Russia’s FSB security agency conducted simultaneous searches of at least 25 houses belonging to Crimean Tatars on March 27, according to multiple reports of journalists, human rights advocates, and activists in Russian-occupied Crimea.
The raids started early in the morning in various towns across the peninsula, as lawyer Nikolay Polozov reported on his Twitter page, calling the events “the massive act of intimidation of Crimean Tatars.”
The raids are reportedly connected to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group banned in Russia and a number of other countries, but not in Ukraine.
Later, journalist Anton Naumliuk posted on his Facebook page pictures showing Russian OMON special task police teams surrounding Crimean Tatar houses and preventing their lawyers from communicating with their clients.
The Crimean Solidarity human rights group also posted a number of pictures and videos from the scenes of the searches on their social media pages.
According to later reports, searches in the district of Kamianka of the city of Simferopol resulted in a scuffle between local residents and the police surrounding the district.
As the TASS news agency reported later in the day, as many as 20 persons were arrested by Russia’s FSB security service on charges of alleged affiliation with the Hizb ut-Tahrir (“Party of Liberation”), an international Islamist organization active since 1953 and banned in a number of countries including Germany, Russia, China, Turkey and all Arab nations except for Lebanon, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Russian special services also claimed to have seized a considerable amount of banned propaganda materials produced by Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Crimean Tatar leader Refat Chubarov later in the day wrote on his Facebook page that the March 27 raids were the greatest human rights violations committed in Russian-occupied Crimea in a single day.
He added that cases of planting prohibited items and books during Russian searches had already been reported.
“Obviously, there is a new, even more violent wave of oppression of Crimean Tatars, with the aim of attempting to bring them to total obedience of the occupants,” the leader said.
“Russian raids on Crimean Tatars in 2019 are increasingly similar to that of Stalin’s Cheka officers in 1930s-1950s.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union Mykola Tochytskyi wrote on his Twitter page that he had informed EU partners and Russia’s human rights crackdown and “demanded a resolute response.”
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian envoy to the Council of Europe, also called upon the Council nations to help advocate human rights in occupied Crimea.
“We’re waiting for not only a regular expression of concerns but also concrete steps on protecting the rights in Crimean Tatars,” the Ukrainian diplomat noted.
