Citizen journalist Server Mustafayev engaged in human rights activities despite being in captivity

Recently, the family of citizen journalist Server Mustafayev was able to have a long visit with the imprisoned head of the family.

As his wife, Maye Mustafayeva, reported, the whole family went to the meeting together with his mother. “This time, our family was in full force. In all these six years, we were together for the first time. When me, Server, and our four children got together,” Maye said.

She also reported that even under the conditions of deprivation of liberty, Server conducts human rights activities. Since he is familiar with jurisprudence, he helps his cellmates and other prisoners with advice on the preparation of documents and the legal support of their cases.

As earlier reported, Server Mustafayev is a former coordinator of the public association Crimean Solidarity, which provides legal, informational, and social assistance to the families of political prisoners in Crimea and is one of the forms of response of the Crimean Tatar people to systematic repression in Crimea.

The NUJU information service spoke in detail about the case of Server Mustafayev. The NUJU has consistently and consistently advocated for the removal of all false charges and his release from custody.

Since 2014, Mustafayev has carried out systematic monitoring of the situation in Crimea, was a citizen journalist, and covered politically biased trials. On May 21, 2018, after searches, security forces arrested Server Mustafayev. On September 16, 2020, Server Mustafayev was sentenced to 14 years in prison at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. On March 14, the Military Court of Appeal in the city of Vlasikha, russia, completely rejected the defense’s complaints. In total, more than 45 court sessions were held in the case.

According to Maye, her husband has vision loss. Server Mustafayev‘s vision problems began in the Novocherkassk pre-trial detention center. Then, the optometrist prescribed him glasses, in which the political prisoner writes and reads. But he continues to lose his sight due to the fact that he is imprisoned in a barrack with strict conditions of detention (IC-1 of the Tambov region). He was transferred there in February this year.

“If before he even saw the fine print, now everything is blurred. His eyes get tired quickly,” Maye said. Due to detention in harsh conditions, the activist cannot continue his studies at the Faculty of Law, which he entered at the beginning of last year. He was also unable to start studying by correspondence. The Crimean Tatar’s wife sent a complaint to the Federal Penitentiary Service, where they promised to “sort it out,” but the case has not yet moved.

The political prisoner has been in a barrack with harsh conditions for more than six months, where he was transferred “due to the gravity of the article.” Before that, he spent a year in the general unit. Server was also put on preventive registration for the second time as “prone to terrorism,” despite the fact that before that, he was already registered as prone to extremism. However, no terrorist intentions, actions, or equipment were found with him during the trial.

NUJU Information Service