In connection with the ongoing illegal persecution of participants and activists of the Tatar national movement by judicial and law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation, we declare the following.
After the transition to the current legal state structure in the Republic of Tatarstan, persons who held positions in the judicial system and took part in the issuance of obviously unjust decisions aimed at repression against members of the Tatar national movement and the opposition as a whole will be held accountable following the legislation of the new legal state and the norms of international law.
Responsibilities will include:
— verification of the legality of all decisions made by them;
— the use of lustration measures that exclude the possibility of further holding positions in the judicial and law enforcement systems;
— criminal and/or disciplinary prosecution in cases where personal guilt and the intentional nature of the actions are established.
We remind you that, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 7), persecution for political reasons may be qualified as a crime against humanity. Actions that violate human rights also fall under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary.
By serving the current collaborationist regime, pursuing a policy of exterminating the Tatar people and all institutions of the sovereign republic, you are already writing your names in history as traitors and a disgrace to the nation. Your actions will have not only legal but also indelible moral consequences, and the memory of them will remain in the chronicles of history as an example of betrayal of the interests of one’s people.
You are not representatives of democracy and the rights of the people – on the contrary, you are the conductors of totalitarian practices, which, as history shows, inevitably lead to repression and suppression of freedoms. Your activities continue the traditions of the punitive organs of the past, and in this, you are the direct ideological heirs of structures like the NKVD.
Officials involved in political repression and corruption must understand that illegally acquired assets will be identified and confiscated in favour of the state. Regardless of the change of jurisdiction or attempts to transfer funds abroad, international legal mechanisms and financial control will not allow them to avoid responsibility.
The current regime will inevitably collapse, and the Russian Federation will disintegrate, just like the USSR. At that moment, everyone will have to answer for their actions and decisions. What will you be able to present in your defence later? Everyone has a choice, and it is being made today.
We are convinced that the combination of current international pressure and future domestic responsibility will be an important factor in preventing new cases of political repression and restoring the rule of law!
Government of Independent Tatarstan in Exile
