Crimean Tatars: Russian Court Sentences Crimean Tatar Activist
A Court controlled by Russia in Crimea has sentenced a Crimean Tatar to eight years in prison under the claim that he participated in an armed resistance. As with all trials controlled by Russia in Crimea, this trial is being criticized as unfair by human rights groups.
Below is an article published by RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty
A court in Russia-annexed Crimea has sentenced a local Tatar man to eight years in prison after finding him guilty of being a member of an "illegal armed group” that resists Moscow’s control of the peninsula.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on July 22 that Nariman Mezhmedinov, 55, had joined the Noman Chelebidzhikhan battalion of Crimean Tatar volunteers in 2016. The battalion operates in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region bordering the Crimean peninsula.
According to the FSB, Mezhmedinov had actively participated for four months during 2016 in the battalion's activities, namely blocking roads near a checkpoint and searching vehicles coming in and out of Crimea in 2016.
Since the Kremlin annexed the peninsula in 2014 following a revolution that installed a pro-Western government in Kyiv, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars and other local residents who openly oppose Moscow’s control.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced Russian actions in Crimea as a campaign of repression and have called for the release of those detained for political reasons.
Photo: RadioFreeEurope Radio Liberty
