Crimean Tatar human rights activist fined for discrediting the army
The Supreme Court of Crimea upheld the decision to fine lawyer Rustem Kyamilev 50 thousand rubles under the article on discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The reason was his repost of a press conference of politician Grigory Yavlinsky back in 2017 calling for Russia to stop participating in the civil war in Syria, which was regarded as discrediting the Russian army.
The defense noted that the video was published long before 2022, when a law was passed introducing liability for discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation. The lawyers tried to convey to the court that the law cannot have retroactive effect, but this argument was ignored.
On November 7, Interior Ministry officers showed up at the home of lawyers Lili Gemedzhi and Rustem Kyamilev in Crimea. During the search, they seized the couple's phones and computers. Then, two administrative protocols were drawn up against Kyamilev. The second of them concerned the repost of material allegedly containing an image of the red-and-black flag of the Ukrainian nationalist organization "Right Sector". For this, the human rights activist was arrested for ten days.
Gemedzhi and Kyamilev are well-known human rights activists in Crimea, specializing in the affairs of the Crimean Tatars. The latter are often sentenced to long terms on charges of participating in the Islamic party "Hiz ut-Tahrir", recognized in the Russian Federation as a terrorist organization.
