Double standards with regard to the Crimean issue

1. Contradictory positions of the western countries on Crimea and the incorporation of the GDR into the FRG. 


In both cases, reunification was carried out through the conclusion of international treaties between the two sovereign States: the German Reunification Treaty of 29 September 1990 and the Treaty on the Accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation of 18 March 2014. Both reunification processes did not lead to the appearance of new subjects of international law: The Republic of Crimea and the GDR became part of the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany, respectively, without changing the international legal personality of the latter. Unlike the Treaty on the Accession of Crimea to Russia concluded following a free and voluntary expression of the will of the Crimean people at the all-Crimean Referendum, no referendum was held in the GDR on the accession to the FRG. Therefore, as recognized in open German sources, against the background of the emphasized non-involvement of the USSR in domestic political processes of the GDR, the FRG government actually imposed its unification terms on another German State. 


A reference to the Germans' right to free self-determination was found in the preamble (paragraph 11) to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with respect to Germany of 12 September 1990, signed by the victorious powers, the GDR and the FRG. 

2. The Crimean Tatar issue in the Ukrainian draft resolution on the human rights situation on the peninsula, initiated annually by Kyiv with the support of the United States and the EU and submitted at the 74th session of the UNGA (November 2020). Besides a standard set of accusations, it includes several innovations, namely "limited access of the arrested to medical care" and "demolition of private homes belonging to Crimean Tatars without compensation to the owners." However, the report is silent about the water blockade of Crimea by Ukraine. 


For reference: It was after the reunification of Crimea and Russia that almost all "delayed construction works," including the construction of the Main Cathedral Mosque in Simferopol, were completed. Since 2014, more than 10,000 land parcels have been allocated to people repressed on ethnic grounds for individual housing construction, 45,000 square meters of housing have been brought into use, and 50,000 square meters of housing (mostly in cities) are being completed. 

By contrast, the Ukrainian Crimea did not even think about solving all these problems at the State level.


3. Crimean Tatar activists were trying to play the "deported people" card in their own interests after the Soviet Union had collapsed. They regularly reached out to all international authorities, appealing to the real and imagined suffering of their people. 

For reference: In November 2007, Crimean Tatar civil society organizations sent an appeal to the OHCHR accusing Ukraine of "increasingly discriminatory policies and militant opposition by chauvinist public and paramilitary organizations against the Crimean Tatar people." This appeal was never processed. 


In May 2012, a group of Crimean Tatars, citizens of Ukraine, filed a complaint with the ECtHR against the Ukrainian authorities who had fined them for disseminating information on Hizb ut-Tahrir. There was no reason to examine the appeal.


However, the West persistently ignored the claims, but only until Crimea became Russian. After 16 March 2014, when the population of Crimea, including the Crimean Tatars, by an absolute majority of votes in favour decided to return to the Russian Federation, the position of international organizations in relation to the Crimean Tatars has changed diametrically, and they became the very "persecuted sufferers" that unsuccessfully tried to present themselves the whole time. 

4. According to the co-sponsors of the above-mentioned UN General Assembly resolution, the continued ban on the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People in Russia is another “evidence” of the violation of the rights of Crimean people. The ban was actually initiated by the very Crimean Tatar community of the peninsula when the Mejlis activists have taken a very active part in the water, commodity, and energy blockades of Crimea, including sabotage. 

For reference: On 26 April 2016, in the context of the sabotage actions of the Mejlis, including the undermining of transmission towers to supply electricity to the peninsula, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea decided to recognize it as an extremist organization and ban its activities in the territory of the Russian Federation in accordance with article 9 of the Federal Law No 114-FZ on Countering Extremist Activities of 25 July 2002. On 29 September 2016, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld this verdict.


5. Persecution of Hizb ut-Tahrir members and “sympathy” for them because of the court verdict (Rostov-on-Don, September 2020). Hizb ut-Tahrir has highly questionable reputation (banned not only in Russia, but also in Germany, Turkey, and most Muslim countries). It’s members are accused of terrorist activities. 


For reference: In March 2020, Russian law enforcement agencies conducted 25 simultaneous searches (mostly in Simferopol and Belogorsk districts of the Republic of Crimea) in the homes and personal vehicles of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami adherents, which resulted in the detention of 23 members and leaders of Crimean cells of the international terrorist organization. 


In June and November 2020, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced eleven defendants in the "Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami" case (Rustem Ismailov, Uzeir Abdullayev, Teimur Abdullayev, Emil Dzhemadenov, Aider Saledinov, Muslim Aliev, Inver Bekirov, Vadim Siruk, Refat Alimov, Arsen Dzhepparov, and Emir-Usein Kuku) to imprisonment to be served in a strict regime colony (depending on the role and degree of guilt of each, they were found guilty under article 205.5, paras. 1-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Establishment of a Terrorist Organization and Participation in the Activities of Such Organization). 


6. Indicative example of the hypocrisy is the actively replicated "extreme concern" for the well-being of the Crimean Tatars in complete disregard of the fact that the ongoing Kyiv water blockade of Crimea – openly supported by Refat Chubarov, Mejlis Chairperson– has the most influence on the Tatars. 


For reference: Coastal areas of Crimea are copes with the reduction of water resources, while the shortage of freshwater is particularly acute in the Bakhchisaray and Simferopol districts of Crimea, where the number of Crimean Tatars is more than 20 per cent. The economy of these territories is based on agriculture, which predominantly engages members of the Crimean Tatar people. It is the agricultural sector that particularly suffers the "water blockade." The lack of Dnieper waters makes it necessary to use artesian water for irrigation. This results in the fall of the water table, salinization of soils, a decrease in their fertility, and reduced cultivated areas.