The occupiers once again illegally transferred political prisoners to Russian prisons

Illegally imprisoned Crimean Tatars, including Zekirya Muratov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheikhaliev, Ruslan Suleimanov and Enver Ametov, were once again transferred by the occupiers to colonies in the territory of the Russian Federation. 

Illegally sentenced to 11 years in prison, Crimean Tatar Zekirya Muratov, according to the political prisoner’s daughter, was transferred from Balashov prison in Saratov oblast of the Russian Federation to penal colony №5 in Nyzhnii Novhorod. He was illegally detained by the occupiers in Alushta in July 2020. He has a number of medical conditions – high blood pressure, heart failure, and a heart defect that gradually atrophies his muscles. In the summer of 2021, in the pre-trial detention center, he caught COVID-19 and was taken to the prison hospital in serious condition with bilateral pneumonia.

On March 18, Osman Arifmemetov, illegally sentenced to 14 years in prison, informed his family that he was transferred from SIZO № 3 in Novocherkask to a prison in the Krasnoiarskyi krai:

Rustem and I are supposedly going to the Krasnoiarskyi krai, Ruslan – to the Cheliabinska oblast”. 

At the same time, Rustem Sheikhaliev, Ruslan Suleimanov and Enver Ametov were also transferred to different cities of the Russian Federation. All of them first arrived in Voronezh, then Ametov was sent to Lipetsk, and the others – to Samara. 

The men were detained in March 2019 in occupied Crimea, when dozens of Crimean Tatars’ homes were simultaneously subjected to large-scale illegal searches. Almost all of those illegally detained were civilian journalists or civic activists.