The rights organization Freedom House has detailed rights abuses in the Crimean Peninsula since Russia "forcefully and illegally annexed" the Ukrainian territory in March 2014.
In a new report released on March 4, the group says Crimea's residents have faced increasingly grave, civic, political, and human rights violations.
Particularly affected was the Crimean Tatar population, which, according to Freedom House, has faced "infringement of property rights and intimidation of independent voices through selective use of law and physical force."
The report says the Kremlin has sought to suppress reporting of such abuses by creating a so-called "information ghetto" in Crimea through a crackdown on local and foreign media.
The report also notes that many of these abuses have not been reported, as "Western media attention shifted to the war in Ukraine's east" where government forces have been battling pro-Russian separatists for nearly one year now.
