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The original was posted on /r/ukraine by /u/Ukrainer_UA on 2025-08-08 01:52:47+00:00.
Human rights violations in Crimea
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has significantly intensified repression in occupied Crimea. People who openly support Ukraine are often harassed, arrested, and sentenced on fabricated charges. At the same time, journalists, volunteers, and activists are targeted with fines, illegal imprisonment, and torture. In 2024 alone, Russia conducted 61 warrantless home searches, carried out 109 interrogations or so-called “conversations” with residents, and unlawfully detained 111 civilians. Those convicted are often denied contact with their families and have no access to proper legal defense.
Search in the house of Crimean Solidarity activist Lutfiye Zudieva, Photo: Crimean Solidarity
Besides illegal raids, local activists live under the constant threat of detention and criminal allegations based on trumped-up charges. Sabina Ilyasova, a project coordinator at the Crimean human rights organization CrimeaSOS, reported that in occupied Crimea, abductions of people happen every three days. Those taken are usually accused of helping the Ukrainian army or intelligence. Every day, at least one person is arrested for posting Ukrainian songs online or other minor gestures of solidarity with Ukraine, for instance, women painting their nails blue and yellow. According to Ilyasova, at least 140 civilian hostages and political prisoners face inhumane treatment in prisons.
The abuse is not limited only to civil society activists, as Russian security forces often raid the homes of their relatives. For instance, in April 2024, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) searched the house of 74-year-old Halil Halilov, father of the Crimean Tatar journalist Gulsum Halilova. The man, who suffers from hypertension, couldn’t get out of bed during the raid, in which the agents were searching for banned literature, weapons, and other items, only to find nothing.
The human rights abuse often proceeds in detention facilities, where detainees are usually subjected to torture and pressure to extract confessions or fabricate charges of espionage, extremism, or terrorism, punishable by the Russian penal code with lengthy prison sentences. Some people are released after a few days, often with threats and warnings that they are now being watched. Others face trials and prison sentences based on fake charges. Tetiana Pechonchyk, the head of the board of the ZMINA Human Rights Center, reported that as of 2025, 105 people were imprisoned in Crimea without clear charges, including 52 cases of alleged espionage. About 1,300 people were fined, arrested, fired from their jobs, or forced to record repentant videos denouncing their sympathy for Ukraine.
In 2017, FSB officers kidnapped Rinat Paralamov, who had refused to accept Russian citizenship. He was tortured with electric shocks to force him to give up the names of other Crimean Tatars allegedly connected to “Hizb ut-Tahrir”. They also tried to pressure him into cooperating, threatening his entire family. After the torture, the man was dumped near a train station in Simferopol, where activists found him. Later, Rinat and his family were forced to move to Kyiv to protect their lives.
Note: Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic political party that is classified as a terrorist organization under Russian law. However, it is not banned in Ukraine or in most countries around the world.
Russia’s occupational administration often weaponises health conditions as a repressive tactic. While in custody, Russians systematically ignore prisoners’ health conditions — or deliberately deny them essential care. In 2023, two Crimean political prisoners, Kostiantyn Shyring and Dzhemil Gafarov, died after being denied medical care. As of fall 2024, there were 67 Ukrainian citizens in poor health and in need of urgent medical care who were being illegally imprisoned in Crimea.
Kostiantyn Shyring and Dzhemil Gafarov, Photo: Сrimean Нuman Rights Group
Besides activists and civil society leaders, independent lawyers who represent these political prisoners are also being systematically targeted. In 2022, three Crimean Tatar lawyers known for their human rights activism — Lilia Hemedzhi, Rustem Kyamiliev, and Nazim Sheikhmambetov — had their licenses revoked without allowing them to contest the decision. In July 2023, human rights lawyer Oleksii Ladin was disbarred for defending detained Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in political trials. Activists and families of political prisoners say these actions are aimed at blocking the right to legal defense and a fair trial.
The persecution of Crimean Tatars as indigenous peoples
The persecution of Crimean Tatars — the indigenous population of Crimea — goes far beyond the full-scale invasion. It goes back to the 18th century, when the Russian Empire first occupied the peninsula. Since then, the restrictions imposed on language, traditions, and religion became a permanent feature of Russian colonial policy. The attempts to eliminate the presence of the Crimean Tatars in their homeland reached its peak in the 1944 mass deportation, where the entire Crimean Tatar population was forcibly displaced to the remote areas of the USSR and were prohibited to return till the final years of the Soviet era.
The persecutions resumed after the Kremlin forces occupied the peninsula again in 2014. Since then, Moscow has used various methods to erase the Crimean Tatar identity, reinforcing the historical myth of the “Russian Crimea”. Russian security services, police, and military forces have regularly raided Crimean Tatar homes. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, in 2023, the occupational authorities conducted 65 searches, 46 of which took place in the homes of Crimean Tatars. They searched for Ukrainian symbols, banned books, weapons, or any signs of affiliation with so-called “terrorist Nazi organizations” that Russian propaganda uses as a pretext to justify the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and illegal occupation of the peninsula.
Searches in the homes of Crimean Tatars in Bakhchisarai. Photо: Сrimean solidarity
Most of the time, such raids found nothing. If the family were lucky, the officers would leave after wrecking the house and terrifying its residents. According to people who managed to leave the peninsula, at least one family member — usually a man would be taken for interrogation. The “reason” could be anything — from “suspicious behaviour” to fabricated evidence that the Russian law enforcement plants during the raid, most commonly, books banned under Russian law. Practiced since 2014, this policy primarily aims to intimidate residents and compel them to cooperate. If people refuse, harsher methods are used, such as detentions and interrogations.
This sort of institutionalised abuse disproportionately targets the Crimean Tatars. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, in 2023 alone, 119 of 173 recorded arrests (69%) targeted the indigenous Crimeans. As of February 2025, the Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has identified 221 Crimean political prisoners, with 134 of them being Crimean Tatars. Experts call these actions a form of hybrid deportation, as threats, repression, and forced conscription are pushing Crimean Tatars to flee their homeland.
Recently, Russia has increasingly accused Crimean Tatars of links to the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned in Russia, giving it a convenient tool to justify arrests. In March 2024 alone, Russian forces carried out the third-largest wave of raids since the beginning of the occupation, arresting ten Crimean Tatars on charges of affiliation with the organisation.
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The 1262nd day of a ten-year invasion that has been going on for centuries.
One day closer to victory.
🇺🇦 HEROIAM SLAVA! 🇺🇦
