Russian "courts" in the occupied Crimea issued deportation and forcible transfer orders against at least 178 individuals, including 105 Ukrainian citizens, in the year 2020.
Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) Matilda Bogner said this while presenting the 31st report on the human rights situation in Ukraine during the period from August 1, 2020, to January 31, 2021.
The report highlighted that amongst other human rights violations, deportations and forcible transfers continued concerning the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation.
"In 2020, courts in Crimea issued deportation and forcible transfer orders against at least 178 individuals considered foreigners under Russian Federation immigration law, including 105 Ukrainian citizens (93 men and 12 women)" Bogner reported.
She noted that UHCHR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) is also concerned about further reports of inappropriate conditions of detention in penitentiary institutions in the occupied Crimea and in the Russian Federation, where current and former prisoners have been deported to serve their sentences.
"UHCHR recalls that incommunicado detention, which deprives the inmate of any contact with the outside world, in particular with medical doctors, lawyers and relatives, has repeatedly been recognized as a form of torture," she stressed.
Ms Bogner also recalled that international humanitarian law prohibits "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territories to the occupying Power's territory or any other country, regardless of the motive."
