It is increasingly difficult to name anything that the Russian occupiers would consider sacred. The latest intrusions on peaceful civic activists – including two mothers with young children, came during the holy month of Ramadan and included warnings against ‘extremism’ on the anniversary of the Deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar people (18 May), as well as on Crimean Tatar Flag Day (26 June). At least one of the police warnings, to Lutfiye Zudiyeva, a mother of four, warned her against protests involving weapons, explosives and toxic substances.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Halya Coynash: Russia calls honoring victims of the Crimean Tatar deportation ‘extremism’
Crimean Tartars pray at the memorial stone set for the Victims of the Tatars deportation during a mass rally in downtown Simferopol, Crimea on May 18, 2004. The rally was devoted to the 60th anniversary of the deportation by Stalin's regime of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea to Siberia and to Central Asian republic of the former Soviet Union, organized by Stalin's regime in just one day on May 18, 1944.
