‘We are not put in freight cars, but level of terror still forces us to leave Crimea’ – activist Tamila Tasheva

Дата: 27 September 2016
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While Deputy Mufti of Crimea Ayder Ismailov is telling the OSCE delegations about the wonderful life in Crimea, the mass arrests of Crimean Tatars and Muslims are ongoing in the peninsula, the mosques and houses are searched, people are forced to be fingerprinted.

Tamila Tasheva, the Head of the “Crimea SOS” organization, said this at the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports.

At a special meeting dedicated to the human rights situation in Crimea, Tasheva presented a brief overview of how the Crimean Tatars become “the main enemy of the occupation authorities and the object of systematic persecution” for over two years.

At the moment, 11 out of 15 cases of enforced disappearances relate to Crimean Tatars, nine people were found dead. No cases of enforced disappearances and murders have been effectively investigated by the de facto authorities in Crimea. It seems that enforced disappearances are used to intimidate and suppress any disagreement,” Tamila Tasheva commented.

She added that the occupation authorities had begun to actively create an image of the Crimean Tatars and Muslims as terrorists by means of politicized court cases, and to destroy the self-government system of Crimean Tatars.

In April 2016, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people was recognized as an extremist organization. As a result, criminal proceedings can be initiated virtually against any Crimean Tatar. September 29, the appeal in the case over prohibition of the Mejlis will be considered in Moscow, but everyone understands that the official Kremlin will not change its decision,” said the representative of the Crimea SOS.

Tasheva recalled that leaders of the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov were denied entry to the territory of Crimea, while two deputy heads of the Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov, were under investigation.

At the same time, the occupation authorities have created a parallel structure to replace the Mejlis – “Qırım.” Also, since the beginning of the occupation, parallel religious structures have been created, and later the Spiritual Administration of Crimea became fully controlled by the occupation authorities.

Tamila Tasheva commented that no Crimean Tatar public events, including mourning ceremonies on the Day of Deportation of Crimea Tatars on May 18, had been allowed for two years.

Russia’s policy is aimed at the replacement of the population of Crimea and displacement of the Crimean Tatars, Tasheva said.

According to official data, more than 25,000 internally displaced persons have left Crimea during the occupation. More than half of them are Crimean Tatars. According to unofficial data, the number of IDPs from Crimea exceeds 50,000 people. Crimean Tatars living in the mainland of Ukraine are under the threat of assimilation and loss of their language and culture.

It is not possible to maintain and develop the Crimean Tatar identity and culture amid reprisals and total fear, Tamila Tasheva said.

Twenty-five years ago, we managed to return to our ancestral land and to begin to restore our people.  Today, we experience deportation again… This deportation is not outwardly similar to that of 1944. We are not put in the freight cars, but the goals and the level of terror are the same and they force us to leave our land. The destruction of the Crimean Tatar people, organized by Russia, is taking place in the middle of Europe now, in these days,” the activist said.

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