Russian-occupied Crimea and the state of exception: repression,persecution, and human rights violations

ABSTRACT

Since annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, Russian authorities there have introduced harsh repressive measures to silence opposition to the ongoing occupation, chiefly targeting the indigenous Crimean Tatars and others pro-Ukrainian individuals. From the legally subversive methods it employed to orchestrate the annexation to the rhetoric of anti-extremism with which it has continually justified its occupation, the Kremlin has inaugurated a new “state of exception” in Crimea, invoking the prerogative to circumvent normative legal and juridical procedures in response to a perceived emergency. While Crimea’s state of exception resembles those initiated elsewhere by some Western states and Russia itself as part of the global War on Terror, the state of exception has provided the pretext for a particularly severe degree of repression, persecution, and human rights violations in occupied Crimea. In conjunction with the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, this article discusses the theoretical groundings of the state of exception, its broader applications within the Russian Federation, and its troubling repercussions for residents of Crimea. Casting the Kremlin’s actions as belonging to a state of exception helps draw attention to its alarming human rights violations, and may bolster resistance to the creeping normalization of the Russian occupation of Crimea.