Crimean Tatar political prisoner transferred from prison to penal colony
Akim Bekirov, an activist and employee of an IT security company sentenced to 14 years, was transferred from the Balashov prison in the Saratov region to the IK-9 Tsivilsk in the Chuvash Republic.
Akim Bekirov is a Crimean Tatar activist who helped with parcels in the pretrial detention center and attended trials. In March 2022, he and other defendants in the case of the second Simferopol group of the Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir - Rustem Seitkhalilov and Seitveli Seitabdiev - were sentenced to 14 years in prison. They were convicted under articles on organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) and preparing for the violent overthrow of the government (Article 278 of the Criminal Code). Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in the Russian Federation. According to the case materials, the accused did not have weapons, did not plan to commit a terrorist act, and did not call on others to commit terrorist acts.
Since January 2015, criminal cases on Hizb ut-Tahrir have been opened en masse in Crimea, which came under the de facto control of Russia. The party's activities are not banned in Ukraine. Before the peninsula came under the control of the Russian Federation, the organization's activists were publishing a newspaper, could speak openly in the media, and hold mass public events.
According to human rights activists, the party members are being persecuted not for preparing a coup d'etat or terrorism, but for criticizing the Russian authorities and the repressions in Crimea. In most countries of the world, Hizb ut-Tahrir operates without restrictions.
