The book Free Voices of Crimea presented at the 13th International Book Arsenal Festival

The event took place on May 31 within PEN Ukraine’s special program The Cardiogram of Translation.

The publication constitutes a joint initiative of PEN Ukraine, The Ukrainians Media, Vivat Publishing House, the Human Rights Centre ZMINA and was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The book Free Voices of Crimea is a collection of 16 features of politically imprisoned journalists who fought for human rights and freedom of speech on the occupied peninsula. For their activity, Russia imposed 7 to 19 years of jailtime on them. This book’s protagonists are mostly Crimean Tatars. The book also contains a documental part including selected letters, extracts from diaries and court speeches of the politically imprisoned journalists.

Participants of the presentation: Rustem Khalilov, author and journalist who wrote the feature of the civic journalist Seyran Saliev; Tetyana Teren, cultural manager and journalist, initiator of the book; Nari Usenko, analyst of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA; Kateryna Yesypenko, wife of Vladyslav Yesypenko, the Russia-imprisoned freelance journalist of the Radio Liberty. Moderator: Olesya Yaremchuk, the book’s co-editor and curator of its English version.

During the presentation, Nari Usenko spoke about the repressions in Crimea. She informed that, as of now, we can talk about at least 230 political prisoners from the peninsula, 70 of them requiring emergency care. She also emphasized the importance of civic journalism under the conditions of isolation that Crimea has been suffering since its occupation in 2014.

"Following the closure of the majority of independent media in 2014-205, it was ordinary people like salespersons, construction workers, teachers, nurses who began to inform Ukraine and the world of what was really going on in Crimea. It was them who told the truth about mass searches and detentions," said the human rights advocate.

Tetyana Teren, journalist, cultural manager and initiator of the book, told that it took the editorial team 4 years to get the Free Voices of Crimea published.

"I would like us to never miss the letters of Crimean journalists in the flow of our life. I would like us to remember their voices and their experience. We had the era of Soviet dissidents, and we are all familiar with their epistolary and memoirs. Now we are living in the time of new dissidents who are suffering from the same empire’s deeds," said Tetyana Teren at the presentation.

Protagonists of the book — Asan Ahtem, Amet Suleymanov, Remzi Bekirov, Osman Arifmemetov, Iryna Danylovych, Oleksii Bessarabov, Seyran Saliev, Rustem Sheykhaliev, Server Mustafaev, Marlen (Suleyman) Asanov, Vilen Temeryanov, Ruslan Suleymanov, Tymur Ibragimov, Ernes Ametov, Vladyslav Yesypenko, Nariman Celal.

Kateryna Yesypenko, wife of Vladyslav Yesypenko, the Russia-imprisoned freelance journalist of the Radio Liberty, told that it has been already 4 years since her husband was illegally imprisoned.

"The captivity caused a significant damage to Vladyslav’s physic health and morals. He worries that the world might forget about him in the context of negotiations. We should have priority categories of civilian prisoners to return: these are severely ill people, the elderly, women and those who had been detained before the full-scale invasion. There are civilian Ukrainians who’ve been held in torture chambers since 2014: for some of them, this is a third of their life," Kateryna Yesypenko emphasized.

To purchase the Ukrainian version of the book in either pdf or hard copy, please follow the link or address any Vivat bookstore. The book’s English ebook version is also available on the Vivat website.

For the photos from the presentation, please follow the link.

Nari Usenko also told about the Letters to Free Crimea – an initiative that has been uniting people around the globe in their support towards the Crimean political prisoners since 2023 – and called upon everyone to write letters.

"This is not just about writing letters. This is about our people and their value, about solidarity and about the fact that imprisonment cannot break a person if they are remembered," she emphasized.

At the Book Arsenal, every visitor can write a letter to political prisoners. At the stand E2.4, you can find the guide and information on writing letters.

Additional information:

At the first stage, the features of political prisoners were published in the media format on the website of The Ukrainians Media. The first presentation took place on April 10 at PEN Ukraine Space. The book Free Voices of Crimea was published within the PEN Ukraine Library series.

The publication was preceded by the #SolidarityWords, a joint campaign of PEN Ukraine and ZMINA launched in 2021 in support of politically imprisoned authors in occupied Crimea. Within the initiative, Ukrainian writers and journalists became ambassadors of their colleagues held in jails on the occupied peninsula.

For more details about the publication, please follow the link.

The Book Arsenal is an international event organized by the Mystetskyi Arsenal. The festival has been held annually since 2011, and it became one of the most impactful literary and art events in Eastern Europe. In 2019, it was recognized as the World Best Literary Festival. The mission of the festival is to create the kinds of interactions between people, communities, and institutions that could enhance the individuals’ and societies’ capacities by connecting aesthetic experiences with intellectual involvement in the book context.