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Free
Ilmi Umerov! Stop Political
Terror in the Crimea! Statement
of the Ukrainian Center of the International PEN The Ukrainian Center of the
International PEN expresses the gravest concern over the critical health
condition of Ilmi Umerov, a
Crimean Tatar activist, arrested in May by the Russian occupation authorities
in the Crimea and facing a five-year prison term on the trumped-up charges of
“extremism”. Despite his dramatically deteriorating health, he was not only
denied proper medical treatment, but was also forcibly placed into a mental
hospital – in the most abominable traditions of Soviet punitive psychiatry. His persecution is of one many
atrocious acts of the Kremlin regime in the occupied Ukrainian territory where
any dissent is crushed by the most brutal and unscrupulous methods. Crimean
Tatars as the only indigenous people of the peninsula are the primary target of
the Russian occupants since they, unlike other persecuted minorities, have no
other place to leave for, nor have they any desire to abandon their native land
once again, after being deported by Stalin in 1944 and fighting desperately for
nearly half a century for their right to return back home. Since the tragic spring of 2014,
Tatar activists are being terrorized by regular police searches, detentions,
fake accusations, and in some cases even by extralegal abductions, beatings and
killings. Their businesses are being destroyed, schools forcefully Russified, media shut down, leaders exiled or imprisoned.
The de-Tatarization of the peninsula, which was completed by Stalin in 1944, is
being replicated today by more subtle and perfidious methods. The goal,
however, remains the same – to purge the occupied land of all the disobedient
elements, of whom the Tatars represent the most numerous and best organized
group, with the highest attachment to and the strongest legitimacy over the
territory. The Ilmi Umerov’s case is a litmus test for both international
governments and civil society: either they sanction and ostracize the rogue
xenophobic regime for its policy in the Crimea, or the Kremlin will get
carte-blanche for the further destruction of the small Crimean Tatar nation. On behalf of the Ukrainian PEN
Center, we call our colleagues in the PEN International and national PEN
Centers to raise their voices for the freedom of Ilmi
Umerov and other political prisoners in the Crimea,
and for sanctioning all the representatives of the Russian regime involved in
the coordinated political persecution of Crimean Tatars. September 2,
2016 Mykola
Riabchuk, the
president Andrei
Kurkov, vice
president Volodymyr
Panchenko, vice
president |