Mr Selyamiev’s latest experience of Russian state violence is much more recent. On February 12th a dozen armed men in balaclavas broke into his house, forced his son to the floor and placed his two grandsons facing the wall, guns pointed at their backs. Other armed men, accompanied by a dog, searched the premises. His son was taken to the police station, where he was interrogated over alleged sabotage of railway tracks, then released.
Crimean Tatars who refuse to accept Russian annexation see it as a continuation of Stalinism. (As if to prove them right, Russia’s Communist Party has peppered roadways with billboards featuring Stalin’s portrait and the words “It is our victory!”) Governed by Sergei Aksyonov, a Russian puppet nicknamed “Goblin”, the peninsula has become dangerous for the Tatars. Their houses and mosques have been searched and some of their men abducted, tortured and killed. The Mejlis, their representative body, has been outlawed. Some 15,000 have fled, mostly to Ukraine. Nariman Dzhelalov, the deputy head of the Mejlis, calls it a “hybrid deportation”—a reference to Vladimir Putin’s “hybrid war” of dirty tricks and disinformation when grabbing Crimea in the first place.
Russia has long practised similar methods in the North Caucasus. Abdurashid Dzhepparov, a Tatar activist whose son and nephew were abducted two years ago and never found, says the goal is either to intimidate or to provoke a revolt that would serve as a pretext for mass repression. Prosecutors have charged several observant Muslims with terrorism and adherence to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a pan-Islamic political organisation that was banned in Russia in 2004 but not in Ukraine. In an Orwellian twist, Tatars who opposed Russia’s annexation have been charged with “threatening Russian territorial integrity”.
The Russian government is also trying to co-opt Tatar leaders. A few members of the Mejlis have switched sides, launching a pro-government movement called Kyrym. Other Tatars face a difficult moral choice. Lenur Islyamov, once Crimea’s biggest businessman and the owner of ATR, the Tatars’ TV channel, has moved to Ukraine. He has organised a blockade of goods to Crimea and put together a military battalion which, he says, would be ready to defend Crimean Tatars.