Foreign Ministry demands Russia to stop prosecution of Crimean Muslims
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry expressed protest to the Russian Federation in connection with the non-admission of representatives of the Consulate General of Ukraine in Rostov-on-Don to Ukrainian citizens that were detained in Crimea and transported to Russia.
This is said in the statement of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine.
It relates to Ruslan Zeytulayev, Nuri Primov, Rustem Vaitov and Ferat Sayfullayev.
It states that the decision of the North Caucasus District Military Court contradicts international legal obligations of Russia, which it undertook under the Consular Convention between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on January 15, 1993.
According to it, the Foreign Ministry reminds, citizens have the right to free relations with the representative of their country to obtain the necessary consular and legal assistance and consular officials - to check the proper confinement conditions of their compatriots in places of detention.
“We consider deliberate obstruction to establishment of consular contact of the Ukrainian state with its citizens to be not merely a gross violation of their legal rights, but an attempt to hide Russian trumped-up charges of open criminal proceedings against them, which are obvious to the outside world,” the Foreign Ministry states.
Ukraine was especially outrages by the practice of “interference of relevant authorities of the occupiers with the lives of the loved ones and relatives of illegally detained citizens of Ukraine and pressure exercised on them. The relevant authorities violate thereby the right of individuals to respect for private and family life guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The Foreign Ministry demands immediate cessation of trials against Ukrainian.
“We request the Russian side to immediately stop the unlawful trials over the citizens of Ukraine illegally held by Russia to ensure unhindered access of consular officials of Ukraine to the Ukrainians at their place of detention and stop the practice of violation of the right of consular officials of Ukraine to free relations with the citizens of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
On June 1, the North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don (Russia) began to hear the case on four Muslims of Crimea - Ferat Sayfullayev, Nuri (Yuri) Prymov, Rustem Vaitov, Ruslan Zeytullayev. At that meeting the prosecutor read out the indictment.
On May 18, a hearing was held in Rostov-on-Don, during which their period of detention was extended until October.
All four were convoyed from annexed Crimea to Rostov.
Crimean defendants were arrested in 2015 in Sevastopol. According to investigators, they are members of the organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir.”
A year after the detention of Muslims in Sevastopol, a similar situation occurred in southern Crimea. On February 11 and 12, 2016, Russian security forces conducted a series of searches and seizures in the homes of supporters of Islam. There were 14 people arrested.
"Hizb ut-Tahrir" is an international Islamic organization banned in Russia, Kazakhstan and Germany, while in Ukraine and other countries it can operate legally. This is reported by “Ukrainian Pravda.”
