August 16, 2022

An Excuse to Persecute


An Excuse to Persecute
Ukrainian Tatars on the Remembrance Day of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide in 2016. Wikimedia Commons user, Visem

When Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2015, not only were people separated from their land, but Crimean Tatar activists lost previously won freedoms

Russian authorities have associated all Crimean Tatars with the Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned by the Russian Supreme Court in 2003 after being named as a terrorist organization. Between 2003 and 2015, the group had been able to organize in Ukraine legally.

Recently, FSB officers detained five Crimean Tatars, including Vilen Temeryanov, the creator of the Crimean Solidarity movement. According to authorities, the detainees, all of whom work in the same shop that repairs mobile phones and install air conditioners, were members of the group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Despite the Kremlin's call to "Denazify" Ukraine, Russian authorities who have entered Ukraine have shown little sympathy for minorities.

 

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