Prior to the International Human Rights Day, we spoke with Maksym Popovych, a specialist of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission. In short, the peninsula violates a wide range of human rights and humanitarian law.

Since it is impossible to cover every fact of human rights violations, we will dwell on only a few.

Forced disappearances

The death of Reshat Ametov in March 2014 ended the first recorded enforced disappearance in the occupied Crimea. Forced disappearance is an arrest approved by the authorities, in which case the fact of imprisonment and the location of the detainee are concealed. In many cases, torture is present.

Read also: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reminded the world of enforced disappearances in the occupied Crimea and Donbas

According to the UN, since the beginning of Russia's occupation of Crimea until the beginning of 2021, 43 cases of enforced disappearances have been recorded, mostly in the form of abductions. Eleven of them are still missing.

"There were no effective investigations into these cases, no one was brought to justice", - Maksym Popovych said. - The last wave of such disappearances took place on September 3-4 this year with the detention of five Crimean Tatars, including Nariman Dzhelyalov. For some time they were detained without proper registration, and their whereabouts were hidden. These cases can also be attributed to enforced disappearances, albeit short-lived”.

Read also: Eldar Odamanov, who was abducted by the occupiers after searches, has been wanted in Simferopol for 24 hours - a lawyer

Without the right to faith

Muslims, Orthodox, Jehovah's Witnesses - virtually all religious denominations in Crimea suffer from the occupying power.

In March this year, Sevastopol resident Viktor Stashevsky was illegally sentenced by the occupation court to six and a half years in prison, and in October, Igor Schmidt was sentenced to six years in prison. Both men were Jehovah's Witnesses.

"This is a multifaceted violation - people are detained for exercising their right to freedom of religion", - Maksym Popovych said. "The situation with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine also remains glaring: the occupying authorities impose fines on clergy and de facto expel the church from its churches in Simferopol and Yevpatoria".

Read also: Lawyer Serhiy Zayets commented on the refusal of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to leave the PCU Cathedral in occupied Simferopol

Conscription into the occupier's army

Since 2015, Russia has annually recruited residents of the peninsula to join the armed forces. As of the beginning of 2021, 26,000 Crimeans were drafted into the occupier's army. Two more recruiting campaigns took place this year.

"Such a call is illegal - a violation of Article 51 of the Geneva Convention. We do not have figures for this year yet, but approximately 2,500 people are taken away during each campaign. Most likely, the trend has remained unchanged", - the UN said.

Read also: The occupiers in Crimea called up at least 31,000 Ukrainians to the Russian army

Double deportation

In the first half of 2021 alone, Crimean courts ruled to illegally deport at least 113 people, at least 38 of whom were Ukrainians. This is significantly less than in 2020 and 2017, when similar decisions were made against 197 (at least 113 Ukrainians) and 512 (at least 287) people, respectively.

"This is a direct violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the resettlement or deportation of people from the occupied territories. In some cases, we documented double deportation - the person was first transferred to places of detention in Russia, and only then deported to mainland Ukraine. In addition, there is another type of deportation from the point of view of international law. Many criminal cases involve the transfer of persons detained in the Crimea to Russia, in particular during the stages of the judicial investigation and to serve their sentences in penitentiary institutions. The transfer of Crimean prisoners to Russia makes it difficult for lawyers and relatives to access them, which also violates their right to protection”, - Maksym Popovych explains.

In addition, it makes it difficult for lawyers and relatives to access detainees and prisoners, which also violates their right to defense.

Instead, the UN records the movement of civilians from Russia to the Crimea. From the beginning of the occupation until the beginning of this year, more than 205,000 people changed their residence from a region of Russia to the Crimea or Sevastopol - this was about 8.7% of the population of the peninsula. Some of them are appointed to administrative positions, and almost one in five judges (18.5% of judges in courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts) in Crimea have been transferred from Russian courts.

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