Since Crimea was annexed by Russia five years ago, the peninsula has been gripped by a constant counter-terror operation against Crimean Tatars. And on 3 October, journalist Nariman Memedeminov received a 2.5 year prison sentence for “public justification of terrorism”.
Memedeminov, 36, was arrested in March 2018, and since then has been held in investigative detention. The Memorial Human Rights Center believes that the case against Memedeminov is connected with his rights defence and journalism, as well as criticism of Russian law enforcement. The evidence consists of videos that Memedeminov posted online in 2013 and 2014, in which he makes reference to the fundamentalist Islamic movement Hizb ut-Tahrir online.
While the organisation is legal in Ukraine, Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned as a terrorist group in Russia under a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. This ruling has been used to target Crimean Tatars on terrorism charges since 2014.
