You're reading: Crimean Tatar activist, 82, dies after raid by Russian authorities

Despite international condemnation and a United Nations Court ruling that it stop the persecution of Crimean Tatars in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since early 2014, the Kremlin is continuing its repression of the peninsula’s indigenous nation.

The latest victim was Vedzhiye Kashka, an 82-year-old veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, who died of a heart attack after Russian security service officers arrested her on Nov. 23.

She was arrested along with several other Crimean Tatars for allegedly blackmailing a Turkish citizen.

The day before, the Crimean Tatars celebrated the 100th anniversary of Crimean Quriltai, the 1917 congress where the Crimean Tatar national movement was started.

The national movement activists fought for the return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea after the whole nation was exiled to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities in 1944.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the mass deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan as collective punishment for the Crimean Tatars’ alleged collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of the peninsula in the Second World War.

More than 190,000 people were deported in two days. Kashka returned to Crimea from Uzbekistan with her family in 1973.

After Russia started its occupation in 2014, the Kremlin launched a new wave of repression against the Crimean Tatars, whose leadership has a pro-Ukrainian position and has refused to recognize Russia’s illegal annexation.

Since 2014, dozens of Crimean Tatars have been arrested or kidnapped. Human rights watchdogs have recorded at least 367 cases of human rights’ violations against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who oppose the Kremlin’s occupation of Crimea.

Immediately after the arrest on Nov. 23, Kashka fell ill, and Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) officers called an ambulance for her. Kashka died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

FSB attacks

The FSB said Kashka was arrested during a special operation along with the group of Crimean Tatars from the Mejilis, the Crimean Tatar representative body, which is banned in Russia as an extremist organization.

“Kashka, 82, was involved in the blackmailing of a Turkish citizen who lived in Crimea. There are no politics in this case,” the FSB press service told Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Nov.23.

However, the FSB’s version of events was disputed.

“This Turkish citizen borrowed the money from Vedzhiye’s family but he refused to pay the debt. Crimean Tatar activists decided to resolve the situation, but it all ended with their arrest,” Sevgil Musayeva, the chief editor news website Ukrainska Pravda, who knew Kashka, wrote on Facebook following the activist’s death.

Living legend

After Kashka’s death dozens of prominent Crimean Tatar activists, journalists and politicians expressed their sorrow.

Kashka was a living legend of the Crimean Tatar national movement, having survived exile and fought for Crimean Tatars rights even during Soviet times as a member of Crimean Quriltai, an international congress of Crimean Tatars.

Despite her old age, Kashka remained an active member of the Crimean Tatar community, supporting many arrested Crimean Tatars in the courts and taking part in the civil blockade of Crimean Peninsula in 2015.

“Vedzhiye Kashka was one of our (Crimean Tatar) symbols. She had an iron will and charisma, was simple, hardworking and giving,” Ilmi Umerov, deputy head of Mejilis told the Kyiv Post on Nov.23.

Umerov and Akhtem Chiygoz, another deputy head of the Mejilis, were released from jail in Russian-occupied Crimea and taken to Ukraine in October.

“For us, she was a living legend, who personally knew Andrei Sakharov (famous Soviet dissident and human rights activist). Her death is horrifying for us. This Russian Federation is responsible for this,” Umerov added.

In April the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Russia must refrain from maintaining or imposing limitations on the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions, including the Mejilis, the Crimean Tatar’s executive and representative body.

The Russian authorities must also ensure Crimean citizens can be educated in the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages in schools on the occupied peninsula.

However, Russia has refused to abide by the court’s decision.