The Crimean Solidarity group on Wednesday appealed to foreign media and human rights organisations to help those detained, who it said were documenting persecution of Crimean Tatars in the Russian-annexed Crimea region of Ukraine in their role as citizen journalists, Polish website niezalezna.pl reported.
The website said citizens in Russian-annexed Crimea who identify themselves with Ukraine are suffering repression as the peninsula’s new authorities seek to stifle freedom of speech and any criticism.
A Russia-controlled court in the Crimean city of Simferopol on March 27 and 28 ruled that 23 Tatars be placed in pre-trial detention on a charge of belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group banned in Russia, according to niezalezna.pl.
Those detained face from 10 to 20 years in prison and from 500,000 to 1 million rubles in fines if found guilty of the charge, niezalezna.pl reported.
More than half the detained are activists with Crimean Solidarity, an organisation created in 2016 to support the families of repressed Crimean Tatars, according to niezalezna.pl.
A network of so-called streamers operates as part of the group; they use cell phones to record events involving political prisoners and cases of human rights violations by the pro-Russian Crimean authorities, niezalezna.pl said.
The Polish website quoted a social media post by the Crimean Solidarity group according to which the detained activists worked as citizen journalists and their recordings and social media entries are often the only source of information about what is happening in Crimea.
Among those detained is Remzi Bekirov, who has been reporting on the trials of political prisoners for four years, according to niezalezna.pl.
The website said that the Russian security service FSB, while searching his home, confiscated Bekirov’s press ID and other documents certifying his right to work as a journalist.
The Crimean Solidarity group has also appealed that its activists be given membership in international journalist organisations and that cases of repression against them be recognised as attacks on journalists, niezalezna.pl reported.
"We appeal that those detained be recognised as citizen journalists because their posts and videos document systematic persecution in Crimea," the Crimean Solidarity group said, as cited by niezalezna.pl.
The group also requested that all possible mechanisms be used to defend the journalists and called for protests against persecution of people working to break a Russian news blackout in Crimea, niezalezna.pl reported.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after a referendum that the Ukrainian authorities and the West said was illegal. Earlier, Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms seized strategic facilities on the peninsula from the Ukrainian army and local authorities.
Crimean Tatars, who constitute 12 percent of the peninsula’s population, opposed the referendum, niezalezna.pl reported. Most of them boycotted it, exposing themselves to repression at the hands of the Russian authorities, according to the Polish website.
(gs/pk)
Source: niezalezna.pl