Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Refat Chubarov, called out the mass searches and detentions of Crimean Tatars in occupied Crimea on September 3-4 “demonstrative revenge and a punitive act” following the Crimea Platform summit.
“After the blackmail and ultimatums used by the Kremlin on the eve of the inaugural summit of the Crimea Platform failed miserably, Moscow began to carry out threats against its participants,” he wrote on Facebook, noting that Crimean Tatars remain hostages in the conditions of the Crimea being temporarily occupied by Russia.
According to him, the raids and detentions “the Russian occupiers decided to camouflage as a [result of] sabotage allegedly carried out by a group of Crimean Tatars” through a high-profile Crimean Tatar figure and politician Nariman Dzhelal (Dzhelyalov), Radio Svoboda reports.
As per Chubarov, Dzhelyalov is being charged with “sabotage” under the Russian Criminal Code, which Moscow is illegally imposing on the occupied part of Ukraine. The relevant article provides for imprisonment from 12 to 15 years.
It is clear that incriminating this “terrorism-related” article, along with the retaliation for his principled, honest and indomitable position, which he openly defended throughout the Russian occupation of Crimea, is also yet another attempt by the Kremlin to discredit the representative body of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people,” Chubarov emphasized.
Apart from Nariman Dzhelyalov, according to information coming from the occupied Crimea, suspicion notices under Article 281 were also handed to the Akhtemov cousins, Aziz and Asan. It is known that Nariman Dzhelyalov decried the fabricated and fictitious charges put forward by the Russian occupiers and refused to cooperate with the inquiry, Chubarov said.
He added that restrictive measures against all five detainees – Nariman Dzhelyalov, Eldar Odamanov, Aziz Akhtemov, Asan Akhtemov, and Shevket Useinov – will be determined by courts set up by Russia in the occupied Crimea’s in Simferopol on Monday, September 6.
