Group Says Crimeans Who Show Ukrainian Identity Get 'Hunted'

[Rogue Valley]

Group Says Crimeans Who Show Ukrainian Identity Get 'Hunted'

Rapid deterioration of the human rights situation in Crimea is happening three years after the illegal annexation of the peninsula by Russia.

Volodymyr Balukh is a Ukrainian from the Crimean Peninsula who had hung a
Ukrainian flag on his property and was imprisoned on fabricated weapons and
explosives possession charges.

8/26/19
People expressing any form of Ukrainian identity in Russian-annexed Crimea can expect prosecution or get on a “hit list,” say two members of the Crimean Human Rights Group (CHRG). Displaying the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag or its colors on property can lead to civil fines, criminal prosecution, and land “Ukrainian activists” on an online forum where people “hunt” for them explained Olha Skrypnyk, the head of CHRG. An online forum exists in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, called “Burn the Banderites in our city,” a reference to devotees of the mid-20th-century Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. “There are open calls for the massacre of Ukrainian activists, information is collected -- there are 150 pages” on the forum, Chekryhin said. “There are photos of Ukrainian activists, addresses, information about where the families live, and the routes they take with their children to the kindergarten. And it is suggested to find them and deal with them.”

Hanging a Ukrainian flag or displaying its colors can lead to a civil fine, Skrypnyk said, and usually is prosecuted as an “unauthorized” demonstration. If Ukrainian colors are painted on property, that could lead to criminal charges and jail time for committing “vandalism,” she said. Other times, criminal cases are “fabricated,” Skrypnyk said, to imprison Ukrainians who “express any form of Ukrainian identity.” Volodymyr Balukh was mentioned as an example. Currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Russia, Balukh displayed a Ukrainian flag on his farmstead after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014. Balukh was originally arrested in December 2016 and convicted on a weapons- and explosives-possession charge in August 2017 that he said is false. Rights groups like the Memorial Human Rights Center consider him a political prisoner and maintain the charge against him was trumped up. “On the whole, there are risks in general with the manifestation of Ukrainian identity,” Skrypnyk said. “As for the flag and directly Ukrainian colors, it can very often be used for persecution.”

The Russian government allows a "vigilante website" to exist that publishes the names, addresses, etc. of Ukrainians living in Crimea that protest against Moscow's illegal occupation of Crimea. Ethnic Russians are encouraged to "teach them a lesson". There remain roughly 20 Ukrainians from Crimea in Russian prisons, and another ~50 Crimean Tatars. All were charged with subversion, extremism, etc. for protesting against Moscow's illegal occupation. The typical prison sentence is 20 years. Not a week goes by in which Russian security forces do not descend on a Tatar household and arrest the occupants.

Related: Human Rights Watch | Crimea is a Black Hole for Human Rights

Escalating Pressure on Crimean Tatars

Crimean courts are an instrument of persecution against political prisoners, report shows

 

[Praxas]

But we should allow Russia back into the G7 (to make it G8) according to Trump.

 

[Rogue Valley]

But we should allow Russia back into the G7 (to make it G8) according to Trump.

Trump ignores Russian excesses in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, ignores Chinese excesses in Hong Kong, ignores Turkish excesses in Kurdish northern Syria, ignores Kim's murder of Otto Warmbier in North Korea, ignores MBS excesses in Yemen, etc. etc. etc