Bekirov Remzy

Born on 20 February 1985, Remzy Bekirov is a Crimean Tatar civic journalist and activist of the Crimean Solidarity. Bekirov is married; he has three children and retired parents.

He streamed live the acts of his fellow citizens being detained and underwent multiple detentions himself for his activism. Bekirov helped to finish the building of the house for his fellow citizen, another political prisoner Teymur Abdullayev, though his own life conditions were tight.

He has been imprisoned under the article 205.5, chapter 1 ("Providing the activity of an organization recognized as terroristic in the accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation"), article 30, chapter 1 ("Prepared and attempted crime"), and article 278 ("Violent seizure of power or violent retaining power") of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code and sentenced to 19 years behind the bars. Now he is held in the penal colony №33 in the city of Abakan, Republic of Khakassia, Russian Federation.

"The Russian Federation persecutes Crimean Tatars, Crimean Muslims for their dissent. For the unwillingness to think as the authorities tell them, for the unwillingness to be slaves on their land. What’s more, as the investigation put it, my crime is that I dared report on this rule of lawlessness by first becoming a citizen journalist, and afterwards ‘correspondent,’" Remzy Bekirov, 12 February 2020.