They returned to Crimea from deportation at the first opportunity. And they did not leave even when the Russian invaders arrived. “This is our land, we have no other homeland,” was the opinion expressed by thousands of Crimean Tatars who refused to leave the peninsula in 2014. They remained despite mass repression, fabricated accusations of terrorism and extremism, and a de facto ban on their native language. But since last week, conversations about a possible departure have been taking place in almost every Crimean Tatar household. The arrest of four women prompted the Crimeans to engage in somber reflection: 18-year-old Nasiba Saidova, 20-year-old Elviza Aliyeva, 21-year-old Fevziye Osmanova, and 39-year-old mother of five Esma Nimetulaeva. 

"For the first time, I thought that we might have to leave our homeland. I was never afraid that they would come for me. Everything is in the hands of the Almighty. But now I am afraid, because they might take my wife instead of me. They won't care that the youngest child is one year old and the two older ones are still toddlers. They will give her a prison sentence, and how will I answer my children's questions about when their mother will return?" says a resident of Bakhchisaray, who flatly refused to leave Crimea in 2014 and 2022.

This is not an isolated opinion, but a trend, say human rights activists. "The Crimean Tatar community is quite upset about these arrests of women. First, this is due to the age of those detained. Most of them are very young girls. And on the day of the trial, when three hundred people unexpectedly gathered outside the building, the main reason for their reaction was that “everyone has children.” Almost everyone has daughters. And everyone is afraid that the same thing could happen to their daughter," shares a Crimean Tatar human rights activist, whose name we are not revealing for security reasons. According to him, another important factor that prompted the Crimeans' reaction was the propaganda campaign in the regional and Russian media claiming that the detainees were terrorists. "The investigation has only just begun; the case was opened on October 14, the day before the searches. There has been no court decision yet, there has been no judicial investigation, and they are already being called terrorists. And this blow to the reputation of these women cannot help but disturb people," says the human rights activist.

Russian security forces pay a lot of attention to the media coverage of the repressions, according to the human rights organization Crimean Process. Even before the high-profile arrest of the Crimean Tatars, their experts published a study in which they called “female” criminal cases a tool for intimidating Crimeans who are disloyal to the occupiers. "Russian security forces have lifted the unspoken taboo on the persecution of women and, since the start of the full-scale invasion, have brought many times more criminal cases against Crimean women than in previous years of occupation of the peninsula. At the same time, in closed court proceedings, they mock the defendants and seek to impose the most severe sentences possible," the organization's representative notes. According to him, before the start of the large-scale war in Crimea, there were five cases of politically motivated criminal prosecution of women, and only one of the defendants, Galina Dovgopol, was imprisoned. Since 2022, the Crimean Process has seen signs of political persecution of Crimean women in 33 criminal cases. At the same time, the courts seek to impose the most severe sentences, disregarding any mitigating circumstances, such as the advanced age of the defendants, the presence of minor children, or the care of elderly parents.

“The actions of the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea indicate that women on the peninsula have become a new group of Ukrainian citizens who are being deliberately persecuted,” say human rights defenders from 15 Ukrainian organizations who have signed a joint statement on the illegal searches and detentions of Crimean Tatar women. They recall the International Platform for the Release of Civilians Illegally Detained by Russia, established by Ukraine last year, and call on the authorities to use it to put pressure on the aggressor state.

The Crimean Tatar Foundation in the United States has also come to the defense of the arrested women. The organization called on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to demand immediate access to Crimea to document the genocide of the indigenous population. "The systematic persecution of the family structure of the indigenous people – the imprisonment of fathers, the arrest of mothers, threats to children – meets the legal threshold for genocide under the Genocide Convention. This is a classic policy of genocide: deliberately creating conditions for a group that are calculated to bring about its physical destruction," said Dr. Kriegsman, a human rights lawyer specializing in genocide prevention.

However, many civil society activists in Crimea are extremely skeptical about these calls. “Yes, of course, if the UN Special Rapporteur had at least raised the issue of access to Crimea due to genocide, it would have been a serious reputational problem for Russia. And if the International Platform for the Release of Civilians had started working, it would have meant the collapse of Russian propaganda efforts to portray all these women as terrorists and spies. But let's be realistic – we won't see any of this," complains one of the coordinators of the Irade public association. At the same time, he emphasizes that the Ukrainian authorities are not helping to save the residents of the occupied peninsula from persecution. "Again, as during the mobilization period, many Crimean Tatar families are thinking about leaving. But where can they go if their children do not have Ukrainian documents? Ukraine has not established a normal procedure for issuing documents to those born in the occupied territory. And then, without explanation, they closed the administrative services center in Istanbul – the only place where Crimeans could safely apply to renew their passports," said the Irade representative.

At the same time, human rights activists almost unanimously predict that the current high-profile case against Crimean Muslim women is the first, but not the last. This is indicated by the widespread practice of persecuting men on charges of involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization and the campaign of repression against Crimean women. It is unlikely that the occupiers will abandon such an effective tool for intimidating residents and driving the indigenous people out of the peninsula.