‘We will never bow our heads’

On March 27, 2019, Russian security forces searched the homes of 25 Crimean Tatars. All of them were detained on charges of participating in the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, which the Russian authorities consider extremist. Among those arrested was Rustem Sheikhaliev, a citizen-journalist and activist with Crimean Solidarity. We tell his story in the second part of the media project #EmptyChairPeople, created by Chytomo and PEN Ukraine with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

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Rustem and his wife Suriye were born three days apart in the same maternity hospital in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Families had been deported to Uzbekistan from Crimea in 1944. Later, the families returned to Crimea, where Rustem and Suriye met and later married. The couple has three children, Renat, Dzhelal, and Zulfiye, all of whom were minors at the time of Rustem’s detention. 

Rustem had studied to be a welder, but he never worked in his specialty. He had his own retail outlet in the Central Market of Simferopol, where he sold fruits and vegetables. He was a responsible merchant and sincerely loved his work. He had a way with customers and knew how to connect with all kinds of  people. Rustem worked at the market for 21 years, from 1998 until his arrest. He had many regular customers, and even today, his wife is often asked by former customers to send greetings and various goodies to her husband in jail.

Photo by the public movement Crimean Solidarity (CS)

“People have been working at the central market for years. And everyone inquires after Rustem, someone wants to help him and give him something: a box of dates or nuts,” said Suriye.

Before his arrest, Rustem had a dream to build a big house for his family. In 2009, he started building and devoted all his free time to it. The work on the house became a hobby for him, and he wanted to make everything as perfect as possible. But when the construction was almost complete, he was taken away by armed security forces of Russia. Rustem never got to live in the house he built.

A journalist

Suriye repeatedly asked her husband if he had any regrets about his career as a journalist. Rustem replied that the only thing he regretted was that he did not dedicate enough time to journalism. He would continue to write about arrests and repressions on the occupied peninsula, continue to attend the trials of Crimean Tatars, and continue to help the families of political prisoners if he were freed.

Mumine Saliyeva, an activist and human rights defender with Crimean Solidarityand wife of political prisoner Seyran Saliyev, says she has known Rustem since 2018. He was a cameraman and photographer for the Crimean Childhood project for children of political prisoners, and he filmed training, excursions, workshops, competitions, and games.

I unobtrusively managed to take a picture of Rustem and his wife sitting at a table in a cafe at a meeting just before his arrest. I look at this photo very often now. He is a kind, radiant, gentleman who has nothing to do with “terrorism.“ I associate the falsified criminal case against him with his active journalistic work and political views.

After 2014, Rustem did not want to ignore the events in the occupied Crimea. He picked up a phone and a tripod and began filming illegal arrests, attending and filming the trials of Crimean Tatars, and writing texts about them. After his detention, in a letter to his wife, Rustem wrote that he entered the courtroom of the North Caucasus Military District Court, which he had once entered as a civilian journalist, but this time as  a defendant:

“I was searched again and immediately taken into the courtroom. At the same time, I instantly indicated what documents I would need at the court hearing. I was bent into a ‘dolphin’ position and taken into the courtroom. This time, I entered as an accused through a different door to the same room that I first entered, if memory serves, on December 29, 2018 – it was the so-called “last testimony  of the Bakhchisarai Four”: Zevri, Ramzi, Rustem, and Enver ag’a”.

Before his arrest, Rustem’s wife recalls, he hadorganized trips to Rostov to attend the court hearings of other other detainees When he learned about new raids by security forces, he immediately picked up his phone and rushed to the scene to film everything, post it on Facebook, and quickly pass the materials to Crimean Solidarity. Gradually, journalism became his vocation.

“He had an inner call that he followed. He was not scared, although I was always worried about him. I would say to him, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go? And he answered: “If I don’t go, another won’t go, so who will help? This isn’t right, I have to go.” He did not have a degree in journalism, he was far from being a journalist before the occupation. He didn’t know how to take pictures or how to properly set up a camera. But then he got into the swing of it and learned everything,” says Suriye.

