23 May 2024

Crimean Tatar political prisoner Rustem Seitmemetov suffers heart attack in Russian prison

Crimean Tatar activist Rustem Seitmemetov, who was illegally sentenced to 13 years in prison by the Russian occupiers, underwent surgery after suffering a heart attack in Dimitrovgrad prison in the Ulianovsk region of the Russian Federation. According to the political prisoner’s wife, Rustem felt ill on May 15. Earlier, he had been placed in quarantine in another cell. It was extremely cold there. Therefore, he and his cellmates often did physical exercises to keep warm, but one day he fainted. 

Rustem Seitmemetov was arrested on false charges in the “Crimean Muslim case”. Two of Rustem’s nephews, Osman and Seitumer, were among those arrested that day. Since the beginning of the occupation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian occupiers have systematically persecuted Ukrainian citizens on religious and ethnic grounds, including Crimean Tatars. Anyone who is not under the control of the occupation authorities is illegally harassed. At the beginning of the new year, since January 2024, about 100 cases of religious persecution of Crimean Tatars have been reported.