Ukraine calls for foreigners attending events in Crimea to be prosecuted
The Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Kyiv has proposed that foreigners who attend events in Crimea should be prosecuted, reported the Ukrainian regulator’s press service, citing chief prosecutor Hyunduz Mamedov, who spoke about it on July 24 at a meeting of Crimea’s law enforcement agencies on the state of crime and the detection of crimes committed on the peninsula during the first half of this year.
Mamedov reiterated that he had previously emphasized the necessity of utilizing special pre-trial investigation institutes and international legal collaboration mechanisms. He recalled that registers have been established in Ukraine to collect information on legislation violators on a daily basis. “I repeat the words of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko: we must make Crimea unbearable for the occupant state,” the prosecutor emphasized. According to him, the process will accelerate when ships and planes stop going to Crimea and foreigners stop going on tours there. He added that real steps must be taken to prosecute perpetrators.
Following the referendum in 2014 which led to Crimea being annexed by Russia, the Ukrainian government has placed an entry ban on anyone who has visited Crimea since its annexation. Kyiv considers Crimea its own territory, which is nevertheless temporarily occupied by Russia. In October 2017, Kyiv passed a law stipulating that the organizers of concerts must receive authorization from the Security Service of Ukraine in order to invite Russian artists to Crimea. Ukraine has also established the Myrotvorets portal, which investigates signs of crimes against Ukraine’s national security, peace, and the “safety of humanity and the international legal order”. Russian public figures are frequently added to its database.
According information from the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine from May 14 this year, between 2017 and 2018, the Ukrainian border guards banned 117 Russian artists and other public figures from crossing the border into Ukraine.