Ukraine launched an initiative to support Crimean political prisoners — every Ukrainian can write them a letter

Political prisoner Ramzi Bekirov. Photo: «Crimea.Realii».

Today, February 19, the «Letters to a Free Crimea» initiative, which was created to support political prisoners from Crimea and the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, became operational in Ukraine.

Anna Sytnikova, chief consultant of the Crimean Platform Service of the Representation of the President of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea, told about this on the air of Media Center Ukraine, NikVesti reports.

As of today, the representative office is aware of 208 Crimean political prisoners. These people are Crimeans, or detained residents of Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia.

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«During these 2 years, we note that in addition to the «classic political prisoners» — these are mainly Crimean Tatars who were detained for their pro-Ukrainian position — there were also people who were abducted from the Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia and moved to the Crimea. Unfortunately, there are already too many such people. The cases of people who, despite 10 years of occupation of Crimea, continue to say that the peninsula should be Ukrainian, have also started to be added to this list,» said Anna Sytnykova.

According to the representation consultant, a letter with support, congratulations or the question «How are you?» — very important for political prisoners.

«Relatives of political prisoners say that these letters are a breath of freedom for their relatives in Russian or Crimean prisons,» she added.

According to her, the initiative arose last year due to the fact that among some higher political circles the topic of political prisoners is still little known. Therefore, every Ukrainian will be able to write to a political prisoner within the next 4 months: if you are abroad, you can send a physical letter to the Russian Federation, if you are in Ukraine, you can send a letter in electronic format or a physical letter to a mailbox. Anna is sure that this category of people should be supported not only for moral health, but also for physical health.

«These letters are extremely important because the prison administration sees that a letter has arrived from Germany, America, New Zealand, and Australia, and they understand that this person is being talked about everywhere. This is very important for the physical preservation of this person. Because, unfortunately, last year, two political prisoners died and more than 30 people are in serious condition,» said Anna Sytnikova.

It is noted that not all 208 people are in the list of political prisoners to whom you can write, because the whereabouts of some of them are unknown. Mostly, these are people who were illegally deported to Crimea or the Russian Federation from the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Also, there are certain requirements in writing these letters: you need to write in Russian and not touch on political issues.

The list of people you can write to can be found on the website and social networks of the Representation of the President of Ukraine in Crimea. The promotion will last 4 months: from February 19 to May 19.

We will remind how in 2015 in Crimea, a Euromaidan activist was sentenced to 4 years in prison.