This week, Brussels has become the capital of free Crimea: the European Parliament and other European institutions are hosting events of the First Crimean Week in Brussels. Ukrainian authorities and human rights activists are trying to draw the attention of the international community to the repressions in the occupied Crimea. We listened to their speeches and asked Crimean activists whether they agreed with the main messages. After all, these people cannot travel to Europe on their own - and for obvious reasons, we cannot name them.

“Without the liberation of Crimea, there will be no normal security guarantees for Europe,” said Olga Skrypnyk, head of the Crimean Human Rights Group, from the rostrum of the European Parliament. She emphasized that the situation on the occupied peninsula demonstrates what the Crimean policy of the Russian authorities has been and remains: abductions, torture, politically motivated persecution, militarization, and displacement of the population.

The Crimeans confirm that all of the above is true, but the scale of persecution is growing right before our eyes. "Previously, the number of political prisoners was known to everyone, and they were mostly Crimean Muslims. Repressions against them have not stopped - 5-6 people are consistently imprisoned every six months. But now we hear every day about the arrest of another “agent” or the detention of “saboteurs” or a criminal case for joking about blowing up the Kerch bridge. If we used to talk about a few dozen politically motivated cases a year, now the same number of people are imprisoned every month. And we don't know how many more we don't know about," a civic activist from Simferopol shares her observations. My interlocutor considers events like the Crimean Week to be extremely important because public statements by human rights defenders are the only way to draw the international community's attention to the scale of crimes committed by Russians in the occupied territories. Human rights defenders have virtually no other channels to tell the world about the situation in Crimea.

Back in 2021, the occupiers showed what awaits those who dare to speak publicly about the real human rights situation in Crimea. They arrested Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis Nariman Сelâl for participating in the Crimean Platform. On trumped-up charges, he was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum security prison, but the Crimean was lucky to be among the few civilians who were exchanged last year. Nowadays, Сelâl is in Brussels and shares his vision of the situation with European politicians.

"For more than eleven years now, no citizen in Crimea can feel safe and have confidence that they can protect their rights, freedom, and life if necessary. Crimean residents are forced to live in an atmosphere of fear and suspicion of each other... We must act to liberate Crimea. That is why any recognition of Russian sovereignty over the temporarily occupied territory is unacceptable. Such recognition would be considered a disregard for the inalienable rights of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, including the right to self-determination and participation in all decision-making processes concerning their homeland. Any agreements on Crimea should be concluded with the participation of the state and the indigenous Crimean Tatar people... Today, seven countries, starting with Ukraine, have already recognized the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as genocide. I urge you and your countries to join in establishing the truth and make appropriate decisions," Nariman Сelâl said a day before the Verkhovna Rada adopted an appeal to the world to recognize the deportation of Crimean Tatars as genocide.

However, in Crimea, the politician's speech was called weak and vague. "I understand, of course, that he is almost a civil servant and did not want to criticize the Ukrainian government for ignoring the laws related to the protection of the rights of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people. But nothing prevented him from demanding more than some abstract “justice” from Europe. He should have at least called on the European Parliament to vote to recognize the deportation as genocide. It's a shame that such a chance to draw the attention of MEPs to the topic of Crimea was so easily lost," complained one of the veterans of the national movement, commenting on Сelâl’s speech.

Speaking about Crimea, we should think not only about the territory, but also remember the people, said Olga Kuryshko, Head of the Mission of the President of Ukraine, in her speech. “Crimea is primarily about people who are fighting for freedom despite repression: human rights defenders, journalists, and activists,” the official said. She also spoke about a mentoring program for political prisoners aimed at publicizing the stories of illegally imprisoned citizens to increase pressure on the occupying power and strengthen international solidarity.

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However, relatives of the Crimean political prisoners believe that today, Ukraine is doing virtually nothing to release these people or to provide social support to their families. "Half a million rubles a year is how much we spend to support my husband in the colony. We are lucky that he is in Bashkiria and not somewhere in Magadan. And what are they doing? This new ministry that is now dealing with us has started demanding documents that are impossible to obtain, and almost directly saying that you have to prove that he was imprisoned for supporting Ukraine, and not as an ordinary criminal," complains the wife of one of the Crimean political prisoners. Her irritation is related to the work of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, which this year was given the responsibility for protecting political prisoners and their families. Previously, this was the responsibility of the Ministry of Reintegration. The consequence of the innovation for relatives is that they now do not even know when their appeals will be considered and whether they will receive state aid at all. People complain about the bureaucratized procedure, which has become even more complicated in the new agency, even though relatives of political prisoners submit the same documents year after year.

Residents of the occupied Crimea have many complaints about the poor performance of Ukrainian government officials: in addition to the difficulties with legal recognition of human rights violations already mentioned, they also lack rules for distance learning under the Ukrainian school curriculum, inconsistencies in higher education, and freezing plans for simplified civil registration. Crimeans say there are so many issues that it is worth holding a Crimean week in Kyiv.

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