Life before the detention

Arsen Remziievych Abkhairov was born on 12 October 1985 in the city of Bekabad, Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan, into a Crimean Tatar family that had been illegally deported from Crimea by the Soviet regime in 1944. In 1992, his family returned to the peninsula and settled in the village of Amurske in the Kurman district. Arsen attended the local school and later continued his studies at a gymnasium in the settlement of Biiuk-Onlar.

In October 2015, Arsen got married, and the couple had two children: a daughter, Medine, and a son, Emir. Before his arrest, he worked as an entrepreneur, primarily trading agricultural products.

Persecution

On 14 February 2019, another wave of mass searches was carried out by the occupiers in temporarily occupied Crimea. During these operations, Arsen Abkhairov and two other Crimean Tatars — Rustem Emiruseinov and Eskender Abdulhaniiev — were detained.

On 6 November of the same year, the so-called district “court” of Simferopol ruled to extend the pre-trial detention for all three men. Later, on 29 December, the occupation “court” once again prolonged the measure, keeping the Crimean Tatars unlawfully imprisoned despite the absence of credible grounds or evidence of guilt.

Finally, on 3 November 2020, a court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, sentenced Arsen Abkhairov to 13 years of imprisonment — the first two years to be served in a prison facility, and the remainder in a penal colony.

Behind the bars

While in unlawful detention, the political prisoner suffers from varicose veins and requires dental treatment, yet the prison administration has failed to provide him with adequate medical care.

Since January 2024, Arsen had been held in Penal Colony No. 8 in the city of Ulan-Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russian Federation — over 7,000 kilometers from Crimea. He twice filed lawsuits requesting to be transferred closer to home.

In September 2024, the occupation “court” ruled that the refusal to transfer him was unsubstantiated. On 21 April 2025, he was transferred to a penal colony in the Russian republic of Chuvashia — approximately 2,000 kilometers from Crimea. Although this is significantly closer, it still poses a serious obstacle to regular visits from his family.