Crimea and Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine: new challenges in the field of human rights

Crimea has been occupied by Russia for eight years already. For all these years, human rights defenders and representatives of the indigenous people of Crimea have been talking about how Russia violates human rights on the temporarily occupied peninsula and uses the "Crimean model" of repression in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Journalist: Andriana Velyanyk

In the temporarily occupied Crimea, the practice of mass enforced disappearances has returned for the first time in the past few years. The head of the ZMINA Center for Human Rights Tetyana Pechonchyk reported that Yaroslav Zhuk, Iryna Horobtsova, Serhiy Tsygipa, Ivan Kozlov, Mykola Petrovskyi, Maria Garcia-Kalatayut, Ruslan Abdurakhmanov, and Abaz Kurtamet disappeared in this way.

The head of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, Eskender Bariev, said that at least 279 cases of forced abductions were recorded in the occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions during the full-scale war, 86 of them involving Crimean Tatars.

According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, during the period of the temporary occupation of Crimea, 266 people were political prisoners and prosecuted in criminal cases, 189 of them were representatives of the Crimean Tatar people. 155 people in the temporarily occupied Crimea are still in detention, 115 of them are representatives of the indigenous people of Crimea, including the first deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Nariman Dzhelal.

Tetyana Pechonchyk reports that during the full-scale war, the pressure on independent lawyers and journalists increased. In May of this year, the Russians detained four Crimean Tatar lawyers, fined them and sentenced them to administrative arrest. These are Edem Semedlyaev, Nazim Sheikhmambetov, Ayder Azamatov and Emine Avamilyeva. Three more lawyers were deprived of their licenses and the ability to continue practicing law: Lilia Gemedzha, Rustem Kyamilev and Nazim Sheikhmambetov.

At least 14 citizen journalists are now political prisoners and are in detention in temporarily occupied Crimea. Iryna Danylovych and Vilen Temeryanov were imprisoned after the start of the full-scale war.

Valentina Potapova, the head of the "Almenda" Civic Education Center, said that in eight years Russia built the "Crimean model" of cultural genocide against children in the temporarily occupied territories.

Russia is trying to implement the "Crimean scenario" in the temporarily occupied territories of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Due to the imposition of Russian identity, Ukrainian books are removed from schools and libraries, and Russian books with a politically correct interpretation of history are imported instead. The administration and teachers of educational institutions are forced to switch to Russian standards by various methods, including intimidation, threats and kidnapping.

The Crimean scenario of influence on children through education in the conditions of a full-scale invasion is reinforced by the fact that parents are deprived of the right to distance Ukrainian education and home education. The temporary occupation "authority" in the Zaporizhzhia region threatens to deprive residents whose children will not attend school of their parental rights.

Kateryna Ryshevska, a lawyer at the Regional Center for Human Rights, reported that more than 2 million Ukrainian citizens were forcibly deported to Russia, including more than 300,000 children. The Russians are trying to increase the number of so-called "internally displaced persons" from the temporarily occupied Crimea. Now their number reaches 60-110 thousand people.

"The number of Ukrainian children illegally taken to the Russian Federation and adopted by Russians has reached 309 people. This number will increase, as the Russian Federation implements relevant changes in its legislation. Even the Russian ombudsman for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, admitted that she herself adopted a boy from Mariupol," says Ryshevska.

Valentina Potapova said that about 2,500 children from the frontline areas were sent to the temporarily occupied Crimea and Russia. The Russians plan to deport another 4,000 children.

Kateryna Ryshevska notes that over the past eight years at least 500,000 Russians have moved to the temporarily occupied Crimea. Among them are many military personnel, law enforcement officers and judges. Russians continue to move even after the start of full-scale war on February 24. At least 11 Russian judges moved to the peninsula during February-September of this year.

After the beginning of the so-called "partial mobilization" on September 21, summonses began to be served en masse to the representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.

Eskender Bariev reported that there were recorded cases when Crimeans of conscription age were massively and forcibly delivered to the occupation military commissars of the Russian Federation. The analysis of the data on the mobilization of the residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea shows that in the lists of mobilized citizens, the number of Crimean Tatars significantly exceeds their proportional representation.

From September 21 to October 13, about a hundred mobilized representatives of the Crimean Tatar people died. The vast majority of them did not sign contracts with the Russian army and ended up in the war zone against their will.

In Crimea, the Mejlis, the representative body of the indigenous people, is banned, all independent media of the indigenous people are banned, and journalists are persecuted. The Russians are grossly violating the population's rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, and are trying to close schools with the Crimean Tatar language of education.

After February 24, a new wave of persecution of Ukrainians began in the temporarily occupied Crimea. The Crimean human rights group registered at least 120 administrative cases under the new article on the alleged discrediting of the Russian army.