Week-ending 25 September 2020
“I am no terrorist or invader, I did not force my way into a foreign land and did not stage a pseudo-referendum. I did not abduct people, did not burst into people’s homes and terrify their children. All of that revolts me. I have myself become a victim of repression merely because I practised my religion. I am facing a sentence of up to 21 years for a conversation in a mosque.“
-Timur Ibragimov, Crimean Solidarity journalist at his trial
On 25 September 2020, Human Rights in Ukraine reported that, in his final address to the Russian court that sentenced him on 16 September 2020 to 17 years for no crime, Crimean Solidarity civic journalist Timur Ibragimov gave a searingly blunt assessment of Russia’s persecution of him and other dissidents in occupied Crimea. He was accused, without any evidence, of ‘terrorism’ by a country that had invaded another country’s territory and then brought terror, repression, forced disappearances and much more to its people. He spoke of “a viral infection” having come to Crimea in 2014, in which there were “all the elements of Russian presence, namely mass surveillance, disappearances, terrorization of the population, terror and incredible sentences for dissident thinking and for an active civic position.” “Terrorism came to Crimea together with Russia because it is Russia that is the embodiment of terrorism. It turned out then that it is we Crimean Tatars who are bearing the brunt of the repression that our ancestors also faced and that nothing has changed. It’s just that before they accused us of being ‘traitors’, now of ‘terrorism’. I am no terrorist or invader, I did not force my way into a foreign land and did not stage a pseudo-referendum. I did not abduct people, did not burst into people’s homes and terrify their children. All of that revolts me. I have myself become a victim of repression merely because I practised my religion. I am facing a sentence of up to 21 years for a conversation in a mosque. I am not a nationalist, and have a totally unbiased attitude to other peoples. I believe that a person should be judged by their mind, not by the colour of the skin or their origin. I have no hatred to other religions and this is categorically prohibited by Islam.
