The occupiers continue to torture Ukrainian political prisoners Emir Usein-Kuku, Servet Gaziyev and Amet Suleymanov. The three men have serious health problems, and the conditions of their illegal detention threaten not only their health but also their lives.

Servet Gaziev, a 63-year-old Crimean Tatar, complains of constant intestinal pain and spinal problems. He developed the latter problem after being beaten in September 2021 in SIZO-5 in Rostov-on-Don. According to his sister, the doctor visited Servet only once, despite the political prisoner’s constant requests, and Mr. Gaziev never received the prescribed medication.

Amet Suleymanov, who suffered from arterial and mitral heart failure before his imprisonment, is getting worse. His legs are swelling because he is not allowed to lie on his bed from 6 am to 10 pm. All day long he has to stand or sit on a narrow bench. After he was sent to the detention center, doctors diagnosed him with second-degree gonarthrosis of the joints of the lower extremities. Every day, Suleymanov feels unwell and weak. The detention center staff took away his Quran, he is not allowed to pray in the morning and at night and is threatened with punishment for violating the daily routine.

At the end of July 2023, Emir Usein-Kuk was discharged from the hospital, where he underwent intestinal surgery: however, Russian doctors still refuse to say which part of the organ was subjected to medical intervention. In particular, the political prisoner was denied rehabilitation. At the same time, Usain-Kuku said that he could not eat in the prison canteen, because after the surgery he was forbidden to eat cereals. The man often has to go hungry.

We call on the international community to respond to yet another unprecedented injustice and increase pressure on the Russian Federation, which, together with the occupation administrations of Crimea under its control, blatantly ignores all international humanitarian law.

Political persecution, torture, repression and illegal sentences in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea must stop immediately, and all perpetrators must be held accountable for their crimes, which is impossible without the complete de-occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula.