The defendant of the second Simferopol “Hizb-ut-Tahrir case”, Izzet Abdullaev, is to be transported from the detention center in Shahty city to Rostov-on-Don. Crimean Solidarity reports that according to his lawyer, Mammet Mambetov, Izzet was denied the appeal against restriction measures.
The lawyer says that one of the defendants of the same case, Alim Kerimov, has already been transported to the same detention center. Two more detainees, Tofik Abdulgaziev and Yashar Muyedinov, remain in Shahty.
On March 27, Russian police officers conducted twenty-six mass searches in the Crimean Tatar households in the occupied Crimea. They confiscated some literature that, according to the Crimean Solidarity, was placed there by the police itself. Besides books and leaflets, they also confiscated cell phones, tablets, laptops, and passports. The policemen were rude, did not bother to take their shoes off when entering the house and used physical force. Lawyers arriving at the places of searches were not allowed to talk to their clients. As a result, twenty people were charged with links to the illegal in Russia organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir”. On March 28, after another police raid, three more Crimean Tatar activists have been arrested. The whereabouts of another Crimean Tatar, Edem Yayachikov, is currently unknown. On the same day, on March 27-28, a Russian court in Crimea sentenced all twenty-three activists to fifteen days in jail. All of them are accused of being linked to the “Hizb ut-Tahrir”. Later, Human Rights Commissioner, Liudmila Denisova reported that all the detainees were relocated to five different detention centers in Rostov region. On May 13 and 14, courts in Rostov region and occupied Crimea prolonged sentence time of all twenty-four Crimean Tatars until August 15. The same day, Kyiv “Court” in Simferopol prolonged the sentence to another Crimean Tatar activist, Raim Aivazov until August 15, who was arrested in April at the territorial administrative border, Kalanchak. He was included in the criminal case of the group of Crimean Tatars arrested on March 27, 2019.