A court in Russia has sentenced Crimean Tatar activist Emil Ziyadinov to a lengthy prison term after convicting him of organizing activities of a banned Islamic group amid an ongoing crackdown on the ethnic group, which has been critical of Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Russia's Southern District Military Court in the city of Rostov-on-Don on April 19 sentenced Ziyadinov, a 37-year-old sports teacher at a school in Crimea, to 17 years in prison.
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His brother, Selim, told the human rights group Crimean Solidarity that the court ruled that Ziyadinov, who pleaded not guilty, must serve the first four years of his term incarcerated in a prison facility, with the rest of the term to be served in a maximum-security penal colony. Once the sentence is completed, he will be subject to parole-like restrictions for another 18 months.
Ziyadinov was arrested in July 2020 along with several other Crimean Tatar activists after their homes in Crimea were searched by Russia-imposed authorities. They were later charged with being members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.
The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has recognized Ziyadinov as a political prisoner.
Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Last month, the same court sentenced seven Crimean Tatars on extremism charges that they and human rights organizations in Ukraine call politically motivated.
Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.
Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by Soviet authorities under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea, who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.
Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries.