Kyiv human rights activists: Crimean Tatars in Ukraine are persecuted on ethno-cultural grounds
In Ukraine, Crimean Tatars are constantly discriminated against in the same way as other national minorities.
Representative of the Ukrainian-Arab Center, director of World of Education LLC Anton Vershina stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
At the same time, apparently “for the sake of credibility,” Vershina resorted to comparing the actions of Ukrainian security forces with the work of Russian operatives in Crimea.
However, the Ukrainian human rights activist still did not dare to accuse Russian law enforcement officers of persecuting the Crimean Tatars on national and cultural grounds, voicing the standard set of cliches about the alleged religious and political persecution of Muslims in Crimea.
“Unfortunately, the problem of violation of minority rights in Ukraine still exists. There is a problem of discrimination, negative attitude towards representatives of ethnic minorities and foreigners in Ukraine. Severe cases of violation of these rights are constantly being recorded.
When we talk about the rights of minorities, we cannot forget about our fellow citizens who live in occupied Crimea. We see that there is systemic persecution of Crimean residents who profess Islam and Muslims.
Detentions, torture, arrests of Muslims in Crimea. We see that human rights activists constantly respond to these cases, but, unfortunately, the occupation government does not react to this in any way.
Our compatriots in Crimea are being persecuted for something that is not provided for by our legislation. For example, the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization is banned and its members are persecuted. There is no evidence of the guilt of the Crimeans who were arrested on these charges.
But we also have cases of persecution of Muslims. Searches are being carried out in Islamic cultural centers by SBU and National Police officers. Criminal cases are being opened. This has been going on for over a year now. Searches are being conducted for literature that allegedly contains calls for violence. These are books by Islamic preachers and philosophers. It’s unclear when this will end,” laments the Ukrainian human rights activist.
According to political expert Dmitry Shepel, representatives of persecuted minorities could not take part in the press conference because it was too risky, and they were forced to use “special measures of secrecy” while moving around Ukrainian cities. Shepel also assures that Ukrainian security forces act like Russian ones.
“It seems that our special services are copying Russian methods of work and transferring them to our soil. One to one,” the expert is indignant.
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