11 Years of Occupation: Establishment of the Repressive Regime in Crimea

Government propaganda publicly portrayed pro-Ukrainian Crimeans as dangerous violent offenders and mass rioters. At the same time, the release of the individuals involved in the 3 May case on bail indicates that initially, in some cases, the Russian authorities attempted to use softer forms of influence on their opponents while establishing their repressive regime on the peninsula.

Attacks on Media and Associations

Along with suppressing freedom of assembly, Russian authorities began to systematically attack other institutions of civil society. Media and independent civil organisations have also been targeted.

As early as March 2014, the Centre for Investigative Journalism already recorded 85 instances of violations of journalists’ rights, including physical assaults and beatings, restrictions of access to public information and acts of censorship. In February and March, Russian authorities forced Ukrainian media outlets out of television and radio broadcasting on the peninsula and took control of the peninsula’s largest television centres — the Crimea State Broadcasting Company and the Yalta TV and Radio Company. Many Ukrainian Internet resources were also blocked, including those that were not formally banned by Russian legislation.

Roskomnadzor (Russia’s main governmental body responsible for media regulation) has ordered local media outlets to re-register in accordance with Russian legislation. According to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists’ Rights, 92% of media outlets operating in Crimea before the occupation were not re-registered under the new rules. In addition to these bureaucratic and organisational restrictions, Ukrainian and foreign journalists have also been periodically banned from entering the peninsula.

In February 2015, one of the first criminal cases against journalists in Crimea was initiated — against Anna Andrievskaya. The journalist was charged in absentia with calls to violate the territorial integrity of Russia (Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code). Criminal prosecutions of journalists became more frequent later on. In 2023, the human rights organisation CrimeaSOS published a list of 19 professional and civic journalists who had faced prosecution by Russian authorities in Crimea starting from 2014. Of these, 16 were in captivity at the time.

The closure of the Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR and prosecution of its employees was another key milestone in the restriction of media freedom in occupied Crimea.

• In 2015, the Ukrainian TV channel ATR, one of the three Crimean TV channels broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language, stopped broadcasting after Roskomnadzor refused to issue a licence for the outlet. During the illegal annexation of Crimea, the channel advocated for the territorial integrity of Ukraine and broadcast live the events in Crimea at the time. Roskomnadzor cited incorrectly completed documents as the official reason for the closure and denied any political motives in its actions. Representatives of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people stated that the refusal to register the channel violated Article 16 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• In Simferopol, officers of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation conducted a search of the apartment of the ATR TV channel operator Eskender Nebiev on 21 April. He was detained afterward and arrested the following day. Nebiyev was charged with participating in mass riots on 26 February 2014 (Article 212 of the Criminal Code). On 12 October 2015, Nebiyev was sentenced to two and a half years of suspended imprisonment.
• In November 2015, a series of searches were conducted in the ATR headquarters, as well as in the homes of the channel’s employees in Crimea and Moscow, in connection with the criminal prosecution of the channel’s director-general Lenur Islyamov.

During this period, Ukrainian organisations were being forced out of the Crimean non-profit sector and replaced by Russian ones. NGOs that had previously operated on the peninsula were required to re-register in accordance with Russian legislation. In a number of cases, the Russian Ministry of Justice refused to register Crimean organisations, citing formal errors in the documents. At the same time, some pro-government Russian NGOs began opening their branches in Crimea and taking the place of the closed Ukrainian ones. Examples of such organisations include the Association of Lawyers of Russia, Officers of Russia, Business Russia, and «Opora Rossii» («Pillar of Russia», an NGO focused on supporting small and medium enterprises). In addition, the new authorities created and supported pro-Russian movements of Crimean Tatars.

Russian authorities also began to criminalise independent associations. One of the important stages on this path was the declaration of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis an extremist organisation. Although it happened in 2016, the persecution of the Mejlis began back in 2014. The Mejlis was one of the first public organisations to be given such a status, which effectively turned all its employees into outlaws. On the one hand, this corresponded to the general tendency of the Russian authorities to suppress socio-political organisations that were critical of their actions, and the application of the anti-extremist legislation to such an organisation in occupied Crimea may be motivated by their desire to more harshly suppress civil society on the peninsula. On the other hand, opposition civil activity in Crimea after 2014 was conducted predominantly by the Muslim national-ethnic group of Crimean Tatars. At that time, anti-extremist or anti-terrorist legislation was already being intensively applied against various religious minorities in Russia. The authorities would later begin to use anti-extremist legislation against Russian political and public associations. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation would be the first to be banned this way in 2021.

— In September 2014, searches were conducted in the headquarters of the Mejlis and the homes of the organisation’s members and activists. Law enforcement officers arrested the deputy head of the Mejlis Akhtem Chiygoz on charges of organising riots on 26 February.

— In 2014, Russian authorities banned the leaders of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov from entering Crimea. In 2015, Russian authorities forcibly expelled the activist of the Crimean Tatar national movement Sinaver Kadyrov from the peninsula.

— In May 2015, the prosecutor’s office warned members of the Mejlis about the «inadmissibility of violating Russian legislation». This happened just before the gatherigns planned for 18 May — the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar genocide. A month later, a member of Mejlis, Dilyaver Akiyev, received a notice from the Crimean prosecutor’s office recommending not to hold any events on the Day of the Crimean Tatar Flag, which is celebrated on 26 June.

— In May 2015, the FSB initiated a criminal case against the head of the Mejlis Refat Chubarov for calls to violate the territorial integrity of the country (Article 280.1 of the Criminal Code). Chubarov was subsequently arrested in absentia and later sentenced, also in absentia, to six years in prison under this article and on charge of organising mass riots (Part 1 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code) in connection with the events of 26 February 2014.

— In January 2016, information appeared about a criminal case initiated against Mustafa Dzhemilev. For more information, read the section, «What happened to the participants of the rally of May 3?». In addition, Russian authorities put pressure on Dzhemilev’s relatives who still lived in Crimea at the time.

— On April 26, 2016, the Supreme Court of Crimea officially declared the Mejlis an extremist organisation and banned its activities in Russia and Crimea. Recognising the Mejlis as an extremist organisation has put about 2.5 thousand of its members at risk of direct prosecution.

— In March 2017, the Human Rights Centre Memorial, jointly with the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, filed a complaint with the ECHR in the interest of the Mejlis. There has been no decision on the case as of this writing.