Unseen Ukraine Series #2:
RussianPersecution against Crimean Tatars
by the Genocide Watch Ukraine Task Force
Russia has persecuted the Crimean Tatar population since the eighteenth century. Crimean Tatars are an ethnic minority in Ukraine. Most Tatars are practicing Sunni Muslims, . Once numbering over 5 million, this Turkic- speaking population has resided in Russia and lived on the Crimean Peninsula since the 12th century.
Since Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin has weaponized “Extremism” and “Terrorism” laws to persecute the Tatars. Russia has outlawed traditional Tatar governing bodies. In 2014, 173 of 243 political prisoners prosecuted in occupied Crimea were representatives of the Tatars.
In 2016 the Russian Supreme Court banned the Mejlis, the highest representative body of the Crimean Tatars, as an “extremist organization.” This ban coincided with a demographic shift in Crimea following the 2014 Russian invasion.
The ethnic Russian population in Crimea increased to over 60 percent, while the Crimean Tatar population fell from 12 to 10 percent. Crimean authorities explicitly stated their intention to increase the population in the region by 2.4 million, with the additional population coming from mainland Russian “migration.”
After the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow intensified its campaign to “make the homeland uninhabitable” for Crimean Tatars through arrests, torture, and imprisonment.
There is no due process in the Crimean justice system.Arrests are made based on anonymous witness testimony. Defense lawyers are subject to harassment, fines, and arbitrary detention.Those charged are often transferred without formal convictions to high-security prisons or penal colonies.
These prisons have extreme overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and poor-quality food. Religious literature like the Qur’an is routinely seized, a sign of official Islamophobia.
Ninety percent of Crimean Tatar language media have been forced to stop broadcasting.
In September 2022, Crimean Tatar men feared conscription into the Russian army, prompting over 10,000 to flee.
Since April 2023, Russian citizenship has been forcibly imposed on all inhabitants. Those who refuse are subjected to confiscation of property, expulsion, or torture.
According to former Polish foreign minister Anna Fotyga, the deprivation of political, cultural, and historical rights of the Tatars has resulted in a genocidal situation resembling that of the 1944 deportations, when Stalin ordered all Crimeans expelled from the peninsula based on false accusations of Nazi collaboration.
Russia has enacted its current repression of Crimean Tatars through forced emigration, political repression, systematic discrimination, enforced disappearances, and torture.
Despite Putin’s propaganda promise to protect diverse national traditions, Russia has suppressed Tatar culture and waged a sustained campaign of repression, promoting its historic Russian imperialist ideology.
Russkii Mir (“Russian World”) posits that Ukraine, Crimea, and other former Soviet states rightfully belong within the Russian civilization.
Genocide Watch considers Russia’s classification of Crimean Tatar culture as “terrorist” and “extremist” to be Stage 1: Classification, Stage 2: Symbolization, Stage 3 Discrimination, and Stage 4: Dehumanization. Crimean Tatar political and civil society groups are banned, Crimean-language education is prohibited, Tatar social media are blocked. The Russian occupation is characterized by targeted disappearances, political harassment, and arbitrary detention, constituting the crimes against humanity of Stage 8: Persecution. Russia denies its persecution of Tatars, indicating Stage 10: Denial.
Genocide Watch recommends:
The UN, EU, US,, and NATO should condemn Russia’s occupation of Crimea and demand that Russia return Crimea to Ukrainian control. They should demand that Russia immediately end its systematic discrimination and persecution of Crimean Tatars;
The EU and UN should establish an independent international commission to investigate Russian crimes against humanity in Crimea.
Magnitzky sanctions should be imposed on Russian security and governmental officials responsible for human rights violations. The sanctions should go beyond asset freezes and travel bans to measures that restrict their access to global financial networks, technology, and resources.
Sanctions should be imposed on Russian businesses in Crimea.
Future peace negotiations must include Crimean Tatar Mejlis representatives.
The EU, US, UK, and UN should demand the release of Crimeans detained on political charges, including journalists, religious leaders, and civil society leaders opposed to Russian occupation.