Russia preliminary registers Crimean citizen journalist Ruslan Suleimanov in a prison for "predisposition to defection and violence"

Citizen journalist Ruslan Suleimanov. Photo by Crimean Solidarity

Citizen journalist Ruslan Suleimanov, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison, has been preliminarily registered in the Verkhnyuralsk prison (Chelyabinsk region, Russia) for "adherence to extremist ideology, predisposition to defection and violence", reports the public initiative "Crimean Solidarity", citing Ruslan's wife Elzara Suleimanova.

According to Suleimanova, her husband was registered immediately after being moved out of the PTDC in Novocherkassk. He also received two reprimands for sitting on the bed.

On March 27, 2019, mass searches of Crimean Tatar households took place in the Kamyanka and Strohanivka microdistricts of Simferopol, Crimea. Due to the large amount of case material, the authorities divided the 25 defendants in the case into five groups of five. Almost all the detainees were citizen journalists or public activists.

On November 24, 2022, the Southern District Military Court's presiding judge Vyacheslav Korsakov, together with judges Denis Galkin and Igor Shendrikov, convicted the Crimean Tatar activists, including Ruslan Suleimanov, of terrorism and an attempted coup. Activists Enver Ametov and Yashar Muedinov were sentenced to 13 years in a high-security prison, and civilian journalists Ruslan Suleimanov, Rustem Sheikhaliev, and Osman Arifmemetov were sentenced to 14 years in prison.

The political prisoners will spend four years in prison, and then their freedom of movement will be restricted for another year. The defendants have pleaded not guilty and consider their persecution to be political.

As reported earlier, Russia unlawfully holds at least 15 journalists in custody. All of them were imprisoned on false charges. Ruslan Suleimanov is one of them.