Pressure on Tatars Continues In Crimea with TV Station Raid

Masked investigators and riot police on Monday raided Crimea's only Tatar-language television channel — the latest in a string of detentions, deportations, and searches targeting the peninsula's indigenous Crimean Tatars since Russia annexed the region in March.

The raid follows an admission this weekend by a major pro-Russia Crimean leader that he and other armed men forced local lawmakers to dissolve the existing government in the run-up to the republic's controversial secession referendum.

"I think [the raid] is connected with our channel's objective coverage," ATR general director Elzara Islyamova told VICE News. "We're not for the regime, but we're also not opposition. We talk about the most pressing issues of the day. It doesn't suit them that we are not a pro-regime channel."

Representatives of the Crimean Interior Ministry and Investigative Committee referred all questions to the Russian Interior Ministry, which could not be reached for comment on Monday.

The peninsula's 300,000 Crimean Tatars — an ethnic Muslim minority — make up about 13 percent of the population and have mostly opposed the new Russian government. Thousands of pro-Ukraine activists, most of them Crimean Tatars, rallied in opposition to pro-Russia protestors outside of the region's parliament last February on the night before gunmen seized the building and the parliament dissolved the government.

According to ATR reports, officials said that Monday's raid was meant to confiscate materials for a criminal investigation into the deaths of two elderly people at the February 26 protest, one of whom had a heart attack and one of whom was reportedly trampled by the crowd. About 50 law enforcement personnel overturned offices at the channel and went through the staff's personal effects. They took many documents, she said, but were persuaded not to confiscate the channel's computer server.

"There's a 'mask show' at ATR," wrote ATR correspondent Shevket Namatullayev on his Facebook account, using a Russian expression to refer to the police raid. "They've put an armed man outside each office. They've paralyzed our work a bit, but we're still on air. They're forbidding us to film and are threatening to confiscate our equipment."

Video from the scene showed about 20 riot policemen in blue camouflage and masks enter the channel's compound carrying Kalashnikov machine guns and then silently stand guard as investigators move around the offices.

Islyamova and Crimean Tatar activists suspect that the raid was meant to further intimidate the ethnic group, since the channel has already provided the authorities with information on the February 26 protest.

"We've had warnings before. Several times the regime said that we were engaging in un-constructive activities, imposing thoughts that lead to anti-Russian propaganda," Islyamova said. "I don't think this will be the last such event."

Crimean Tatar journalist and activist Nadji Femi is worried that the security services will use documents and video from the February 26 protest to identify and punish demonstrators.

"There are probably several reasons [for the raid], but on the one hand it's intimidation to frighten journalists and Tatars so they keep their heads down," Femi told VICE News.

An October report by Human Rights Watch said that two pro-Ukraine activists and five Crimean Tatars had been forcibly disappeared or gone missing in Crimea since May 2014 as the "de-facto authorities have steadily increased pressure on some members of the Crimean Tatar community." One of the men was found hanged in an abandoned building. The others remain missing.

Officials have issued warnings to the Mejlis, a Crimean Tatar representative body, over "extremist" activities such as flying a Ukrainian flag, and have banned its current and former leaders from the peninsula for five years. After Russia annexed Crimea, officials began enforcing a ban on "extremist" material that included Islamic religious books.

The HRW report said that authorities have conducted dozens of "intrusive searches" of Crimean Tatar mosques, schools, and homes, ostensibly looking for weapons, drugs, and "prohibited literature."

"The disappearances are contributing to the atmosphere of fear and hostility in Crimea for anyone who is pro-Ukraine, including Crimean Tatars,"said Human Rights Watch researcher Yulia Gorbunova.

The pressure on the ethnic minority has not let up, Femi said. Last week, three coordinators from the Human Rights Committee for the Crimean Tatar People were detained on their way to Ukraine and not allowed to leave Crimea, and one was later deported.

Earlier this month, young men suspected of being paid "titushki" thugs disrupted a Crimean Tatar rights conference, starting arguments with the participants and preventing presenters from speaking. After the conference, the committee appealed to the United Nations, Turkey, and Ukraine to "prevent the destruction of the Crimean Tatars"and stop the "terror and physical violence"that they have been subjected to since annexation.

While Moscow has maintained that Crimea's vote for secession from Ukraine and its annexation by Russia was a legal expression of the people's will, Igor Girkin — a former Russian intelligence agent who played a key role in the Crimean affair as well as in the pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine under the nom de guerre "Strelkov"— called this version of events into serious doubt during a debate on a nationalist internet television channel this weekend. He described nationalist author Nikolai Starikov's assertion that the population, law enforcement authorities, and regional government came out in support of joining Russia as "absolute nonsense,"arguing instead that the presence of Russian forces and local armed men was the decisive factor.

"The rebels assembled the deputies to drive them into the hall so that they would pass"resolutions to disband the government and appoint pro-Russian leader Sergei Aksyonov, Girkin said. "I was one of the commanders of those rebels."

Vladimir Putin famously later admitted that the "little green men" who descended on Crimea without identifying markings were Russian soldiers, and Moscow has since continued building up its military presence in the region. Officials involved in Kiev's ongoing "anti-terrorist operation" against eastern separatists said on Monday that Russia had deployed up to 50 attack helicopters to Crimea this month and had even created a "regiment" of drones.

Girkin held a press conference over the weekend to publicize his Novorossiya movement to provide humanitarian aid to the population of eastern Ukraine and uniforms and equipment to separatist forces. In response to a question from VICE News, he said the recent escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine had resulted from a rebel offensive to push back the Ukrainian forces, which he accused of shelling civilian areas in violation of a nominal ceasefire.

"There are many Russian volunteers, but no Russian military unit is fighting at the current time, or else the Ukrainian side would be hurting," Girkin said.

The United States has imposed an economic embargo on Crimea in response to the Russian annexation. Last week PayPal stopped servicing Crimean clients, Google blocked some of its services, and Apple stopped sales there. Visa and MasterCard also announced late last month that they would stop servicing cardholders in Crimea.

Follow Alec Luhn on Twitter: @ASLuhn

Watch the VICE News documentary Crimea: March of the Tatars here: