Another Group Of Crimean Tatar Activists Handed Lengthy Prison Terms In Russia

[Rogue Valley]

Another Group Of Crimean Tatar Activists Handed Lengthy Prison Terms In Russia

A court in Russia has sentenced another group of Crimean Tatars to lengthy prison terms on charges of being members of a banned Islamic group amid an ongoing crackdown on members of the ethnic group.

www.rferl.org

3.18.22
A court in Russia has sentenced another group of Crimean Tatars to lengthy prison terms on charges of being members of a banned Islamic group amid an ongoing crackdown on members of the ethnic group. Russia's Southern District Military Court in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don on March 18 sentenced Akim Bekirov, Seytveli Seytabdiyev, and Rustem Seytkhalilov to 14 years in prison, and Eskender Suleymanov and Asan Yanikov to 15 years in prison after finding them guilty of being members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir group. They were arrested in March 2019 along with more than a dozen other Crimean Tatars in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic group banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova condemned the sentencing of Ukrainian citizens by Russian authorities. "By its activities, the country-occupier, the Russian Federation, is violating the norms of international law, the [European] Convention on Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Denisova wrote, calling on the international community to "force Russia to stop its unfounded detention and rigged trials of illegally jailed Ukrainian citizens." Last month, the same court sentenced two other Crimean Tatars to prison on the same charge.

There are now over 90 Crimean Tatars imprisoned in Russia and an unknown number imprisoned in Crimea. Moscow charges them with being members of a banned Islamic group, but the Islamic organizationis not banned by Ukraine.

What is really going on is that the Crimean Tatars, just as much as Ukrainians, rebel against Russian domination and the theft of lands.

In addition, it is a violation of international law to deport citizens of an occupied territory to another location.