At 6am on Thursday, a bunch of seven Russian troopers raided Leila Ibragimova’s residence in Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine.
Ibragimova, an ethnic Crimean Tatar, is a widely known determine within the metropolis, which has fallen below the management of the Russian military following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A deputy of Zaporizhzhia Regional Council and director of the Melitopol Municipal Museum, she has been a powerful advocate for her constituency, together with the native inhabitants of about 12,000 Crimean Tatars – a Muslim group indigenous to close by Crimea, a territory Russia annexed in 2014.
The troopers reportedly put a bag over Ibragimova’s head and compelled her right into a automobile, driving round for some time earlier than they took her to an unspecified location for questioning.
They requested her about Azad, a neighborhood Crimean Tatar organisation, in addition to the names and addresses of activists and opinion leaders in her space. Ibragimova refused to provide the boys any info and informed them their actions have been unlawful. That is nonetheless Ukraine, she mentioned, and Russian legislation doesn’t apply.
Ibragimova was launched later that day and the Russian occupying forces determined to not press any expenses in opposition to her.
Nonetheless, analysts say the arrest might give insights into Russia’s long-term plans in relation to the territories it took management of prior to now two weeks, and ways it could use to attain them.
“The aim of the detention was to threaten Ibragimova, get probably the most details about her contacts, and determine individuals and organisations that Russian forces ought to goal subsequent. These are well-known strategies of Russian safety providers. They’ve carried out the identical in Crimea since 2014,” Nedim Useinow, a political scientist on the school of European Islam, College of Warsaw, informed Al Jazeera.
Useinow mentioned Russia’s plan seems to grab territory enabling it to completely lower off Ukraine’s entry to the ocean and join breakaway areas of Donetsk and Luhansk with the Russian mainland and Crimea.
“In addition they need to safe entry to water from Dnieper River as a result of they nonetheless haven’t solved the issue of water shortage in Crimea,” he mentioned.
“They’ve additionally begun to carry some Crimean Tatar collaborators over to organise agitation within the Kherson area.”
Persecution of activists
A more in-depth have a look at Russia’s insurance policies within the annexed Crimea in direction of Tatars might present a sign of what can occur with activists, officers and group leaders in different southern Ukrainian territories which have lately fallen below Russian management, analysts say.
“The scenario of Crimean Tatars in Crimea has been exhausting for the reason that starting of the occupation. Russia has been persecuting all activists who’re in opposition to the occupation and organised purges,” Lenur Kerymov from the Polish Helsinki Basis for Human Rights informed Al Jazeera.
“Till now, round 20 individuals have been disappeared in Crimea. They have been kidnapped by the safety providers and they’re most certainly lifeless. It has massively influenced the morale of the individuals. Russia’s coverage in direction of Crimean Tatars is that of terror.”
Analysts say that whereas repression of Crimean Tatars is partly as a result of faith, it is usually as a result of many locally have protested in opposition to the Russian annexation and criticised it within the media.
Over the previous eight years of Russian presence in Crimea, activists’ houses have been searched, virtually all impartial Crimean Tatar media retailers have been closed and native journalists have been both pressured to go away or change their focus from politics to leisure. There may be full censorship of native media.
The politics of Russification have additionally been in full pressure. Whereas on paper Crimea has three official languages, particularly Russian, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian, native activists and consultants say that faculties are discouraged from instructing in Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian.
Kerymov says the insurance policies purpose to take away all of the traces of Tatar id and tradition and thwart any civil actions.
“There are over 100 Crimean Tatars that we contemplate prisoners of conscience in Russian prisons with lengthy jail sentences. Nearly all of these individuals are spiritual Muslims,” Kerymov mentioned.
“Russians declare that they’re members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir [an Islamic political party], which is banned in Russia. In Ukraine the occasion is authorized and there’s no proof that any of their members in Ukraine or Crimea have been related to any felony actions, terrorism or extremism. These are merely individuals who consider in a different way.”
In some instances, individuals have been imprisoned for merely possessing a Quran, Kerymov says.
Kerymov’s predictions on what would possibly occur subsequent within the newly occupied territories of Ukraine are removed from optimistic.
“All activists and individuals who could lead on mass protests can be threatened, there can be imprisonments. I hope that there can be no killings however we now have to arrange for that, too,” he mentioned.
“These are typical strategies Russia makes use of to punish and threaten native populations.”