The civic journalist Amet Suleymanov, held in house arrest by Russians, is under threat of imprisonment

Despite that the civic journalist Amet Suleymanov has a heart disease which prevents detention, Russian occupiers still attempt to jail him. His wife Lilia Liumanova claims that incarceration equates to death for Amet because he would never get proper medical aid when imprisoned.

Due to a heart disease, the civic journalist Amet Suleymanov has been held in house arrest for the last three years since his illegal detention. At the moment, he is waiting for the heart valve transplant. Amet Suleymanov suffers from arterial and mitral insufficiency. Besides, this disease is included in the list of those that prevent detention even according to the occupation law.

Together with three other Crimean Tatars, Amet Suleymanov was detained for his journalistic activity on March 11, 2020, in Bakhchysarai. The occupiers accused him of alleged membership in the Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 2021, the Southern District Military Court of the Russian Federation illegally sentenced Amet Suleymanov to 12 years in prison.

The case of Amet Suleymanov was considered in violation of the right to a fair trial, while the testimony of anonymous witnesses who later claimed that they had testified under pressure, along with the linguistic expertise of the Muslim defendants’ conversations, accounted for the main array of the evidence for the court. Meanwhile, the judges constantly ignored the defense’s request to conduct an alternative expertise. These facts indicate that the FSB detectives had obviously falsified the evidence.

The appeal hearing in the Russian court in Rostov-on-Don is scheduled on February 1.

At least 158 Ukrainian citizens are imprisoned or held in house arrest in Russia or occupied Crimea by now. They have all been detained for political reasons. Among them there are 16 journalists, including 12 Crimean Tatar civic journalists.