Nariman Memedeminov: “I was then taken out of the house at gunpoint…”

Nariman Memedeminov was born in the city of Leninsk, Andijan Oblast, Uzbekistan, in May 1983. In 1990, he went to the 1^st grade of a city school. Within a year, the Memedeminov family returned to Crimea. They settled in the village of Frontove, Sevastopol District, where Nariman went to the second grade.

He graduated from school in 2001. In 2004, Nariman entered the Ternopil National University of Economics, the Faculty of International Economics. In 2009, he graduated and received a specialist diploma.

Nariman got married in 2005, and in 2007, the couple had a daughter.

In 2009, he and his family moved to the village of Kholmivka, Bakhchysarai District. Sons were born to the Memedeminovs in 2010 and 2014.

Nariman was engaged in plumbing installation and related work and most recently worked as an operator in a boiler room. Nariman was very active in the public life of his region. Organized religious holidays and participated in all events. After repressions against the Crimean Tatars began in Crimea, Nariman began to cover the events taking place on the peninsula. On March 22, 2018, FSB officers searched the house of Nariman Memedeminov, after which he was illegally detained on unfounded charges of terrorism.

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Since the beginning of 2014, a large-scale campaign to eradicate independent mass media has been launched on the peninsula. As part of this work, the broadcasting of Ukrainian broadcast TV channels and radio was blocked on the territory of Crimea, the first Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR was forced to move to the mainland of Ukraine, and access to many Internet resources was blocked. Some journalists were convicted, and many were banned from entering Crimea.

Against the background of these repressions, the Institute of Citizen Journalism was formed in Crimea. Ordinary citizens, not indifferent to the events happening around them, began to actively use social networks and publish their materials. These were photos from courtrooms in cases of political prisoners, obtained from places of searches and mass detentions, interviews with victims of the arbitrariness of security forces, articles about illegal actions of the authorities, etc. Risking their lives, despite repeated threats, arrests, fines, and psychological pressure, they do their job. Thus, civilian journalists became the only independent source of information in Crimea.

Nariman Memedeminov stood near the sources of citizen journalism in Crimea. He has been active in human rights since 2014. And repeatedly suffered repression. So, in 2016, his house was searched, during which they tried to put banned literature on him. Nariman‘s wife saw this, and the provocation failed.

In 2017, he was fined RUB 20,000 for reporting from the scene of a search of activist Seydamet Mustafayev‘s house in Bakhchysarai, calling him a participant in an unauthorized rally. Threats were repeatedly received against him, but he continued to fulfill his duty with dignity.

March 22, 2018, in the village of Kholmivka, Bakhchysarai District, the home of Nariman Memedeminov, was searched. On March 23, 2018, the judge of the Kyivskyi District Court of the City of Simferopol, Bilousov, selected detention as a preventive measure for Memedeminov.

On April 12, 2018, a group of human rights organizations from European countries, the Civic Solidarity Platform, joined the solidarity campaign with citizen journalist Nariman Memedeminov. More than 30 organizations signed an open appeal demanding the release of the journalist and an end to repression and persecution against him. Among the organizations that signed the appeal were the International Partnership for Human Rights (Belgium), Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuania), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland), Libereco – Partnership for Human Rights (Germany), Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Russia) and others.

On April 17, 2019, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, condemned the arrest of Crimean Solidarity activists after the March 27 mass searches in the annexed Crimea and called for their immediate release from the russian pre-trial detention center.

On May 10, 2019, the European Federation of Journalists adopted a special statement of solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues who have become victims of persecution in the russian federation, Crimea and the occupied Donbas.

On July 18, 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on russia to release all Ukrainian political prisoners, including Memedeminov. On November 6, 2019, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) recognized Crimean Tatar civilian journalists who are persecuted in Crimea, including Memedeminov, as collective laureates of the Ihor Lubchenko National Prize for the Protection of Freedom of Speech.

On December 11, 2019, the international non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists included four Crimean Tatar civilian journalists in its special report on journalists imprisoned for doing their work, including Memedeminov.

On February 3, 2020, the international human rights organization Freedom House called on russia to review the sentences of Crimean Tatar journalists associated with the Crimean Solidarity human rights movement. The Memorial Human Rights Center (Russia) recognized Nariman Memedeminov as a political prisoner.