March 2014: Crimean Tatar community mourns death of tortured activist Reshat Ametov. (c) Yaghobzadeh Rafael/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved.We stopped for petrol on our way to Belogorsk, a small town in Crimea. I was there in October with a colleague, researching human rights issues. Brand new yellow signs inside the petrol station were in Russian, Crimean Tatar and English. Some government buildings in Simferopol, Crimea’s capital, also have signs in Crimean Tatar. They are clearly meant to project a message that the Crimean Tatar language, culture and heritage are protected and preserved. However, Crimean Tatars we spoke to during our visit, face a completely different — and a much less hopeful — reality.
In Belogorsk, we visited Abdureshit Dzhepparov, who for decades has been an outspoken activist on Crimean Tatar issues.
I first met and interviewed Dzhepparov in September 2014, when his son and nephew became victims during a wave of enforced disappearances of Crimean Tatars and activists in Crimea. Sitting on the floor in his drafty house, amid an unfinished and abandoned renovation, Dzhepparov told me that his son, Islyam Dzhepparov, 18, and his nephew, Dzhevdet Islyamov, 23, were last seen walking along a road near Belogorsk just a few days earlier. A witness saw a minivan with tinted windows stopping next to the two young men. Two men in black uniforms got out, frisked them, forced them into the minivan and drove off. The witness told Dzhepparov that the men had been “fast and professional”.