Photo from a family photo archive

In one of his letters, Rustem Sheikhaliev explains the reason for his imprisonment: “First of all, I am a Muslim, a Crimean Tatar, a citizen of Ukraine. I was a videographer, and I visited courts, including the North Caucasus Court in Rostov. And in this court, all the guards saw that I had a tripod, a power bank, all the equipment,  and that I was publicly interviewing lawyers and relatives and posting all this on the internet. As a result, everything got into the media and spread around the world. This activity, in my opinion, is the reason for my stay here (in the detention center – Ed.). In a word, because of the coverage of the truth.”

Thieves

On March 27, 2019, armed security forces came for 25 Crimean Tatars at once. That was the beginning of the largest criminal trial in occupied Crimea.

Rustem recalls: “One day, as usual, when I came home and finished all my work, I noticed that it was late and went to bed, thus I could not wake up in time in the morning, as I had been doing in recent days, at 5 o’clock: to perform ablution, pray and go to work. I woke up to a noise, loud knocking. When I opened my eyes, I realized that someone was knocking on my bedroom door…”

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It was the couple’s eldest son, Renat. Renat had heard strange noises outside and thought it was thieves, so he woke his father up to check who was prowling around the house.

He quickly got dressed and ran to the front door, where I was already standing with a rolling pin in my hands. When we opened it, we saw a lot of people wearing masks and camouflage. The worst morning of my life began. Everything happened fast, like in a movie. Only my family played the lead roles. That day, my beloved father was separated from us. I was not mistaken – they were thieves who stole my cheerful childhood. Before leaving, my father told me: “Now you are in charge of our family while I am away.” And then a new reality started, which I had to experience for the first time in my life.

Rustem’s wife says that they knew that one day the security forces would come to their house. And they even thought they were ready for it. But as it turned out, they weren’t.

“My husband quickly put on pants and a T-shirt and ran to the door. He opened it, and there were fully armed masked men standing on the threshold. One of them shouted: ‘Stop,’ the other said: ‘Get down on the floor!’, the third: ‘Face the wall, turn your back to us!’ Rustem was not taken aback and said: ‘Listen, you guys just decide what you want me to do.’ Then they stopped shouting. The man asked for five minutes to wake up his family.”

Rustem told his children and wife to settle down and not be frightened. He kept an eye on  his daughter, Zulfiye, the youngest in the family, who was only nine at the time of her father’s detention.

The security forces entered the house and told everyone to go to the kitchen. There, my daughter began to shake with fear because she did not understand what was happening. “A camouflaged security officer came into the room holding a weapon, with a red light flashing on it, as if it was loaded. He said to Zulfiye: ‘Girl, calm down, don’t be afraid. Nothing bad has happened.’ She is more eloquent than I am and says: ‘What do you mean nothing happened? You are in our house. Something has already happened, and it’s very bad,’ Suriye recalls.

Photo by the public movement Crimean Solidarity (CS)

Rustem was handcuffed and led around the house. The security forces confiscated books on Islam, though they  were openly sold in bookstores and were not banned. Suriye also says that security forces planted one book in a room still under construction. Later, the seized books were returned, but they also took all the phones, which were given back only a year later.

When a list of detainees was read, it included the names of many other Crimean Tatars. Suriye thought that the arrests must have been ordered by the local administration, since14 people had been taken into custody like this before. The investigator told her to pack his husband’s things, but Suriyesaid: “Why if he’s coming back soon?”. She did not pack anything then.

“The car they took me in was close to my house. It was a large van, and there was a large number of special security forces around me. I also noticed that the entire block was surrounded and there were many armed men near the house of my neighbor Seitabdiyev Seitveli, and a minibus with Seitveli in it was heading in my direction, as I found out later. And at one point, two cars drove off toward the city with a large number of escorts, leaving behind the house and friends, civilian journalists, neighbors who cared about the future of my family and me,” Rustem would later write in a letter on the 1000th day of his captivity.

