Crimean political prisoners’ relatives in Kiev: We will continue fighting peacefully (VIDEO)

Seyran Saliev’s wife, one of the six detained Crimean Tatars on October 11, 2017, Mumine Salieva and political prisoner Remzi Memetov’s son, Dilyaver Memetov, told at the press conference in Kiev on Thursday, October 19, 2017, about the situation in Crimea.

At a press conference on the latest arrests in Crimea Mumine Salieva and Dilyaver Memetov spoke about their participation in the high-level conference in the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) «Counteracting Intolerance, Discrimination and Hatred of Muslims as a Comprehensive Response» in Vienna. There, political prisoners’ relatives told about repressions in Crimea and called on the international community to intensify pressure on Russia.

«The whole tragedy is that today there are repressions against the entire Crimean Tatars. This is a real discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion. Over the past three years we have witnessed mass detentions of Crimean Tatars in public places, places of compact residence only for the fact that people go out to express their protest and disagreement legitimately. (...) We urged the OSCE countries to react to this by sending a commission to monitor the existing problems of Crimean Muslims and Crimean Tatars. We drew the world community’s attention to the need to use all the pressure mechanisms and stop this repressive machine against the Crimean Tatars and Crimean Muslims. We hope that we were heard», said Mumine Salieva.

Dilyaver Memetov, in turn, said that Russia in Crimea had been trying to label Crimean Tatars as terrorists and extremists for the last three years.

«Our people had already experienced a similar story. This was in 1944, when all the people were declared as traitors by Soviet authorities and deported from their homeland. Today it’s the same, they changed only the coverage. New slander and lies are extremism and terrorism now», Memetov said.

The political prisoners’ relatives stressed that despite the occupation authorities’ actions on the peninsula, Crimean Tatars would continue expressing their disagreement and protest.

«We will not stop there. It will increase with time and only become worse for the authorities themselves. We will not stop, but defend our rights, our families and the entire Crimean Tatars in a legitimate, peaceful way only», said Mumine Salieva.

As the website «15 Minutes» reported earlier, in Vienna on Wednesday, October 18, 2017, at the high-level conference in the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) «Counteracting Intolerance, Discrimination and Hatred of Muslims as a Comprehensive Response», the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the President Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Izet Gdanov told about repressions against the Crimean Tatars in Crimea. After the international conference its participants worked on recommendations aiming to include there policy directives condemning Russia's actions against Crimean Tatars.