The day of brave people who faithfully continue their work and bring the truth not only to their fellow citizens, but also to the whole world. It is the day of people who, even in times of war, effectively use their main weapon – the word.
Today, on the Journalists’ Day, the Mission pays special attention to media workers, bloggers and activists who were not afraid to cover the events in the occupied Crimea despite intimidation by the occupation administration and the Russian army.
Currently, Russia illegally detains 181 political prisoners, 16 of them are journalists. We want to remind the whole world of their names: Iryna Danilovych, Osman Arifmemetov, Oleksiy Bessarabov, Timur Ibragimov, Remzi Bekirov, Vilen Temeryanov, Marlen (Suleiman) Asanov, Nariman Dzhelal, Rustem Sheikhaliev, Server Mustafayev, Vladislav Yesypenko, Amet Suleimanov, Asan Akhtemov, Ruslan Suleimanov, Seyran Saliyev and Dmytro Shtyblikov.
Each of them received an illegal sentence only because they continued to tell the truth and cover it on a large scale. However, the most popular “charges” of the occupation administrations against journalists are terrorism, calls for mass unrest, and extremism, and even those media workers who have long been in mainland Ukraine are added to the list of “extremists.”
Since the beginning of the occupation of Crimea, freedom of speech has been systematically destroyed through abductions, harassment, intimidation, criminal and administrative prosecution of journalists and bloggers, entry bans and inclusion in the list of extremists. Russia has long tightened the noose on the media on its own territory, and after the occupation of the peninsula began, it tried to impose it on Crimean media professionals.
With the start of the full-scale invasion, the situation has become even more acute – the Russian parliament passed a new law on “liability for discrediting the Russian armed forces,” which created even wider scope for restrictions on the work of journalists, citizen journalists and simply the statements of those who care. In the occupied Crimea, Ukrainian citizens are regularly detained for posting even on their personal pages on social media or groups in messengers that the occupiers may simply not like.
The largest number of violations of journalists’ rights in the occupied Crimea was recorded in 2014. More than 100 media workers and 10 publications were forced to leave the peninsula, some of them ceased their activities due to censorship and fear, and those who remained in the occupied Crimea to cover events became victims of harassment, illegal searches and arrests under fabricated criminal proceedings. By 2019, the ZMINA Human Rights Center and the Crimean Human Rights Group had already recorded more than 350 cases of persecution of media professionals. Repeatedly, the families of detained journalists could not find out where the political prisoners were being held. There is also evidence of inhumane conditions of detention and torture. Before the occupation, about 3,000 media outlets were registered in Crimea, and in 2015, even the occupation’s Roskomnadzor recorded only 232 publications. The journalists’ appeals to the occupation law enforcement agencies are ineffective, as, as a rule, they are persecuted by “law enforcement officers” and detentions are often accompanied by violent acts.
After February 24, it has become even more difficult to obtain at least some independent and objective information from the occupied Crimea, and by amending the legislation, the aggressor state has made it much easier for itself to harass the media and illegally extended these practices to the temporarily occupied territories.
The Mission condemns the actions of the occupation administrations and demands the immediate release of the detained media workers who have become political prisoners because of their activities!
On the Journalist’s Day, the Mission appeals to everyone to support those representatives of the profession who have suffered from the actions of the Russian Federation and its occupation administrations in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine for their professional journalistic activities. We urge you to support those who continue to fight for freedom of expression in the occupied Crimea. Thanks to you, the world sees the truth about the atrocities of the aggressor state. You make a significant contribution to the speedy de-occupation of the occupied Crimea.
We congratulate you on your professional holiday! We believe that independent journalism will soon be able to work freely on the Crimean peninsula again.
