Human rights activists ask the Prosecutor General to sort out the situation around the ATR TV channel

The Presidential Human Rights Council appealed to Prosecutor General Viktor Chaika with a request to deal with information about the pressure on the Crimean TV channel ATR. On January 26, the channel's office was searched as part of a criminal investigation into the death of two residents of Crimea during a rally on February 26, 2014. According to the online edition "Crimea. Realii”, ATR CEO Elzara Islyamova wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov, in which she regarded the searches with the participation of riot police and the seizure of archival videos as “forceful pressure on a TV channel broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language and having a very wide audience”. “Previously, ATR was repeatedly accused by the local Crimean authorities of being ‘oppositional’, of ‘denigrating reality’ only on the grounds that, adhering to professional principles and not going beyond the current legislation, we try to inform our viewers about all the events, taking place on the peninsula. And here, along with positive changes, we have to talk about problems that are objective for the transition period, shortcomings, mistakes, and sometimes abuses of local authorities, ”writes Islyamova.