Rights watchdog updates data on political prisoners in occupied Crimea

This was reported by the Crimean Tatar Resource Center on Facebook, according to Ukrinform.

The rights activists stressed that after the occupation of Crimea, Russia, unlawfully applying its legislation for political purposes, launched mass repressions against Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists across the peninsula, where detentions and arrests became a regular practice.

"According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, over the entire period of occupation, the number of political prisoners and those prosecuted in criminal cases reached 234, of which 164 were representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people," the statement said.

There are five categories of those prosecuted, depending on their status:

- convicted and serving sentences in a penal colony (70, including 45 Crimean Tatars);

- hit with restrictions or probation (31, including 18 Crimean Tatars);

- held in a pre-trial detention center (51, including 44 Crimean Tatars);

- released (50, including 32 Crimean Tatars);

- being persecuted (32, including 26 Crimean Tatars).

The Crimean Tatar Resource Center demands that political prisoners be immediately released and calls on the international community and international human rights organizations to step up pressure on the Russian Federation and the occupation authorities in Crimea to put an end to political persecution.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Day of a Ukrainian Political Prisoner is marked annually on January 12 in honor of those arrested on political grounds.

The tradition of marking the Political Prisoner Day was introduced in 1975 at the suggestion of Vyacheslav Chornovil, who called for resistance to repression and brutality of the Soviet regime.

The reason behind the date was initially the repression of Soviet totalitarianism against the Ukrainian intelligentsia, and now it’s the Russian regime, which has launched terror against Ukrainians.

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