The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses its strong protest in connection with the sentences passed to the defendants in the so-called Bilohirsk Hizb ut-Tahrir case. The department demanded to cancel this decision and release political prisoners.
“These sentences are yet another proof of the use of the Russian judicial system, which has nothing to do with justice, to continue the policy of persecuting the Crimean Tatars and suppressing any signs of dissent in the occupied Crimea”,- said First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzheppar.
The department demands from the Russian Federation to cancel the court decision and immediately release Enver and Riza Omerov, Ayder Dzhepparov, as well as all illegally detained citizens of Ukraine.
In addition, the Foreign Ministry calls on the international community to condemn the use of political persecution by the Russian Federation against the citizens of Ukraine, as well as to increase political and diplomatic pressure in order to release the Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars illegally detained by it.
We remind that on June 10, Russian security forces conducted mass searches in the dwellings of Crimean Tatars in Alushta, Bilohirsk and Simferopol. As a result, 8 people were detained on suspicion of their involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization banned in the Russian Federation. On June 10 and 11, the so-called Kyiv District Court of Simferopol chose a preventive measure in the form of detention until August 5 for the Crimean Tatars detained after searches – Riza Omerov, Enver Omerov, Ayder Dzhepparov, Eskender Suleymanov, Ruslan Nagaev, Eldar Kantimirov, Ruslan Mensutov and Lenur Khalilov. Subsequently, all the defendants in the so-called case were repeatedly extended the terms of their arrest. On January 12, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don announced the verdict of the defendants in the Belogorsk "Hizb ut-Tahrir case." Enver Omerov was sentenced to 18 years, Ayder Dzhepparov to 17 years, Riza Omerov to 13 years in prison.