Ahtemov Asan

Born on December 5, 1989, Asan Ahtemov lived in the village of Levadky in the Simferopol district. He is the brother of the activist and political prisoner Aziz Ahtemov. Asan is married; he has a son and a daughter.

He used to work as a journalist and assisting editor of the Crimean Tatar newspaper Avdet. Asan Ahtemov is fond of making national-style leather craft, and he held multiple events for the preservation of Crimean Tatar culture.

When detained, he underwent physical and psychological pressure: the FSB officers beat him, dragged him into the woods and threatened to shoot him dead. Later, they tortured him with electric current in the presence of a lawyer appointed by the Russian state to obtain the preferred confession.

Asan has been imprisoned under the article 281, chapter 2 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code ("Sabotage conducted by a group of people or sabotage that caused significant property damage or other grave consequences") and sentenced to 15 years behind the bars. He had been held in the Vladimirsky Central colony in the city of Vladimir, Russian Federation, then transferred to the penal colony №5 in the city of Koryazhma, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Federation.

"The greatest dream of my life is to live in Crimea and see my people thriving and happy. I believe it will be so. I’m immensely grateful to everyone who supports us in these difficult times. Only thanks to you I don’t give up," Asan Ahtemov, 5 October 2021.