Today, June 26, marks the ninth consecutive birthday that Crimean Tatar activist Emir-Usein Kuku is spending behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emir-Usein was born in 1976 in the city of Novorosiisk, Krasnodar Krai, into the family of Kemal Kuku, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar National Movement. His family had been deported eastward in 1944, and it wasn\u2019t until 1993 \u2014 when Emir-Usein was 17 \u2014 that the Kuku family was finally able to return to their native village of Koreiz in Crimea. This became possible after the official ban on the return of Crimean Tatars to their historic homeland was lifted in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After earning a degree in economics in 2001, Emir-Usein Kuku became an active member of the Crimean Tatar community. He served as deputy head of the Muslim community Eren Evliia<\/em> in Koreiz, helping organize religious celebrations. He also collected old photographs of Crimea, historically significant household items, coins, and other artifacts that preserved the peninsula\u2019s cultural memory. Through these efforts, Emir-Usein worked to safeguard the traditions and heritage of Crimea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was also involved in the Crimean Contact Group on Human Rights and the peninsula\u2019s human rights movement, where he promoted tolerance and the protection of Crimean Tatar rights. In April 2015, Emir-Usein was abducted by officers of the Russian security services, who searched his home and took him in for questioning. He was beaten and released, but less than a year later, a second search was carried out, after which he was detained and accused of involvement with the Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir. In November 2019, a court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Emir-Usein Kuku to 12 years in a high-security penal colony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00abEmir-Usein is currently suffering from constant pain in his kidneys and lower back, a result of the inhumane conditions in which he is being held. For many years, he has been denied adequate medical care, and his condition continues to deteriorate,\u00bb emphasized the political prisoner\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Emir-Usein Kuku and his wife, Meriem Kuku, have two children \u2014 a son, Bekir, and a daughter, Safiie. For nearly nine years, the children have been forced to grow up without their father, as is the case for hundreds of other families of political prisoners. The absence of a parent has a profound impact on both the wives and children of those targeted by Russian repressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We urge you to remember all the Crimean Tatars who have been unlawfully convicted. You can support political prisoners by joining the Letters to a Free Crimea<\/em> initiative and sending words of encouragement to imprisoned activists. The international community must not remain indifferent \u2014 it is essential to consistently demand the protection of fundamental freedoms, fair justice, and the release of all political prisoners subjected to persecution by the occupation administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":74482,"template":"","publication-type":[43],"class_list":["post-74511","press-center","type-press-center","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","publication-type-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n