revolution toppled Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.
But a bit of the spotlight came with the publication of the United Nations Secretary General’s report on July 3 on the situation. It makes for grim reading.
There are 94 Ukrainian political prisoners jailed in Russia or by Russian authorities in Crimea. Their only crime, in most cases, was to oppose the illegal takeover by Russia — usually charged as “separatism” or “terrorism.”
Singled out for special persecution are members of the Crimean Tatar community, who numbered 250,000 — perhaps up to 12% of the pre‑2014 population of 2 million people. They account for 71 of the 94 political prisoners — a modern-day Kremlin succession of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s mistreatment of them.
As expected, prison conditions are terrible, threatening those in confinement not only with unjust imprisonment but also a greater risk of contracting COVID‑19 in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Credible reports of beatings and torture are received. Medical care is weak. Legal representation and public trials are lacking.
All of these assaults on human rights have a purpose: Kill any dissent to Russia’s claim of ownership.
Meanwhile, life marches on and people, sadly, forget and forgive. Another French delegation of parliamentarians visited Crimea, in violation of an international boycott and trade sanctions. Russia started using freight trains over the Kerch Strait Bridge. Militarization of the peninsula accelerates. A rigged referendum would prevent Russia from returning Crimea to another nation. Russification continues.
It’s amazing what the report was able to document despite the lack of access to Crimea for human rights monitors and independent journalists.
Fortunately, there are voices that deserve to be supported. Halya Coynash of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, for instance, regularly writes about human rights violations in Crimea.
The Human Rights House Foundation based in Oslo, Norway, hosted a webinar on July 2 (watch it here), moderated by Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner, to discuss the UN findings.
A leading panel of experts included:
• Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine;
• Lilia Hemedzhy, a Crimean human rights lawyer of Server Mustafayev (the coordinator of Crimean Solidarity, currently in detention) who spoke from Crimea;• Mykola Semena, an exiled Crimean journalist, subjected to politically motivated criminal persecution, author of Crimea.Realities (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty);
• Olga Skrypnyk, chairperson of the Board of the Crimean Human Rights Group.
The United Nations will deliver another report on human rights abuses in Crimea in autumn. But there’s no need to wait for the international community to act.
Russia under Vladimir Putin should be treated as a rogue nation, with the toughest possible economic sanctions and political isolation.
The Kremlin has committed war crimes and murders in Syria, in Crimea and in the eastern Donbas. They’ve killed dissidents abroad. They’ve interfered with democracies and tried to wreck elections.
The Kremlin gets away with it all by corrupting politicians, from Donald Trump to visiting French parliamentarians. Russia works its evil ways in Ukraine through such minions as Viktor Medvedchuk, Yuriy Boiko and the exiled Dmytro Firtash. To win, democratic forces need to unite, take action and understand they are stronger than their foes.
