Disappearances of people in Crimea investigated ineffectively – human rights activists

There is no effective investigation into cases of suspected enforced disappearances of Crimean Tatar activists and one confirmed case of abduction, torture and killing in Russian-occupied Crimea.

This is stated in the report of Amnesty International human rights organization on human rights in the world in 2015-2016.

“This was despite a plethora of evidence, including video footage, strongly suggesting that pro-Russian paramilitaries from the so-called ‘Crimean self-defence force’ were responsible for at least some of these crimes,” the report says.

The human rights activists also point out that the actual leadership of Crimea after its annexation by Russia in 2014 “has curtailed freedom of expression, assembly and association.”

“Those expressing pro-Ukrainian sympathies faced harsh reprisals. The Crimean Tatar community was particularly affected: its public events were regularly banned, Crimean Tatar-language media outlets were forced to close down and their leaders were subjected to regular house searches and faced criminal prosecution and detention on politically motivated charges,” reads the report.

The document also mentions the repressions against the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and its representatives, the detention of pro-Ukrainian activists and sentences to Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko, whom the Russian court found guilty of plotting terrorist attacks in Crimea.