Today at 22:41
February 21, a rally in support of Crimean political prisoners is held near the Russian Embassy in Kyiv. Facebook page of the rally in support of Crimean political prisoners reports.
In front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Kyiv, 11 broken doors were installed – as a symbol of 11 broken lives of civic journalists, Crimean Tatars.
Russian special services in occupied Crimea come to the Crimean Tatars’ houses in the morning, around 5 am, when people are especially vulnerable and no one will come to protect them.
“They do not knock on the door but just break it. They just break the lives of families, leaving them without a father and husband for many years. At this time no one hears the voice of political prisoners. We must become their voices for the world to hear about them the truth,” the organizers of the rally said.
The rally in support of political prisoners took place during the Week of Resistance to the Occupation of Crimea and will continue in Warsaw and Berlin.
Since the beginning of the temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia, more than a hundred activists, primarily Crimean Tatars, have been persecuted by the occupying authorities for their civic stance.
250,000 Crimean Tatars used to live in Crimea before the annexation. Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Since the beginning of March 2014 the Crimean Tatars are subjected to constant repressions and discrimination on the part of so-called “new government”. About 10 percent of Crimean Tatars have moved from the peninsula since the annexation, often to Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, or Kyiv.
