Occupants in Crimea illegally detained 14 people, including two journalists

Under the building of the illegal so-called “Supreme Court of Crimea,” the so-called “police” began to massively detain free listeners and journalists who came to the court hearing in the Supreme Court of Crimea on the case of the Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People Nariman Dzhelal and the Akhtemov brothers, whom the russian authorities accuse of sabotage. This was reported by the publication Crimean Process, the human rights initiative Crimean Discourse and lawyer Edem Semedlyayev.

In total, russian security forces detained 14 people.

“They detained a total of 14 people, including three women. They arrested five people and collected fingerprints and DNA samples from all the others, took pictures, issued warnings and released them,” lawyer Edem Semedlyayev said.

The reason for the detention, according to the russians, was a report to the emergency service about an alleged violation of public order. The detainees were put on a bus and taken to the Railway Police Department for identification.

According to the Crimean Solidarity NGO, 15 minutes before the detention, several free listeners wrote a complaint to the illegal “head of the court” because the russians did not allow them to attend the court hearing.

Akhtemov Zarem, Ablyamitov Kerim, Useynov Rustem, Akhtemov Eskender, Kurnosov Rustem, Akhtemov Server, Useynov Seyare, Teifuk Mansur, Abdurakhmanov Nariman, Mustafa Mustafayev, Dzhelialov Ruslan, Rustem Umerov were held in the “police department.”

Among the detainees are Aziz Akhtemov’s parents and two journalists — Lutfiye Zudiyeva, a journalist of the Graty publication, and Kulamet Ibraimov, a correspondent of the Grani publication and journalist of Crimean Solidarity.

Kulamet Ibraimov told about his detention: “When they detained me, I was at the entrance to the court, trying to figure out what I could film on the court premises and whether I had permission from the chairman. When I was talking to the bailiff, two police officers came up and asked if I had any documents with me, and I provided them. After I finished with the bailiff, I wanted to go to the court office to avoid detention, but the trick did not work and the officers asked me to go straight to the district police station and not even to the bus.”

Journalist Lutfiye Zudiyeva said that the actions of the Railway Police Department were illegal and refused to be fingerprinted and photographed.

“Lutfiye Zudiyeva has been cooperating with our publication since its launch in 2019. She has been consistently writing about the persecution of Ukrainian citizens in Crimea in a professional manner, adhering to journalistic standards. Zudiyeva has been writing about the case of Nariman Dzhelal and the Akhtemov brothers since the beginning of the criminal prosecution. Today she planned to write about the end of this story. Graty demands the immediate release of the journalist and other Crimeans illegally detained today near the Supreme Court,” the Graty edition emphasized.

Zarema Akhtemova, the mother of political prisoner Aziz Akhtemov, also refused to be fingerprinted and photographed.

Related: Crimean occupation government is after 11 Crimean journalists

Sources: Zmina, Graty

Main photo (Lutfiye Zudiyeva): Anton Naumlyuk, Graty