In a comment to the Suspilne Crimea, Dzhepparov noted that not only he but also the whole Crimea received the nomination for the award.

"I found out about it 4 days before the day when everything will happen, it was unexpected for me. I then found out, called there, talked to the people who did it. They said "yes, it's not a joke, it is. Of course, it was nice that I was also on those lists, but in general, I understand that I seem to have been added on the list, but it's not just me, it's the whole Crimea, it's the human rights movements in Crimea", - he said.

Abdureshit Dzhepparov is a Crimean Tatar, a human rights activist, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, and the father of the missing son Islyam.

On September 27, 2014, at about 7:10 p.m., near the Crimean Tatar village of Sary-Su in the Belogorsky district, Russian special services abducted Abdureshit Dzhepparov's son and nephew, Islyam Dzhepparov and Dzhevdet Islyamov. The security officers were in a black car with tinted glass, the car pulled up and started beeping for a long time, the guys were caught walking along the sidewalk along the road. The Crimean Tatars have been reported missing in Crimea, their whereabouts are still unknown. The abduction of Abdureshit Dzhepparov's son and nephew is also being investigated in Ukraine - criminal proceedings have been opened by the Crimean Prosecutor's Office.

Islyam Dzhepparov. Source: CRIMEAN TATAR RESOURCE CENTER

"I came out. A man got out of the car and said that my son and nephew (Dzhevdet Islyamov - ed.) had just been twisted in front of him, pushed into the car, and taken away. This was the first information about how my son and nephew were abducted", -Dzhepparov told Suspilne

According to the witness, Islyam Dzhepparov and Dzhevdet Islyamov were put in a Volkswagen Transporter minibus with tinted windows. Abdureshit Dzhepparov immediately turned to the occupation police and wrote a statement about the abduction of relatives. Then the occupation Investigative Committee joined the case and began to interrogate Abdureshit, witnesses and residents of the village. It was from one of the investigators that the Crimean Tatar heard the phrase: "It's time to get used to it, it's a common thing in the Caucasus".

“I think it was a planned provocation with the expectation that we would behave aggressively and physically actively here. And to provoke a conflict here in Crimea. If there is a conflict, then neither human rights activists nor diplomats are needed. Then all the generals decide. It will last and it is a war. But we restrained ourselves, we did not provoke, they did not succeed”, - says Abdureshit Dzhepparov.

The day after the disappearance of his son and nephew, a hundred people gathered under Abdureshit's house. Another day after- about five hundred people. News of the abduction of his family spread throughout Crimea. It also reached the occupying head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov. At the request of Dzhepparov, the information was passed to him by Remzi Ilyasov (then occupation vice-speaker of the State Council of Crimea - ed.). The meeting with Aksyonov took place in Belogorsk District State Administration on October 1. 

Dzhevdet Islyamov. Source: CRIMEAN TATAR RESOURCE CENTER

As a result, it was announced that a contact group would be set up to deal with the cases of missing Crimean Tatars. However, no further investigation into the abduction of his son and nephew was conducted, as it was not in the interests of the Russian secret services, Abdureshit Dzhepparov said.

"If people were abducted by Russian special services, why should they investigate this case. Just there was an imitation of investigation to keep up appearances, to pretend that there is an investigation. From time to time they interrogated us. And during interrogations, they behaved as if we were not victims, but guilty of something. It was psychological pressure", - the human rights activist said.

Islyam Dzhepparov and Dzhevdet Islyamov have been added to the list of abducted people since the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. As of the seventh year, the fate of Abdureshit Dzhepparov's son and nephew remains unknown.

“When we (Crimean Tatars - ed.) returned to Crimea in the late '80s, everyone usually says where he came from - Andijan, Tashkent, etc. I was proud to say that I grew up in Russia. I loved Russia. But I did not expect this. When that happened, something turned upside down. I realized that we were dealing with a monster - a wild and unpredictable country", - said Abdureshit Dzhepparov.

According to the public organization Crimea-SOS, as of October 2020, six victims of abductions had been found dead. The fate of another 15 remains unknown.