Police Search House Of Arrested Crimean Tatar's Home
By RFE/RL
Police in Ukrain'es Russia-annexed Crimea region have searched the house of detained Crimean Tatar Muslim Aliyev.
Aliyev was arrested in 2016 along with five other men for what Russia-controlled authorities said was "membership in the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group," which is banned in Russia but legal in Ukraine.
The arrested men and their supporters say the case is politically motivated.
Crimea-based human rights group Crimean Solidarity says the search of Aliyev's house was conducted on July 19 as part of a separate investigation of Aliyev's daughter, Gulsum Aliyeva, who is facing charges of inciting ethnic strife. Authorities have not commented on the search.
Moscow’s takeover of Crimea in March 2014 was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.
Exiled from their homeland en masse by the Soviet authorities under dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.
Russian President Vladimir Putin promised in 2014 that Russia would treat the mostly Muslim minority well and would address what he claimed were rights issues ignored or mishandled by the Ukrainian authorities.
But rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they call a campaign of repression targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatars and others who opposed Moscow's seizure of the peninsula.