“Today’s temporarily occupied Crimea is a grey zone, territory of disempowerment. Any citizen of Ukraine cannot feel safe in Crimea; he might be incriminated and illegally imprisoned. Imprisonment for certain political, religious views, nationality or ethnic affiliation, unfortunately, has become the common occurrences in the occupied Crimea “, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea Anton Korynevych noted at the press-conference, devoted to the opening of the event.
Temporarily occupation of Crimea is accompanied by the systemic repressions and persecutions against the Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars, residing in the peninsula by the occupying authorities. Nowadays, 97 political detainers and 24 sailors, prisoners of war, are kept in the prisons of the Russian Federation and occupied Crimea. They all were imprisoned due to the political, religious or other persecution.
In the morning of the 15th of August 2019, the activists of the action established the installation of 121 traps in the Suvorov Street in Kherson. The number of traps corresponds to the number of political prisoners and closed jaws mean that the victims “have been caught”.
This day in the evening, a film “ Live to return” was shown, which tells us about the national movement of the Crimean Tartars and their struggle to return to Crimea after the deportation in 1944.
After the film, the audience discussed the history of the international movement in the light of the present –day realities of the Crimean Tartars following the attempt of Crimea annexation, including the current situation in Crimea and politically motivated persecution as well as they spoke about the support and solidarity that the “Kremlin prisoners” need.
During the discussion. Anton Korynevych stressed that it was necessary to do all possible to keep the Crimean issue on not only the international agenda but here in Ukraine. The theme of Crimea should be heard in Kyiv, in Kherson in the checkpoints and everywhere.
The Permanent Representative as the Head of the working group on reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of the Commission on Legal Reforming issues noted: “ Actually, my working group works to develop the Strategy of de-occupation and reintegration of Crimea, the group includes a lot of representatives of civic organizations. I am hoping it is they who will carry messages from people and public, and we will work with them”.
Crimea is that situation when it is not important whether you are a state official, politician or activist , we have the same objective and we should work together”, Anton Korynevych summarized.
The organizers and partners of the rally are human rights organizations: Human Rights Center ZMINA, the Crimean Human Rights Group, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Center for Civic Liberties, Crimea SOS, #SaveOlegSentsov, Group of Relatives of Political Prisoners of Kremlin.
The same rallies have begun in Odessa and are going to be held in 10 cities of Ukraine. Kherson is the second city.