by Miceál O’Hurley
TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED CRIMEA – Panelists, including the Crimean Tatar Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Ms. Ayla Bakkalli, an impressive young lawyer with CrimeaSOS, Mr. Denys Savchenko and two dynamic young Crimean Tatars with QHub joined me on the latest episode of ‘In Conversation This Week’. While Russia’s build-up once again threatening Ukraine’s borders and security dominating the headlines, Diplomacy in Ireland – The European Diplomat thought it wise to explore the consequences for millions of human beings when Russia uses force to occupy their neighbours’ territories.
For those in Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, the occupied city of Sevastopol and on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea the Russian occupation has been brutal, including:
- extrajudicial killings by summary execution;
- forced disappearances;
- dispossession of lands;
- illegal detainment;
- transportation to Russia and imprisonment without due process of law or access to effective legal counsel and remedies;
- religious persecution;
- cultural repression;
- looting and destruction of cultural, historical and artistic treasures;
- militarisation of children as young as 5 years of age in Russian administered school settings;
- prohibition of the use of the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea, the Crimean Tatar language;
- torture and physical abuse;
- sexual violation of women and ongoing violence against women;
- deprivation of citizenship and rights;
- and more…
Watch this week’s episode to learn more about how Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian citizens are suffering under the illegal Russian occupation of Crimea and how courageous advocates at CrimeaSOS, QHub and the Crimean Tatar community are working to assist their brothers and sisters on temporarily occupied Crimea.
