FSB not commenting on reports about elimination of Crimean cell of Hizb ut-Tahrir
SIMFEROPOL/KYIV. Oct 12 (Interfax) - The Crimean branch of the Federal Security Service has declined to comment on media reports, citing unnamed sources, regarding a special operation to eliminate Hizb ut-Tahrir's (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) cell in Crimea.
"We are not commenting [on this information]," a branch representative told Interfax by phone on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, video footage surfaced on the Internet of a special operation in the Simferopol village of Stroganovka to find suspected sympathizers of Hizb ut-Tahrir. The images show a security cordoning around the houses being searched and local residents arguing with the officers.
The footage then showed several people held on suspicion of links to extremists.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that searches had been carried out at the houses of Crimean Tartars in Crimea, and urged Russia to stop human rights violations. "Persecutions of Crimean Tatars is the invader's intentional policy. Once again we demand that Russia stop violating human rights," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariana Betsa wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
For his part, Zair Smedlyayev, a representative of the kurultai (congress) of the Crimean Tartar Mejlis banned in Russia, said that searches had been carried out in Crimea at the houses of Crimean Tartars, some of whom were then taken away for questioning. "At present, it is known for certain that searches had been carried out in the villages of Stroganovka and Kamenka," Smedlyayev wrote on Facebook, adding that the searches had been carried out at five Crimean Tartar houses and two had been taken away for questioning.