U.S.A. CONTINUES TO URGE RUSSIA TO HALT PERSECUTION OF CRIMEAN TATARS AND PRESSURE ON P.Ts.U. IN CRIMEA
The American mission to the O.S.C.E. [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] has again called upon Russia to put an end to the annexation of Crimea and also the persecution of Crimean Tatars and believers of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine [PTsU] on the peninsula.
"Despite Russia's efforts to block the activity of social media and also international humanitarian organizations in Crimea, we continue to receive information about tragedies under the conditions of the Russian occupation in Crimea. We call upon Russia to put an end to the occupation of Crimea and to cease its harassment of Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and other representatives of ethnic and religious minorities in Crimea and to release all Ukrainian political prisoners held in custody," the representative of the U.S.A. to the O.S.C.E., George Kent, said in his address to a special session of the annual Security Review Conference for Ukraine on 31 August.
He noted that "the continuing Russian aggression, violation of human rights, humanitarian crises on its part, and violations of the territorial integrity reverberate throughout the O.S.C.E. area."
Yesterday the Crimean Tatar Resource Center updated information about the number of political prisoners in Crimea. According to these data, the number of political prisoners and persons prosecuted in Crimea is 230, 162 of whom are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
According to information of the KrymSOS organization, since 2014, 44 forcible disappearances have been identified in Crimea, of whom 19 have been found alive, three were later found in places of detention, one was extradited, and six were found dead. As of now, nothing is known about the fate of 15 persons.
The head of the United Nations Monitoring Mission for Human Rights in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, stated earlier that Russia is not fulfilling the recommendations of the U.N. on human rights in Crimea.
On 16 February 2021, the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet reached out to international institutions with a call to condemn the Russian annexation of Crimea and violations of human rights on the peninsula.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly maintained that talk about violations of human rights in annexed Crimea is fantasy. On 26 August 2021 he said that international organizations that are engaged in the defense of human rights and urge Moscow to allow them into Crimea may enter the peninsula from Russian territory, specifically by the Kerch bridge. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 September 2021)
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