Ukrainian delegates have informed the President of the UN Security Council about ongoing repressions against Crimean Tatars in Russian-occupied Crimea.
“A delegation of Ukraine on February 12 sent an official letter to the President of the UN Security Council, saying they were deeply alarmed by the outrageous and illegal activities of the Russian occupation authorities in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea against the Crimean Tatars, resulted into massive illegal searches and groundless detention of thirteen citizens of Ukraine – representatives of the Crimean Tatar people – on February 11-12, 2016,” the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s press service said on Friday evening.
The Ukrainian delegates call on “the democratic world to increase joint tangible pressure on Russian occupant-state as far as the ongoing events in the occupied Crimea are not only a flagrant violation of international law but also a blatant disrespect for all universal human values.”
Earlier on Friday, the ministry issued an official statement, condemning the groundless searches and arrests of Crimean Tatars.
“By committing flagrant violations of human rights and freedoms of our citizens who are held hostage on their own land by the Russian occupation regime as a result of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, the Kremlin recreates today, in the 21st century, horrible Soviet 1930’s repressions and 1944 genocide of the Crimean Tatars,” the ministry said in its statement.
“It is particularly outrageous that the Kremlin tends to hide its genocide politics against Crimean Tatars behind the smokescreen of sham fight against terrorism. Ukraine calls on the Russian Federation to stop immediately political repressions against citizens of Ukraine and release illegally detained Emir Ussein Kuku, Vadim Sirik, Enver Belirov, Eldar Selyamiyev and Muslim Aliyev,” the ministry said.
