Seyran Saliyev, Crimean citizen journalist detained by Russia in 2017, has been moved from Penal Colony No. 4 (PC-4) in Tula to Penal Colony No. 1 (PC-1) in the same region. Other prisoners say that this colony’s sewage system issues result in inmates breathing toxins while in their cells, his wife Mumine Saliyeva reported in a Facebook post.
She added that Crimean Tatar activist Server Zekiryayev has been imprisoned in Penal Colony No. 1 since 2022, so the conditions in this colony are somewhat known.
“The institution functions as a ‘red’ zone; the sewage system works in such a way that all the toxins end up in the prisoners’ lungs, especially prisoners in high-security cells, who then suffer from hallucinations, headaches, edema, and nervous breakdowns,” said Mumine Salieva.
She added that she had received a reply from the Tula Region Prosecutor’s Office (back when Seyran Saliev was still in PC-4), saying that her husband had been placed into solitary confinement for 15 days on 12 March. When this solitary confinement period ended on 28 March, Saliyev was already in PC-1 in Donskoy.
“But I really doubt that they let him go back to the barracks. Seyran has been in solitary confinement since 1 June 2025, not counting the fact that he was assigned SDR (strict detention regime) even earlier. This is a tactic of pressure and coercion, which will be logically continued with a transfer to a high-security cell,” the journalist’s wife explained.
She added that in the letter from her husband she received on 25 March some fragments were blacked out by the censorship authority. Seyran Saliyev was writing from PC-1 and said that he was in solitary confinement.
Seyran Saliyev is a citizen journalist, Crimean Solidarity streamer. Detained in occupied Bağçasaray on 11 October 2017 along with five other Crimean Tatars. He was charged with preparing sabotage operations in Crimea on the Ukrainian intelligence’s orders. Sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on fabricated terrorism charges in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. Serves his unlawful sentence in a Tula region prison (Russia). In 2021, an appeal court reduced his prison term to 15 years, dropping the charges on one count.
It was reported in June 2025 that the administration of the Russian prison administration where Seyran Saliyev was detained kept him in solitary confinement.
In December 2025, the Russian Supreme Court dismissed the cassation appeal in the case against Seyran Saliyev.
Seyran Saliyev is on the Institute of Mass Information’s list of Ukrainian journalists detained by Russia.