The convicted Crimean journalist was transferred to the Russian Far East

The occupiers transferred Crimean civilian journalist Rustem Sheikhaliyev to the colony in Blahovishchensk. He is one of 24 Crimean Tatar activists convicted after mass searches in 2019 and recognized as political prisoners.

This was reported by Krym.Realii with reference to the information provided by his wife Surya Sheikhalieva.

Rustem Sheikhaliyev, a civilian journalist from Crimea, who was convicted by Russia, was transferred to a colony in the city of Blagoveshchensk, Amur region.

Prior to that, he was in prison in Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk Krai. According to his wife, the man was first transferred to a transit point in Krasnoyarsk, then to Irkutsk, from where he was transferred to Chita. There it became known that the final destination was Blagoveshchensk.

Sheikhaliev is one of 24 Crimean Tatar activists who were detained in March 2019 after large-scale searches in Crimea. Among the arrested were other civilian journalists - Osman Arifmemetov and Remzi Bekirov.

In November 2022, the Southern District Military Court in Russia sentenced Rustem Sheikhaliyev to 14 years in prison. He will spend the first four years in prison, and after his release, he will spend another year under restricted freedom.

The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized all 24 detained Crimean Tatars as political prisoners.

Also recently, the trial of the second Dzhankoy group of defendants in the so-called "Hizb ut-Tahrir case" has reached the final stage. Six Crimean Tatars, detained after searches in January 2023 in Dzhankoy district, were later transferred to Rostov-on-Don. The Russian authorities accuse them of participating in the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, which is banned in Russia but legal in Ukraine and a number of other countries.

The sentence of Kherson political prisoner Irina Gorobtsova was also left unchanged - she was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison on charges of espionage. The woman is being transferred to Crimea, where she lived before her arrest. After the occupation of Kherson in 2022, she worked as a volunteer driver, helping medics and supporting victims of the occupiers' actions.

Анна Бальчінос