On 13 October 2023, human rights defender Aleksey Ladin was detained in Russian-occupied Crimea and sentenced to 14 days of administrative detention for allegedly displaying prohibited symbols on his social media pages. He was also fined 45,000 rubles (440 euro) for discrediting the Russian military forces after he reshared a post which denounced Russian aggressions against Ukraine.
Aleksey Ladin is a Russian human rights defender and lawyer. Since 2015 he has been working to provide legal aid to Ukrainians who have been persecuted by Russia on politically motivated charges. He has worked both as a representative of human rights organisation Agora, then, following this, in an independent capacity. In 2017 he moved from the city of Tumen to Russian-occupied Crimea to be closer to his clients who, at that point, mostly consisted of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar political prisoners in Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians who were abducted and charged with criminal offences by the Russian authorities.
Lawyer Aleksey Ladin arrested in Russian-occupied Crimea for Facebook post condemning Crimean Tatar persecution and Russian aggression against Ukraine. 14-day detention and fine imposed.#CrimeaArrest #HumanRights #CrimeanTatars #RussianAggression #UkraineConflict pic.twitter.com/8KUu1UuO2W
— Activists Without Borders (@ActivistsWB) October 16, 2023
On 13 October 2023, early in the morning, the human rights defender Aleksey Ladin was detained in Simferopol where he was defending a local resident accused of storing an explosive device. While he was at court, the human rights defender’s house in Sevastopol was raided by Russian occupational law enforcement.
Another lawyer arrested in Russia today – Aleksey Ladin who defends Ukrainian POWs in Crimea. https://t.co/BIC7eiTWfv
— Leonid ?? Ragozin (@leonidragozin) October 13, 2023
Later that day, the Kyivskyi district court of Simferopol examined two protocols concerning administrative offences against Aleksey Ladin, Ukrainian media outlet Graty reported. The first of these involved article 20.3, paragraph 1, of the Code of Administrative Offences of Russia, which prohibits the display of banned symbols – in relation to Facebook posts he published in 2018. The posts in question displayed an image which contained “taraq tamga” (the emblem on the Crimean Tatars’ flag) which the court deemed to be a symbol associated with a known Crimean volunteer paramilitary unit Noman Çelebicihan Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion, which takes its name from the original founder of the Crimean Republic, Noman Çelebicihan.
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