Ayshe Kurtamet, the mother of the youngest Crimean Tatar political prisoner Appaz Kurtamet, who was illegally sentenced by the Russian occupation authorities to seven years in a penal colony on charges of ‘financing terrorism’, has called for wide publicity about her son’s case. She said in a comment to Ukrinform.
‘There is hope that only the publicity of the media and the attention of the European community can help me in the fight for the release of my son. Please take part in his rescue. When Appaz was kidnapped, he was 19 years old. He was actually a child for me. Now he is the youngest among Crimean political prisoners’, – said Ayshe Kurtamet.
She is currently being actively assisted by Ukrainian human rights organisations in her son’s case.
‘Human rights defenders from the Crimean Tatar Resource Center helped to organise a meeting with the OSCE representatives, and the ZMINA Human Rights Center – with the UN. The Mission of the President in Crimea and the Ombudsman’s Office are also helping,’ – she added.
Ayshe also said that over the past two years she had appealed to the Ukrainian authorities and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to help release her son, but so far to no avail. The last meeting with her son took place two months before his abduction, which took place in July 2022 in the Genichesk district of the Kherson region.
Now Appaz is in prison in the city of Vladimir rf.
‘Only in the last 10 months have we been able to start corresponding. In his letters he writes that his health is fine, although he has developed a skin rash due to stress. Recently we managed to give him some medicine, but before that we had no such opportunity for two years,’ Ayshe said. She also noted that her son does not tell her about the difficulties in order not to upset her, although the conditions in prison are very bad, and in the Simferopol pre-trial detention center were even worse: ‘Political prisoners said that when they left the pre-trial detention center, they felt as if they had come out of hell’.
Ayshe also recalled that after her son was kidnapped, the Russian occupiers tried to force him to co-operate, offering to become an informant and intimidating him with a long prison sentence if he refused.
‘My son behaved heroically and I am proud of him. I don’t want to keep quiet about it because he behaved like a real man at such a young age. It deserves respect,’ she emphasised.
We will remind, on July 23, 2022 Russian occupants detained Crimean Tatar Appaz Kurtamet on suspicion of allegedly financing a terrorist organisation under Art. 208 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
According to the investigation, he lent 500 hryvnias to his acquaintance, who, as Appaz learnt after the money transfer, serves in the battalion ‘Crimea’. In April 2023, the guy was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
It should be noted that the charges in this ‘case’ are based on the testimony of ‘hidden witnesses’ and the conclusion of so-called experts who are actively co-operating with the Russian security forces. The consideration of the case took place in flagrant violation of international law.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center strongly protests and declares that this decision is illegal, politically motivated and criminal. This policy of the Russian Federation is a demonstration of the fight against the political beliefs of citizens in the occupied Crimea.