Nowhere is this seen more dramatically than in Ukrainian Crimea, invaded and annexed in early 2014.
Ilmi Umerov
Ilmi Umerov, deputy head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, a representative assembly, was on Aug. 18 forcibly taken from the cardiac unit where he was under observation to Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 in Simferopol. He is to be held there against his will for 28 days. His medication was taken away from him and initially even his lawyer was not allowed to see him, though visits have now been allowed.
His health is a matter of the gravest concern, with his daughter reporting on Aug. 24 that his blood pressure, blood sugar level and other readings are all disturbing. Umerov is diabetic and the clinic staff are ignoring pleas from family to at least enable him to have meals three times a day. The current situation where there is a 17-hour gap between his evening meal and breakfast / lunch is dangerous in his condition.
There are literally no grounds for the court order forcing the assessment since Umerov is facing prosecution for saying what all democratic countries have stated repeatedly since Russia invaded Crimea in February 2014, and then continued its military aggression in eastern Ukraine: Russia must be forced to leave Crimea and Donbas.
It is for saying this in a TV interview that Umerov has been charged with “public calls to action aimed at violating Russian territorial integrity,” which could result in a five-year prison sentence. It is correspondingly for those words that the 59-year-old Umerov, who is in ill health, is being forced to undergo ‘tests’ while effectively imprisoned in a psychiatric clinic.
Ahktem Chiygoz
The trial is continuing of Crimean Tatar Mejlis deputy head Akhtem Chiygoz, as well as of five other Crimean Tatars.
All are charged in connection with a pre-annexation demonstration on Feb. 26, 2014, over which Russia can have no jurisdiction. The prosecution is, in fact, in violation of Russia’s own criminal code, yet Chiygoz, Ali Asanov and Mustafa Degermendzhy have been in custody for well over a year and face long prison sentences.
There are no real charges. Even if the prosecution were legally possible, Chiygoz is accused of ‘organizing mass riots’, although all video evidence shows him and other Mejlis leaders working throughout the demonstration to calm protesters. The others are accused of “involvement,” with no clear indication of what this is supposed to mean.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) invited “witnesses” to come forward even if they had no proof of injuries, and thus assembled a number of pro-Russian demonstrators who can still not testify to anything, but that they allegedly got a bruise or two. In declaring Chiygoz, Asanov and
Degermendzhy political prisoners, the Memorial Human Rights Centre pointed to all the above, and stated that the testimony of most of these alleged ‘witnesses’ was more than suspect.
Since then, the occupation regime has split the trials, without any justification, and is preventing the defendants from attending their own ‘trials’ in person.
The fact that the lawyers cannot consult with their clients directly is probably designed to drag the trials out indefinitely, with three men, one of whom is the father of four small children thus imprisoned without trial.
More trials
Four Crimean Muslims are on trial in Rostov, Russia, and 10 others are in effectively indefinite custody in Crimea. All are charged with involvement in a pan-Islamist movement called Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is legal in Ukraine and virtually all countries. Russia has declared it a ‘terrorist’ organization without providing any justification, yet has for 13 years been sentencing Russian Muslims to huge sentences.
It has now brought this lawless practice to Crimea. There are strong grounds for believing that in at least some of the cases, men have been arrested for their human rights activists and generally their civic position. In the case of rights defender Emir-Huseyn Kuku, he may have been arrested after an attempt to abduct him went wrong.
Sentsov, other activists
Renowned Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko and Oleksiy Chirniy remain in Russia captivity serving long sentences for a supposed ‘terrorist plot’ in May 2014. They and Gennady Afanasyev, who was recently released, opposed Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
Sentsov and Kolchenko are serving huge sentences – 20 and 10 years, respectively, for their courage in refusing to provide the ‘confessions’ required.
Kostenko, Kolomiyets
Two former Euromaidan activists Oleksandr Kostenko and Andriy Kolomiyets were literally tried and convicted by Crimean “courts” under occupation on absurd and inherently unprovable charges relating to Euromaidan in Kyiv before Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
The message is chillingly clear: any Ukrainian should think very carefully about visiting Crimea (or Russia, where Kolomiyets was arrested).
Ervin Ibragimov
Most of the victims have been Crimean Tatar. Ervin Ibragimov, a 30-year-old Crimean Tatar activist and member of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars, was abducted on May 24, 2016 and has not been seen since. The behaviour of the de facto authorities was suspicious, while the attempts to deny his and other abductions by the de facto prosecutor and certain French MP collaborators an absolute disgrace.
The majority of Crimean Tatars, the main indigenous people of Crimea opposed Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. It is they who have suffered most since Russia’s invasion. That repression can only increase after the outlawing in April this year of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis.
West remains passive
As in Soviet times, those that the regime cannot crush, it removes.
Mustafa Dzhemiliev, 72, was just 6 months old when Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people. He spend 15 years in the Soviet labour camps for upholding human rights and the right of the Crimean Tatars to return home. He has been banned from entering Crimea for five years, as has the head of the Mejlis, Refat Chubarov.
Russia has moved to stifle all free press in occupied Crimea and is actively blocking internet sites from Ukraine. While Russia’s propaganda drive worldwide is different and much more insidious than the old Soviet style, in occupied Crimea the old version is actively promoted, including during visits by Putin’s favourite motorbike gang – the Night Wolves, one of the biggest recipients of state grants in Russia. It requires stamina, but the video of a concert in occupied Sevastopol a week ago should be viewed in its frightening Soviet entirety.
If it can be asserted that Russians allowed a former KGB officer to turn their country around, the situation in Crimea is different. Russia first invaded and occupied a part of Ukraine, and is now dragging it back into the worst Soviet days, with the West still simply watching passively.
Halya Coynash is a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
