Crimea: Five Years Under the Russian Occupation.

These days we are marking a tragic 5 th anniversary of the Russian occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine). The unprecedented barbaric act commited by the Russian Federation five years ago have resulted in increasing degradation of living standards and human rights situation, caused by a purposeful policy aimed at drastically limiting or denying a large part of Crimea's population the possibility to exercise its legitimate rights and freedoms to education, expression, conscience and religion.

This alarming negative evolution has been condemned in the latest UN General Assembly Resolution A/73/L.48 "Situation of human rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine" of 22 December 2019. Drastic curtailing the freedoms of assembly, expression, association, access to information, and religion has had a devastating impact on the rights of all residents of Crimea, especially those who are opposing and resisting occupation. The human rights activists, the families of persons detained by the Russian occupying authorities, the members of religious communities also became targets for illegal persecution.

Oleg Sentsov, famous Ukrainian filmmaker and a vocal opponent of Russia's occupation of Crimea, was arrested at his home in the Crimean city of Simferopol in May 2014 by Russia's Federal Security Service. He was taken to Moscow and upon being subjected to torture and severe mistreatment leading to the illegal extraction of depositions, was illegally convicted by a military court of "conspiracy to commit terror acts" and sentenced to 20 years in prison in a trial described by human rights institutions as unfair and politically motivated. He was transported to a Siberian penal colony more than 3,000 miles from Crimea.

The Verkhovna Rada has appealed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, proposing the candidacy of Oleh Sentsov to receive the Nobel Peace Prize proceeding from the fact that he during the entire period of illegal detention, risking his own life, demonstrates the example of courageous, not violent resistance in the struggle for basic human rights and freedoms.

The Verkhovna Rada's statement also lists the names and surnames of more than 50 Ukrainian citizens illegally detained in the Russian Federation and the territories of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions occupied by Russia.

Occupying authorities have been persecuting independent media in order to suppress any...