Currently, Russian propaganda in occupied Crimea is more intense than ever, says activist Amet Bekir on Ukraine’s Day of Resistance to the Occupation of Crimea, marked on 26 February, Espreso reports.
Crimea was the first territory of Ukraine that Russia seized in 2014. On 25 February of that year, a pro-Russian rally outside the Crimean Parliament called for separation from Ukraine. The next day, tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians gathered in Simferopol to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“Propaganda today is worse than in Soviet times. But Ukraine endures, and my people under occupation endure because many Crimean Tatar families remind their children: our homeland is Ukraine. In the USSR, dissidents were sentenced to three or four years, sometimes repeatedly. Now, Russia hands out 20-year sentences at once. They are banning our symbols, our flag,” Bekir reveals.
He recalls Russia immediately outlawed the Ukrainian flag in Crimea, yet it remained flying on the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar representative office, until the very end. Russian forces removed it on 29 September 2014 after violently seizing it.
Fear grips every Crimean Tatar household, Bekir admits, as Russian-installed authorities can come at any time and take away the head of the family.
“This fear has been with us since the deportation. My father was five years old when he was forcibly exiled in 1944. My daughter was also five in 2014 when we had to flee. What does this tell us? That we are constantly under control. This struggle connects us with Ukrainians—Russia has always sought to dominate the Ukrainian nation. That unites us,” says Bekir.
Bekir drew parallels with Ukraine’s past, noting that just as the Soviets banned the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Bible, they also outlawed the Quran in Crimea.
“I was in Bakhchisarai when the Russians came. We resisted with nothing but wooden sticks and bats,” he recalled.
He emphasizes the significance of 26 February as the day Crimean Tatars affirmed that Crimea is Ukraine.
“The events outside the Crimean Parliament that day showed the world that the Crimean Tatars stand with Ukraine,” Bekir says.
According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, 385 people have been politically imprisoned or persecuted since Russia occupied Crimea, including 236 Crimean Tatars. At least 60 people have died, 28 of them Crimean Tatars. There have been 24 documented cases of enforced disappearances, with 18 victims from the Crimean Tatar community.
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