Council of Europe calls on Russia to stop persecution of Crimean Tatars

The website of the Council of Europe posted her statement.

"Crimean Tatars in Crimea, and especially those opposing Crimea’s illegal annexation or expressing dissent, are being subjected to numerous patterns of serious violations of human rights, persecution, discrimination, and stigmatisation by the Russian occupying authorities," she said.

The Commissioner called for an end to the harassment of Crimean Tatars, arrests, persecution and searches of human rights defenders, activists and journalists.

Mijatović also calls for humane treatment of Crimeans in Russian detention centers. "International human rights monitoring mechanisms and humanitarian organisations should be given safe and unhindered access to all detainees, including Crimean Tatars," she said.

According to Mijatović, Crimean Tatars should have the right to assembly and expression, religion, education in the Crimean Tatar language and preservation of cultural heritage.

She also called for an end to the forced conscription and military mobilization of Crimean Tatars in Crimea.

According to Radio Liberty’s Krym. Realii news project, in the first quarter of this year, security forces detained 49 representatives of the Crimean Tatar people in Russia-annexed Crimea.

In December 2022, an updated UN General Assembly resolution on the human rights situation in the Russian-annexed Crimea and Sevastopol condemned "a new unprecedented wave of arbitrary detentions in Crimea, forced transfers to and from Crimea, enforced disappearances, including those of displaced persons."

Last October, the head of the ZMINA Human Rights Center, Tetiana Pechonchyk, said that Crimea once again suffered the mass practice of enforced disappearances.

According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center (CTRC), 21 people have gone missing since the annexation of Crimea, 15 of them are members of the Crimean Tatar people.