Today at the “Locomotive” retail market in Simferopol (the capitol of Crimea) Russian law enforcement officers in balaclavas detained sellers of non-Slavic appearance, reports DePo’s own correspondent from the scene.
People in law enforcement uniforms wearing balaclavas as well as several people in plain clothes raided shops of the mall.
They entered each shop and demanded ID documents from sellers with non-Slavic appearance. However, Crimeans simply are not used to carrying passports with them, so they were immediately detained by police until identification.
One of the owners of a kiosk was indignant: “Why do you make a terrorist out of me? Why are you treating me this way?”
News about the raid swept through the mall in an instant: “They ‘take’ not everyone. ‘Ours’ are not arrested.”
The DePo reported earlier that Mustafa Dzhemilev, the national leader of Crimean Tatars, told European parliamentarians at a meeting of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that 18 Crimean Tatars disappeared with no trace during the Russian occupation of the Crimea. According to Dzhemilev, Crimean Tatars are under severe pressure from the occupation authorities of the Crimea, and many Tatars have been arrested without any legal basis.
