It is typical that the Facebook repost used as pretext for the attack on Rustem Kyamilev and Lilia Hemedzhy, and for terrorizing their children, was in support of Ukrainian political prisoner Oleh Prykhodko
In Russia’s latest attack on two Crimean Tatar human rights lawyers, occupation ‘police’ have carried out a search of the home of Rustem Kyamilev and Lilia Hemedzhy, and fabricated absurd grounds for prosecuting and jailing Kyamilev over two Facebook posts from 2017 and 2020.
Officers from Russia’s so-called ‘centre for countering extremism’ turned up at the couple’s home in the morning of 7 November, with a warrant to carry out an ‘inspection’ issued by the occupation ‘Kievsky district court’. ‘Inspections’ are, in formal terms, not searches. In practice, the distinction simply facilitates paperwork requirements where there are no grounds for a search. The lack of any grounds or resistance shown did not stop these Russian occupation officers from forcing Kyamilev to the ground. That this was part of Russia’s systematic attack on lawyers defending victims of political persecution was further confirmed by the participation in the raid of Ruslan Shambazov, the notorious traitor behind a huge number of politically motivated prosecutions in occupied Crimea.
After this supposed ‘inspection’, during which even their 21-year-old daughter’s phone was removed, as well as documents clearly linked with the couple’s work and status as lawyers, the officers took Kyamilev away to the Simferopol ‘Centre’ office. There it became clear that they had come up with two administrative prosecutions over very old Facebook posts.
The first charge was under Article 20.3 § 1 of Russia’s administrative code, which purportedly punishes for the ‘propaganda or public demonstration’ of, among other things, the symbols of extremist organizations, or of symbols banned by ‘federal laws’.
The charge was over a repost in 2020 from the Crimean Solidarity human rights initiative about the politically motivated trial of Oleh Prykhodko (b. 1958), the Ukrainian activist and recognized political prisoner now serving a 9.5-year sentence for his opposition to Russian occupation.
Sources
Ukraine: Crimean Tatar lawyer jailed in Russian terror against defenders of political prisoners
