Protesters gather in Ukraine to show solidarity with Russian-held prisoners
Last Month, Russian security forces arrested five Crimean Tatars, including Nariman Dzhelyal, the deputy head of the Crimean Tatar National Assembly.
Crimean Tatars hold flags during rallies near the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine on February 26, 2014.
Demonstrators have gathered in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to show solidarity with political prisoners held in Russia.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB detained five minority Crimean Tatar activists last month and raided their homes, including Nariman Dhzelal, the deputy chairman of the Mejlis representative body for Tatars in Crimea.
READ MORE: Crimean Tatars: ‘Religious persecution made us more strong and united’
Following the arrests, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for help with the release of its citizens in New York, where they had attended the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.
Saturday's demonstration took place in Kyiv's Independence Square, with prominent Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar political figures in attendance.
“We should never forget about them [the political prisoner] and continue the struggle for them,” Crimean Tatar National Assembly member Gayana Yukselv told Anadolu Agency.
Crimean Tatars are an Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Crimea. Many have opposed Russia's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.
Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 in a move that hasn't been recognised by most of the world's nations and triggered Western sanctions against Moscow.
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