The civic journalist Osman Arifmemetov, who was illegally sentenced to 14 years in prison, was illegally transferred to Minusinsk prison in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia, where the First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People Nariman Dzhelial is currently being held. 

This was revealed in a letter from Nariman Dzhelial to his wife: “Yesterday we found out that Osman came to us from the Crimea. Probably Arifmemetov, but I’ll recognize him later. Apparently, he was in quarantine for a week or two and only moved to a shared cell on May 7.” 

Osman’s mother said that she hadn’t received any news of her son.

The man was detained in March 2019 in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation, when he was leaving the occupied Crimea to cover the court “trials” of other political prisoners. In those days, mass illegal searches and detentions took place in Crimea. 

The “investigative actions” were carried out in Kamianka, Strohanivka, and Bile, villages where the majority of Crimean Tatars live. As a result of the criminal actions of the occupiers, 25 Muslim Crimean Tatars were arrested. Almost all of them are citizen journalists or activists.