The Mission condemns yet another illegal sentence in the occupied Crimea on the imprisonment of a citizen of Ukraine, a representative of the Crimean Tatar people, Azamat Eyupov.

Today, the military southern district court of the occupied Crimea has unlawfully sentenced Azamat Eyupov to 17 years in a strict regime colony. The man will have to spend the first three years in the harshest conditions, and after his release he will have to regularly report to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, observe a curfew for a year and a half and will not have the right to change his place of residence or work without notice.

According to the Crimean Solidarity, Azamat was detained in the city of Belogorsk on February 17, 2022, on suspicion of “organizing terrorist activities” – a case known as Hizb ut-Tahrir. On the same day, FSB officers conducted illegal searches in the homes of Crimean Tatars and detained 6 more people.

During his stay in the detention center, the 59-year-old activist suffered four ischemic strokes and did not receive proper medical treatment, although long before his arrest, Azamat was registered with a doctor with atherosclerotic heart disease, which impedes blood supply and can form a blood clot that can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

One of the main pieces of evidence in the prosecution case is completely falsified – an audio recording of the so-called “conspiratorial conversation about the seizure of power in Crimea” in the house of another convicted person, Enver Omerov. The falsification was confirmed by an independent expert phonoscopist of the non-profit organization “Bureau of Forensic Expertise” Iryna Khukhra, but the occupation court (composed of judges Kirill Kravtsov, Alexei Magomadov and Vladimir Tsybulnik) ignored the obvious falsifications.

“The goal of the occupation law enforcement officers is to slander and label decent people of our nation. This is the whole essence of the repression against my people. I am not guilty of anything,” Azamatov said in court.

The Mission considers the case against Azamat Eyupov to be politically motivated, and demands the immediate reversal of the illegal verdict and the activist’s release. Repressions and persecution of Ukrainian citizens in the occupied Crimea must stop immediately!

We draw the attention of the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine and the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to another violation of the rights and freedoms of a Ukrainian citizen, a representative of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.

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, in particular the IV Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

Political persecution, repressions 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 full de-occupation of Crimea.