Kiev, Ukraine – In prison for “smuggling explosives” and “organizing a twist” to blow up the natural gas pipeline.
This is the phrase that Nariman Dazelial, who is the leader of the Crimean Tatar community in the Peninsula of the Indian Ocean, was handed over after a one -year trial in 2022 that Ukraine decided as “Trump Up”. And it was or her by the Kremlin.
44 -year -old Dzilial denied all the allegations against him. He said anything could be accused of anything, from “separatism” to “efforts to disrupt Russia’s constitutional order”.
These are the allegations that thousands of Kremlin’s critics and Muslims have faced in Chechnya, Dagan and most of the Muslim areas.
But in the case of Dzilial, he and other Tatar workers believe that the Kremlin chose “turning” as a potential excuse for the widespread persecution of the Majless, informal Tatar Parliament and the workers of the entire Tatar community.
The Kremlin labeled Majlis in 2016 as an “extremist” organization.
“In my case, there was a possibility – and there is still the same – the Majlis to declare not only an extremist, but also a terrorist organization, and all its workers were subjected to severe persecution.” Majelis.
He was released in June 2024 in exchange for a prisoner, arrived at Kiev to welcome his family, honorees and reporters.
If the Maglais is marked by the “terrorist”, then anyone shows its symbol – which includes the timga, a blue flag that has a yellow seal that is everywhere in the Tatar drivers. He had to face jail.
Tamga belongs to a Muslim family who ruled Crimea until Russia linked it in 1783.
However, it seems that the Kremlin has chosen against expanding the crackdown.
Observers say the reasons may be different from the pressure of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which may be different from the conflict between Russian law enforcement and political tribes.
“There is no reasonable logic.” Kiev -based rights lawyer Vyachalav Lakhachiev told Al Jazeera, “Different agencies have unorganized nor synchronized interests and ideas.
However, Moscow still makes the Tatars a single, with only 12 % of the Crimea population in the community of 250,000.
The rights groups have named 208 “political” prisoners of Crimea, saying that 125 are Tatars.
Many arrested have been waiting for trial for months or years, and have been sentenced to prison on charges of “terrorism” to “defaming Russia’s army”, which often ends in Siberian prisons. –
“People have been jailed for something. They did not blow anyone, didn’t kill anyone, did nothing like this, “Dzial said.
Tatars once dominated Crimea, but these days the majority of the peninsula are ethnic Russian and Ukraine residents, whose ancestors arrived in 1944 after the deportation of the entire Tatar community.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused him of “cooperation” with Nazi Germany, but experts say the main reason for this is Crimea’s geographical and cultural proximity, which is only 270 km across the Black Sea (170 miles) and Hundreds of years of history had to share.
Tatars were deported to Central Asia in cattle cars, which had a little food or water, and almost half the way died.
“One day will not be enough, one or two books will not be enough to tell us how they hurt us. When we die, our bones will remember him,” an elderly villager who avoids exile. It was gone, told the reporter in 2014, a few days before the “referendum” organized by Moscow, which made Crimea a part of Russia.
Dziliel’s father, Anwar, had six in 1944. His family ended in the sun -scattered Uzbek city of Navi, where he worked in a chemical plant and met Nariman’s mother.
He died in 2022, and Nariman was not allowed to leave jail to attend his funeral.
“It was not easy to say farewell,” said Dazelial. “But it was Allah’s will. I should do it to a Muslim.
The community dreamed of returning to Crimea, but Moscow only allowed it in the late 1980s – without the compensation of lost lives and property.
Most of the Tatars were settled in North Crimea, while locals evacuated and evacuated them, and regional authorities did not allow them to work in law enforcement agencies and administration.
When Moscow organized thousands of soldiers and Russian supporters in Crimea in February 2014, the Tatar leaders immediately understood the threat.
They knew how Moscow handled “extremism” in Muslim -majority areas in the Northern Caucasus and the Volga River.
Dzelial remembered a conversation with a Chechen man who urged him not to treat “the way he treats you”.
The man told him, “They killed Chechen.
Majlis selected a Gandhi policy of resisting non -violence.
“Russia was provoking the conflict. Dzilial said he needed only one, because it would justify the Russian army’s presence as a ‘peaceful’.
The Tataris stayed away from a dispute with Russian servicemen and “self -defense” units that were kept together and trained by Russian officers.
Dazelial and other Tatar leaders claimed that Moscow, especially the Ultra nationalists in Serbia, who participated in the 1995 Serbianic genocide of Muslims in 1995.
In March 2014, the reporter saw four armed Serbia patrolling a road in South Crimea.
Resistance to non -violence helped transform Crimea into another Chechnya, where Moscow’s “counter -terrorism operation” joined a war, analysts said.
“Anti -terrorism is not a process because Tatar’s resistance is basically non -violent. And the religious element is less important than in other Muslim areas of Russia, Kiev -based human rights lawyer and service, Mixem Bitcovich, Al Jazeera. Tell
However, the blood was sprinkled.
According to activists, a Tatar protesters were abducted before the “referendum”, and his abusive body was found with his eyes.
Dozens of Tatars were abducted and considered dead. Hundreds of people have been arrested, or their homes have been searched by armed men who were often broken in the morning, intimidating children.
Tatar traders face pressure, blackmail and conflict.
However, Dzelial is convinced that “Ukraine is ruined to free” by any Russian intervention.
“Sooner or Bader, we will get some priorities [Tatars]And it will always dislike Moscow.
On December 20, Ukrainian President Wolodmeer Zilnsky appointed Dazil Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey.
