Russian authorities have detained a Crimean Tatar activist after his home was searched in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
The Crimean Solidarity group told RFE/RL that police searched Server Bariyev's home in the village of Rozdolne on April 6 and took him away.
Bariyev's relatives and friends say no reason was given for the search or the activist's detention.
Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.
Last month, a court in Moscow sentenced seven Crimean Tatars on extremism charges that they and human rights organizations in Ukraine say are politically motivated.
SEE ALSO: Is Russia About To Use Nuclear Weapons In Ukraine? Probably Not.Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.
Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by Soviet authorities under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.
Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.