The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its strong protest in connection with the illegal detention by the Russian security forces of 45 Crimean Tatars, who gathered today near the building of the Supreme Court of Russia in Moscow for a peaceful action to support compatriots convicted on fabricated allegations of involvement in the activities of the so-called "Terrorist organization".

Together with yesterday’s dispersal of the protest of the Crimean Tatars near the Kremlin, today’s unjustified detention once again demonstrated the immutability of the Russian repressive policy towards the Crimean Tatars, aimed at crowding out the Crimean Tatar people from the temporarily occupied peninsula.

The very decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation regarding the appeal against the decision of the North Caucasus District Military Court in the "Hizb ut-Tahrir" case, which reduces multi-year jail terms of the illegally detained citizens of Ukraine by several months, is a cynical abuse of the Ukrainian political prisoners. It also reaffirms the fact that there is no fair and independent judiciary in the Russian Federation.

We call on the international community to condemn these illegal actions of the Russian Federation and to intensify political, diplomatic and sanctions pressure on the aggressor state in order to stop the violations of human rights and the persecution of the Crimean Tatar people, and demand that the Russian Federation releases immediately the illegally detained citizens of Ukraine.