Photo by the public movement Crimean Solidarity (CS)

The next day, Suriye took her husband’s belongings to the Simferopol Detention Centre. She did not know then that he had already been transferred to Rostov-on-Don. For several days she traveled to see her husband, not knowing he was no longer there. All the detainees were relocated at the end of March. In September, they were transferred back to Simferopol. Then the trials began. Suriye managed to communicate with her husband, but this was not required by local law.. The FSB officers did not prohibit them from seeing each other. Suriye says that when the detainees were brought back to Simferopol, the security forces ridiculed them: “Now we will take you to Kyiv, and then to a resort in sunny Uzbekistan.” Six months later, they were taken back to Rostov, where Rustem is still being held.

“This ruthless ‘meat grinder’ does not spare anyone”

Rustem Sheikhaliev was charged with participating in a terrorist organization. During the eight months of his imprisonment in the Simferopol Detention Center, he has not received any letters. The case is being investigated by human rights organizations for     violating the right to a fair trial. The majority of the  evidence against Rustem is the testimony of anonymous witnesses (many of whom are employees of the Russian FSB) and pre-trial testimony of witnesses who later claimed in court that such testimony was given under pressure from investigators. There were also issues with translations during the interviews with Muslim detainees,which suggests the falsification of evidence by Russian FSB investigators. The judges did not consider the evidence provided by the defense. International and Ukrainian human rights organizations have acknowledged that such allegations by investigators are used by the authorities of the Russian Federation in Crimea to persecute Crimean Tatar civil rights activists.

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When I look at these judges and prosecutors, I realize that this ruthless “meat grinder” does not spare anyone or anything. And in fact, they are only following other orders, which are being obeyed without delay.

“Now we are having trials on its own merits, and there are debates. At the last trial, my husband participated in the debates. And two more are to speak at the debates too. Then we have the verdict. The prosecution asked for 17 years of strict regime for my husband,” Suriye says.

Due to her deteriorating health, Suriyecannot go to the court hearings, but she plans to be at the announcement of the verdict. Now only Rustem’s children attend the hearings. They were present when the prosecution requested a 17-year sentence for their father.  Rustem’s daughter Zulfiye wanted to cry when the verdict was announced, but her father did not even glance at the prosecutor. He was looking at his children, smiling at them, in order to calm them down and allay their fears.

Photo from a family photo archive

Suriye Sheikhalieva says that her husband is very supportive of the family. He writes letters to his relatives and friends, always telling them to stay strong. After all, he is an illegally convicted person, and he has nothing to fear. Suriye recalls that when her husband was being taken to court, the escort told him to lower his head. Rustem answered that he was not a criminal. Then he walked with his head held high, not hiding his eyes.

“We will never bow our heads, because we have nothing to be ashamed of,” Rustem writes in one of his letters.

Suriye says that after her husband’s arrest, everything changed. Before she did not worry about gas, water, and electricity bills. Rustem took care of all of them. When something broke down in the house, he repaired it: “Everywhere you look, you remember him. He did all this, he protected me from everything.”

Yuriy Makarov is Rustem Sheikhaliev’s ambassador within the #SolidarityWords program. In his column for Ukrainian Week, he writes about the political prisoner: “He is 42 years old, he has hypertension, issues with his stomach and kidneys, not to mention such ‘trifles’ as varicose veins and dental problems. The Russian judiciary, represented by the judges of the Southern District Military Court of the Russian Federation, does not patronize the convicts, but it is not in a hurry either, killing them slowly and steadily. But he, like the rest of the accomplices, is not even going to play along with the Chekists, although there was probably an opportunity to soften the conditions, and reduce the term – taking into consideration that they are facing 20-year sentence each. (…) He is not in the habit of doing. It is not customary in this environment.”

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Translation: Sophia Romaniuk

Editing: Lea Ann Douglas, John G Sennett, Sr