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On Monday, Refat Chubarov, a leader of the minority Muslim group the Crimean Tatars, said that the new Russian leadership had threatened to prosecute them “for extremism”. Chubarov, who leads the ethnic minority’s assembly, said that the Chief Regional Prosecutor on Sunday gave him an official warning to stop “extremist activities”.
During the weekend, hundreds of pro-Ukraine Tatars clashed with regional authorities because of a ban which prevents their spiritual leader from visiting Crimea. Chubarov said that he feared authorities would prosecute him. “I know that a criminal case will be opened against me today”, he added, expressing fears that authorities would launch “repressions” against Tatar activists. “There will also be attempts to declare the Mejlis an extremist organisation”, he said.
In March, most of the 300,000 Tatars in Crimea boycotted the referendum in which a majority voted to join Russia. Natalia Poklonskaya, Crimea’s regional prosecutor, warned the Tatars that its assembly would be banned if they continue with their “extremist activities”, according to the Mejlis.
On Saturday, clashes broke out between local authorities and Tatar activists after the former banned Mustafa Dzhemilev, spiritual leader of the Tatar community, from visiting Crimea. Dzhemilev’s supporters tussled with the police and broke through a check point in a failed attempt to help him cross the border.
Dzhemilev’s, who is also an MP in the Ukrainian parliament, is a Soviet-era dissident who has spent his life fighting for the rights of Tatars, and as such commands lots of respect among them. He became a persona non grata for Crimean authorities after a March UN Security Council session, when he said that his people were fearful for their lives, and that 5,000 had already fled Crimea.
On Monday, Dzhemilev dismissed the increasing pressure on the community, and said that if authorities would ban the assembly, then it would go underground. We already saw this under the Soviets when the whole of the powerful KGB machine worked against the Crimean Tatars. Despite the repressions, we functioned then and we will find a way to function now”, he said.