So, in 2018, the so-called Kyiv district ‘court’ of Simferopol, sentenced to the lawyer Emil Kurbedinov to 10 days of administrative arrest allegedly for ‘extremist’ messages in the network ‘VKontakte’ for 2013. The occupants also conducted searches in his office and seized equipment.
In May 2022, ‘employees’ of the Centre for Combating Extremism detained lawyer Edem Semedlyaev in the occupied Simferopol for allegedly posting on a social network, although in fact the lawyer himself did not post anything, but was mentioned in the post by another person. After the ‘trial’ over Edem Semedlyaev, he was fined 75 thousand. In addition, his defender, lawyer Nazim Sheikhmambetov, was detained, who was assigned 6 days of administrative arrest by the occupants. After that, the lawyers Aider Azamatov and Emine Avamileva, who came to the ‘court’ to defend their colleague, lawyer Nazim Sheikhmambetov, were detained. The Central District ‘court’ of the occupied Simferopol decided to appoint the lawyer Aider Azamatov administrative arrest for 8 days, and the lawyer Emine Avamileva – for 5 days.
On 13 October 2023, the Russians detained the lawyer Aleksey Ladin. During the search and detention, materials containing attorney-client privilege were seized from him. Ladin was arrested for 14 days for ‘displaying prohibited symbols’ and fined for an anti-war social media post.
On 15 February 2024, lawyer Emil Kurbedinov was detained near the FSB building in the occupied Crimea. A report was drawn up against him under part 9, article 13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (‘Abuse of freedom of mass information’) and fined 30 thousand rubles.
It should be noted that from such actions the clients suffer, because the lawyers cannot defend them in criminal cases, represent them in courts and during preliminary investigation, they are also deprived of the right to take the exam for obtaining the status of a lawyer within a year.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre strongly condemns these illegal actions of the Russian security forces, which are a manifestation of the discriminatory policy of the occupation authorities against the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, as all the lawyers are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and actively defend the rights of political prisoners of Crimea, mainly Crimean Tatars.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre demands immediate reinstatement of the rights to exercise professional activity and to refrain from further prosecution of independent lawyers carrying out professional activities on the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, as well as lawyers acting in the interests of political prisoners of Crimea on the territory of Russia.