98 attacks on journalists recorded in occupied Crimea – human rights activists
98 attacks and threats against journalists and bloggers were recorded in the occupied Crimea over the year, accorsing to the ZMINA Human Rights Center, Krym.Realii reports.
Furthermore, over the past year, ZMINA recorded eight cases of physical assault, including two cases of abduction and torture of journalists, three violent detentions, and one case of punitive institutionalization.
The Center's board chairwoman, Tetyana Pechonchyk, reported that 13 cases of obstruction of journalistic work were recorded in the occupied Crimea in 2022. According to her, in most of those cases, courts barred journalists from attending trials, judges rejected requests for photo or video recording and journalists's requests to be present at court sessions.
According to her, representatives of the Russian authorities remain the main source of threat in occupied Crimea, and the attacks on journalists and bloggers most commonly take a form of detention, arrests, administrative fines or criminal prosecution of journalists.
According to the latest data from the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, Russia is illegally keeping 180 Crimean political prisoners, including 116 Crimean Tatars, in detention. According to him, Russia persecutes Ukrainian citizens on religious grounds (Jehovah's witnesses, Hizb ut-Tahrir), as well as for journalistic or human rights work and anti-war speeches; Russia has also been fabricating cases for sabotage, terrorism, extremism, and espionage.
15 journalists from Crimea are in Russian detention facilities, including the Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Nariman Celal (Celalov by the documents).
As IMI reported, the Russia-backed Supreme Court of Crimea did not allow reporters or the father of citizen journalist and activist Iryna Danylovych to attend the hearing in the case against her, despite the trial being open.
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