Chairperson of the Board of the Centre for Human Rights ZMINA, Tatiana Pechonchyk, announced it during the presentation of the report “The situation with human rights in Crimea for seven years of the occupation”.

The most common reasons for the imprisonment of Ukrainian citizens by the occupiers are religion, civic activity, and citizen journalism. Also, many people were accused of fabricated cases under the articles espionage and sabotage.

“Currently, Ukrainian human rights organizations number at least 105 people who are in prison in the occupied Crimea and the Russian Federation. These are the citizens of Ukraine, whom we consider being political prisoners. Six more people are under house arrest and, according to the methodology, can also be political prisoners. Therefore, the total number - at least 111 people are victims of politically motivated persecution in Russia and occupied Crimea. 84 of them are Crimean Tatars, 80 of them are in prisons for articles and cases, where they have already been sentenced or face very severe punishments and very long sentences: 15, 17, 20 years, etc", - Pechonchyk said.

She added that the NGO CrimeaSOS documented 44 enforced disappearances in Crimea since the occupation. The fate of 15 people is still unknown.

During the seven years of occupation, at least 28,000 Crimean men were drafted into the Russian Armed Forces. Last year, 163 criminal cases were recorded for evading military service, 153 cases were sentenced, and ten were pending.

According to Olga Skrypnyk, chairperson of the Crimean Human Rights Group (KPG), about 64 Muslims are behind bars in the case against Crimean Muslims - the largest case in which Crimean Tatars are accused of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia.

She also recalled the persecution of the religious group Jehovah’s Witnesses since 2018. The KPG began recording the first real sentences of six years for Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2020.