Daughter of Crimean Tatar journalist meets her father in Siberian camp

After six years of separation, the daughter of Crimean Tatar journalist Remzi Bekirov was able to spend three days with her father in a Siberian colony where he is serving a sentence on a falsified conviction. For the family, this meeting was a rare ray of light amidst the constant repression.

This was reported by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

According to Safiye, the daughter of Crimean Tatar citizen journalist Remzi Bekirov, these were the best three days of her life. He has been serving a 19-year prison term in Siberia for six years now on falsified charges of creating a Hizb ut-Tahrir cell. Human rights activists are convinced that the real reason for the persecution is his publications about political repressions against Crimean Tatars.

To see her husband and father, Ramzi's wife Khalide, along with their three children, traveled more than 5,500 kilometers from the occupied Crimea to the colony in Khakassia. For Safie, this meeting became an event she waited for every day. During the years of imprisonment, Bekirov has changed beyond recognition.

Remzi Bekirov is just one of at least 28 Ukrainian civilian journalists illegally detained by Russia. According to the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, the conditions of their detention are inhumane: from torture by electric shock, as in the case of Oleksiy Bessarabov and Volodymyr Dudka, to the complete lack of medical care, which has already cost the life of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna.

Crimean Tatar citizen journalists are subjected to particularly severe repression. Photographer and cultural activist Marlen (Suleiman) Asanov was sentenced to 19 years in a maximum security colony, and human rights activist Server Mustafayev was sentenced to 14 years. All of them were effectively taken hostage for their professional activities and open stance. The families of the imprisoned journalists also feel the consequences of the repression.

"Each program, each trip is an act of resistance, a way to show that we remember and do not give up," say the relatives of political prisoners.

Wives and mothers are forced to spend most of their family budgets on lawyers, parcels and trips to the colonies, traveling thousands of kilometers. Often they are left without a livelihood, but continue to fight.

The head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Serhiy Tomilenko, emphasized that Russia is grossly violating the Geneva Conventions by keeping journalists in prison. He noted that his colleagues are behind bars only for covering the truth about the Russian invasion.

In August, the family of Crimean Tatar political prisoner Remzi Bekirov reported that he had lost a lot of weight and had serious health problems due to the harsh conditions in the Russian colony. He is forbidden to conduct religious rites, and his relatives call on the international community to demand his immediate release. After being transferred to the colony in Khakassia, he was held in a punishment cell almost continuously.

Анна Бальчінос