“I painted the orphan’s clothes in prison colours, but his clothes will change”: event in support of political prisoner Bohdan Ziza in Kyiv

At the Kyiv Museum of Outstanding Figures of Ukrainian Culture, CrimeaSOS held the event “Human Rights Day. Crimea 2025: The Art of Resistance,” dedicated to contemporary challenges in the field of human rights in temporarily occupied Crimea. 

On December 10, Human Rights Day, we talked about repression in occupied Crimea since the beginning of 2025, named trends in increasing pressure on disloyal residents of the peninsula, explained why resistance is always a two-way action and why it is important, and also told the story of political prisoner Bohdan Ziza. 

The event was attended by Crimean Tatar artist and author of the campaign “For Orphan”, Permanent Representative of the President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Olha Kuryshko, Crimean Tatar activist and former political prisoner Leniie Umerova, Bohdan Ziza’s relative Oleksandra Barkova, and CrimeaSOS project manager Mila Shevchenko. The event was moderated by journalist Andrii Kulykov.  менеджерка КримSOS Міла Шевченко. Модерував захід журналіст Андрій Куликов. 

“I painted the orphan’s outfit in prison colours like in American movies, but in Bohdan’s case, this boy was dressed in purple and didn’t look like a prisoner. But Bohdan will be free, and the child’s clothes will change. It will be a boy resting somewhere in the flowers, in a beautiful place, who just fell asleep in this position,” – shared the author of the “For Orphan” campaign.

Oleksandra Barkova noted the importance of letters to political prisoners, because in captivity, the Kremlin’s prisoners are told every day that no one needs them, that Ukraine has forgotten about them. Therefore, it is extremely valuable to obtain physical evidence that it’s not true. 

“All we need to know as a society about the occupied territories today is that there are still people there who, after almost 12 years of occupation, continue to resist. Sometimes it’s loud – like “Yellow Ribbon”, “Zla Mavka”, sometimes it’s quiet, isolated stories, most of which we don’t even hear, and a person can tell us about them only when he/she returns. I know for sure that these people do not give up and show the occupier whose home this really is. So, we as a society must fight for these people too,” – Leniie Umerova emphasized. 

Olga Kuryshko noted that the trend regarding human rights violations in occupied Crimea is significantly changing for the worse.  

“Until 2022, we talked about politically motivated persecution under certain articles and had access to relatives, had an opportunity to communicate or at least learn the reasons for the persecution. But since 2022, these opportunities have been significantly limited for several reasons. Among them are the lack of physical access, information vacuum, mass intimidation of relatives of political prisoners, and the use of new articles to persecute residents of the peninsula,” – she declared.

CrimeaSOS Co-Coordinator Mila Shevchenko noted: “The repressive system in 2025 is also characterized by the forced transfer of political prisoners to remote regions of russia, which is in essence an illegal deportation and an additional method of pressure, as it isolates prisoners from their families and human rights defenders. Separately, cases of repeated detentions of seriously ill people or people released due to health reasons are recorded. In particular, blind Oleksandr Sizikov and seriously ill with cancer Lenur Khalilov were repeatedly detained.” 

The “For Orphan” campaign was launched in Ukraine this fall to draw attention to political imprisonment through the image of an orphan boy created by Bohdan Ziza. Art events have already been held in six cities. 

The project was implemented by the NGO “CrimeaSOS” together with a Crimean Tatar artist with the support of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and in partnership with local civic, cultural, and educational institutions.