SYMFEROPOL, Ukraine – A court in Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Crimea region has sentenced prominent Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz, to eight years in prison after what Amnesty International called a “sham trial.”
A court in the regional capital, Symferopol, sentenced Mr. Chiygoz on September 11 after finding him guilty of organizing an illegal demonstration there in February 2014.
Mr. Chiygoz is the deputy chairman of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatar assembly that was outlawed by Russia after it occupied and seized control of the Black Sea peninsula.
In Kyiv, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a strongly worded protest over the trial, verdict and sentence.
It said Mr. Chiygoz was arrested for “his support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine and his fight for human rights.”
The case against Mr. Chiygoz was “yet another manifestation of Russia’s repressive policies on the Crimean peninsula aimed at suppressing dissent… and yet more evidence of discrimination against Crimean Tatars,” the ministry said.
Refat Chubarov – the chairman of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body, the Mejlis, which is now banned by Moscow – called the sentence “a new attempt to intimidate Crimean Tatars and suppress their will.” Mr. Chubarov fled Crimea after Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in March 2014.
Rights groups say Mr. Chiygoz is a victim of a persistent campaign of reprisals against Crimeans who opposed Russia’s seizure of the Ukrainian region.
Amnesty International called for his immediate release.
“The unfair trial of Akhtem Chiygoz tops a wave of spurious and demonstrably false criminal and administrative cases instigated by the occupying Russian authorities against members of the Crimean Tatar community,” a statement from the London-based group quoted Oksana Pokalchuk, its director in Ukraine, as saying. “It epitomizes the ongoing persecution of these activists whose only ‘crime’ is to vocally oppose Crimea’s annexation by Russia.”
In a statement posted on Facebook, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muiznieks said that the judgment against Mr. Chiygoz “represents yet another blow to the already difficult situation of Tatars in Crimea.”
“Chiygoz has been in fact convicted for having violated a law that was not applicable when the facts in question occurred,” Mr. Muiznieks said. “This raises serious doubts as to this judgment’s compatibility with the [European Convention on Human Rights] which clearly establishes that ‘no one shall be held guilty of any criminal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offense under national or international law at the time when it was committed.’”
After a Moscow-friendly Ukrainian president was pushed from power by pro-European protests in Kyiv, Russia took control of Crimea in March 2014 by sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries, including the United States and Ukraine.
Russia has been criticized by international rights groups and Western governments for its treatment of members of the indigenous Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar minority.
Mr. Chiygoz, 52, and two other Crimean Tatars charged in connection with the demonstration – Ali Asanov and Mustafa Degermendzhy – are recognized as political prisoners by the Russian human rights group Memorial.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and other international organizations have called for their releases.
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