The human rights movement Crimean Solidarity was created on 9th April 2016 as an informal and peaceful human rights organisation to protect victims of repression on ethnic, religious and political grounds in Crimea. Its foundation originated from the Crimean Tatar community. Groups of lawyers work to protect the Crimeans, providing initial legal consultations for members of the so-called risk group - civic activists, journalists, bloggers, and representatives of religious organisations. Today, more than 224 Crimeans are political prisoners, and countless others have fled. Crimean Tatars make up more than two-thirds of these prisoners - 133 people. The total prison term for those who have been convicted (excluding those who have already been released) amounts to 1709 years of imprisonment - according to the list of political prisoners provided by the Representative Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Through my research and conversations with victims, I’ve come to realise that many of these cases are fabricated and that people are being unjustly imprisoned. The majority of political prisoners - at least 170 people - have been illegally transferred from Crimea to penal colonies and pre-trial detention centres in the Russian Federation The most recent example is 64-year-old Servet Gaziev, who has been transferred 12,000 kilometres from Crimea to Kamchatka. A third of political prisoners have now died in a Russian prison. 70 people out of 224 need medical care - these are people with disabilities, the elderly, those who have chronic diseases, or who have acquired new diseases while in prison. 6 people have disabilities, these include Amet Suleymanov, who needs an urgent heart surgery, as well as Oleksandr Sizikov who is completely blind, and has been sentenced to 17 years. Being a woman used to be a red line - one that Russian law enforcement rarely crossed. That changed after February 2022 and the start of the full-scale invasion. Since then, at least 23 women (from Crimea and those transferred there from Herson or Genichesk after 2022) have been detained. Of these, only 6 have received sentences - including Iryna Danylovych and Iryna Horobtsova. The others remain in pre-trial detention centers in Crimea or in the Russian Federation. I also want to speak about the repression of entire Crimean Tatar families who have been subjected to persecution. A striking example is the Omerov family, in which all the men - father Enver Omerov, son Riza Omerov, and son-in-law Rustem Ismailov - were arrested on trumped-up terrorism charges. The daughter and daughter-in-law were also targeted in administrative cases. Recently, even Riza Omerov’s father-in-law was subjected to a search. Three sons of Crimean Tatar historian Shukri Seytumerov and his wife, schoolteacher Lilya Seytumerova, were arrested: Seytumer, Osman, and Abdulmejit. The Russian FSB detained them, accusing them of terrorism and anti-constitutional activities. The court sentenced Seytumer to 17 years in prison and Osman to 14 years. Abdulmejit is still under investigation. The mere act of attending a mosque made them suspects. “Crimean mosques have once again become places of fear, where the Russian FSB is searching for new victims,” their father tells me. But the most vulnerable and unprotected victims of this powerful and unpunished repressive machine are the loved ones of political prisoners - their parents, wifes, and children. According to the Crimean Childhood project, which supports children of political prisoners, 252 children are currently growing up without their fathers. Many of them required psychological rehabilitation following house raids. The Russian authorities steal years of their lives, depriving them of the simplest and most precious moments of daily life: shared breakfasts and dinners, conversations about their day, smiles, hugs, and phone calls.