☝️ Today we celebrate a day that should not have existed at all – the Day of Ukrainian Political Prisoners. Its history began with the largest repressive action of the Soviet government against dissidents on January 12-14, 1972. All the well-known representatives of the national-democratic movement of Ukraine, many of the Sixties, were arrested.

There were political prisoners who had to face the deceitful Soviet system more than once and serve illegal sentences again. The first Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, human rights activist, dissident and one of the most prominent figures of the national movement of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev, spent 15 years of his life in prison, three of which were in exile in Yakutia.

⛓ At that time, political prisoners were tortured during interrogations, imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals or sent to hard labor. The regime of modern Russia is not far removed from the Soviet one. Our citizens continue to be detained in occupied Crimea in places of detention, illegally transferred to Russia and subjected to “sentences” in falsified cases. The goal remains the same: to destroy the Ukrainian identity and all those who defend it. The methods are the same: electric shock, psychological pressure, beatings and threats. The occupiers have not invented anything new, have not learned from the past, but have only repeated their shameful history.

Nariman Dzhelial – 17 years in the maximum security colony of Asan and Aziz Akhtemov – 15 and 13 years. Oleksandr Tarapon – 2.5 years. Servet Gaziev, Alim Karimov, Dzhemil Gafarov – 13 years. Irina Danilovich – 7 years old, Vladislav Esipenko – 6 years old, Seyran Saliyev – 16 years old, Server Mustafayev – 14 years old, Emir-Usein Kuku – 12 years old, Galina Dovgopola – 12 years old.

🧐 These are just a few names, because, according to the latest data, Russia is currently illegally detaining 158 political prisoners, 111 of whom are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. Discussion of this topic does not disappear from the agenda of democratic countries, because, unfortunately, it does not lose its relevance. This is evidenced by the latest UN General Assembly Resolution “Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine”, which called on Russia to release all illegally detained political prisoners.

Every day we continue to fight for our people and for the restoration of their freedom, for their safe return to their homeland. The law on social and legal protection of political prisoners and their families was adopted, and resolutions were adopted to better ensure its implementation. The Mission also continues to work closely with international partners on the negotiation process for the release of Ukrainian citizens.

🇺🇦 However, their freedom will be guaranteed only when the Crimean peninsula returns under the control of Ukraine. Our people will return home: both those illegally deprived of their liberty by the occupation administrations and all residents of the still occupied Crimea. To a free Ukrainian Crimea.

We believe that January 12, 2024 will be just a day in history, not a still relevant topic. Together we will win!