The US mission to the OSCE once again called on Russia to stop the annexation of Crimea, as well as the persecution of Crimean Tatars and believers of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine on the peninsula.
This is reported by Krym.realii.
"Despite Russia's efforts to block the activities of the SMM, as well as international humanitarian organizations in Crimea, we continue to receive information about tragedies during the Russian occupation in Crimea. We call on Russia to end its occupation of Crimea, to stop the persecution of Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and other representatives of ethnic and religious minorities in Crimea, and to release all political prisoners of Ukrainians who are being held in custody," US Representative to the OSCE George Kent said in a speech at the special session of the annual security review conference in Ukraine on August 31.
He noted that "Russia's continued aggression, human rights violations and humanitarian crises on its part, as well as violations of territorial integrity, affect the entire OSCE region."
On the eve of the Crimean Tatar, Resource Center updated data on the number of political prisoners in Crimea. According to this information, the number of political prisoners and persecuted in Crimea is 230 people, 162 of them are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
According to the organization KrymSOS, since 2014, 44 enforced disappearances have been recorded in Crimea, of which 19 were found alive, three were later found in places of detention, one was extradited, and six were found dead. The fate of 15 people is still unknown.
The head of the UN Human Rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said earlier that Russia does not comply with the UN recommendations on Human Rights in Crimea.
On February 16, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to international institutions to condemn Russia's annexation of Crimea and human rights violations on the peninsula.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly argued that talking about human rights violations in the annexed Crimea is fiction. On August 26, 2021, he said that international organizations that protect human rights and call on Moscow to allow them to enter Crimea can enter the peninsula from the territory of Russia, in particular, through the Kerch Bridge.