Crimean Tatar citizen journalist Osman Arifmemetov moved to another prison

Crimean Tatar citizen journalist Osman Arifmemetov, sentenced to 14 years in prison by Russian authorities, has been moved out of the Minusinsk prison in the Krasnoyarsk Kray of Russia. He is being taken to a colony in the Orenburg Region, Arifmemetov reported in a May 19 letter to his family, writes Crimean Solidarity.

Osman is currently in SIZO-3 in Chelyabinsk. He left there from Achinsk, Krasnoyarsk Kray, on May 14.

“Two days spent in the cell (on the train) made the walls and the floor sticky. The about 20 passengers in the cells ate, drank, breathed, went to the toilet, and sweated. Plus the guards walking the corridor. 81 years ago (May 18, 1944), men, women, and children were herded into train cars with no toilets, water, or food. What were they thinking in the stuffy, dirty, stinky iron boxes? Here, they take you to the toilet once every 4-5 hours. If you really want to, you hold it in. The air was especially stale when they would shut the windows and lower the curtains. Of course, my situation is incomparable (to that of the deported Muslims),” wrote Osman Arifmemetov.

Osman Arifmemetov. Photo by Crimean Solidarity

Osman Arifmemetov is a citizen journalist sentenced to 14 years in prison in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. He was detained by Russian police in Crimea in March 2019. A total of 24 people were detained over alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that is outlawed in Russia and in Russia-occupied Crimea.

On November 24, 2022, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don convicted the detainees of terrorism and an attempt to seize power. Activists Enver Ametov and Yashar Muedinov were sentenced to 13 years in a high-security prison, and citizen journalists Ruslan Suleymanov, Rustem Sheihaliyev and Osman Arifmemetov were sentenced to 14 years behind bars. The political prisoners will spend four years in prison, and then will be restricted in their freedom of movement for another year. The defendants have pleaded not guilty and consider the persecution to be political.

On February 1, 2024, the appellate military court in Vlasykha upheld the sentence against five Crimean Tatar activists.

On March 18, 2024, Osman Arifmemetov was moved from the Novocherkassk PTDC (Rostov region, Russia) to the Krasnoyarsk Kray.

It was reported in November 2024 that citizen journalist Osman Arifmemetov had lost 22 kilograms of weight while imprisoned in Minusinsk (Krasnoyarsk region, Russia).