The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested six Ukrainian Muslims, five of them Crimean Tatars, after armed searches of seven homes in the early morning of February 17. The FSB and heavily armed Rosgvardia officers were clearly interested only in books, and in at least one case, claimed to find the so-called prohibited literature which they pulled from their own bag. Russia has again targeted civic activists, some of whom have already faced administrative prosecution for peaceful pickets in solidarity with Russia’s ever-mounting number of Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners.
There was an especially cynical slant to the events on February 17. The FSB has presumably understood that terrorizing small children and imposing 15-20-year sentences against their fathers or grandfathers for civic activism and kitchen conversations are not what most people view as ‘fighting terrorism.’ This time, they first circulated, via state-controlled media, false information about the supposed arrests in Crimea and in Russia of Islamic radicals from an organization called Takfir wal-Hijra, who were claimed to be “planning terrorist attacks in the North Caucuses.”
Russia has been using ‘terrorism’ charges against devout, law-abiding Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian Muslims since 2015, both as a means of imprisoning civic activists and journalists, and in an effort to demonize Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of Crimea, who in the main identify with Ukraine and oppose Russian occupation. The true nature of such ‘trials’ is increasingly understood both in Crimea, and by the international community, with the men recognized as political prisoners.
There is nothing on the FSB press service’s site to substantiate the claimed ‘operation’ shown by Crimea24 and RIA Novosti. The FSB on this video can be seen bursting into various buildings and also pulling a machine gun, a suicide belt and ammunition from a hiding place. This is not the first time that the FSB have circulated fake videos which have nothing to do with the arrests in occupied Crimea of peaceful civic activists.
Later reports say nothing about the false information, but do make it clear that the six men from different parts of occupied Crimea are accused of ‘involvement’ in Hizb ut-Tahrir and that the only thing ‘found’ during the armed searches was ‘prohibited literature.’ Hizb ut-Tahrir is a peaceful, Muslim organization which is legal in Ukraine and most countries, and which is not known to have committed acts of terrorism anywhere. Russia is using a suspect, and highly secretive, ruling by its Supreme Court in 2003 declaring Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization as the sole justification for charging men with involvement or organizing a terrorist group and, even more absurdly, planning to violently seize power.
The searches took place simultaneously in five different parts of Crimea, with two men even being told that they were considered part of a group of civic activists whose trial and monstrous sentences are currently awaiting an appeal hearing. They were also carried out with total disregard for fundamental rights, such as the right to have a lawyer present, with phones immediately removed and lawyers prevented from entering the premises.
The FSB investigator who took part in the search of Mr. Fedorov’s home openly said: “You have the right to a lawyer, but you now can’t phone them.” It is clear why the FSB illegally bring the supposedly independent witnesses with them and ensure that lawyers are not admitted. Having discovered that lawyers in occupied Crimea are insisting upon properly defending all victims of such persecution, the FSB is increasingly resorting to planting literature which is then treated as material evidence of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir.