THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
Timur Ibragimov was born in the city of Yangiyul, Uzbekistan, in January 1985. In 1991, when Timur was six, his family returned to Crimea. At the same age, Timur suffered an eye injury and has had a disability since childhood. From 1998 to 2003, he studied and successfully graduated from the famous Tankiv boarding school for gifted children with in-depth study of the English language. After graduating from high school, Timur entered a higher educational institution at the Faculty of Philology of Foreign Languages, which he did not finish yet. During his studies, he worked part-time in a cafe. He has an incomplete higher philological education, majoring in “English and Ukrainian language.”
Since 2007, he has been involved in the repair and sale of computer and telephone equipment. He opened his own business. In November 2008, Timur got married. He has four children – two sons and two daughters. Since Timur was left without a father at an early age, he considered it his duty and actively helped low-income families, as well as families left without breadwinners.
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Since 2014, not wanting to remain aloof from the problems of his compatriots and co-religionists, Timur began to cover the events taking place in Crimea. He continued to engage in citizen journalism until his arrest.
On October 11, 2017, early in the morning, FSB officers broke into the house where Timur lived with his family and conducted a search, which took place in harsh conditions. As a result, all electronic media were seized. All this happened in front of the eyes of young children who were subjected to severe stress, which still affects their physical and psychological state.
After the search, Timur was detained on charges of terrorism. During the interrogation, Ibragimov refused to testify and pleaded not guilty.
He is accused under Section 2 of Article 205.5 (Participation In Activities Of A Terrorist Organization, up to 20 years of imprisonment), Section 1 of Article 30, and Article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Preparation For A Violent Seizure Of Power, up to 10 years of imprisonment). He has been in custody since October 11, 2017.
Ayshe Seytablayeva, a teacher at the high school for gifted children, says, “He was not among the sleeping heroes, those sitting on the couch thinking “when it’s my turn, I’ll go and help.” He was walking straight ahead… He was detained because he was not aloof. If someone was detained somewhere, he went there. To help, inform, support. They don’t want people to help each other.”
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On October 11, 2017, in Bakhchysarai, FSB officers detained six Crimean Tatars: Timur Ibragimov, Marlen (Suleyman) Asanov, Memet Belyalov, Seyran Saliyev, Server Zekiryayev, and Ernes Ametov. On May 21, 2018, Edem Smayilov and Server Mustafayev were detained in their homes and arrested within the framework of the same criminal case. According to the version of the investigation, the guilt of the detained Crimean Tatars was involvement in the activities of the Islamic political organization Hizb ut-Tahrir in Crimea.
On September 16, 2018, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, announced the sentence to the Crimean Tatars detained in this case. Thus, Marlen Asanov was sentenced to 19 years in a high-security prison, Memet Belyalov – 18, Timur Ibragimov – 17 years, Seyran Saliyev – 16, Server Mustafayev – 14, Server Zekiriyaiev – 13, Edem Smaylov – 13. Ernes Ametov was found innocent and released in the courtroom. All defendants deny terrorism charges and say they are being persecuted for political and religious reasons.
Crimean Solidarity previously outlined in detail a number of violations of the rights of political prisoners of the “second Bakhchysarai group of Hizb ut-Tahrir.” As you know, residents of the occupied territory are under the protection of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit, in particular, their movement within the territory of the occupying state or abroad. Human rights defenders of the Regional Center for Human Rights call such actions a war crime and call on the residents of Crimea to send materials confirming this war crime by the Russian Federation and the occupying administration of the peninsula.
According to the Crimean Solidarity non-governmental organization and the Human Rights Center ZMINA, citizen journalists and political prisoners from the so-called “second Bakhchysarai group Hizb ut-Tahrir” were illegally staged to various correctional colonies on the territory of Russia.
Timur Ibragimov was taken to the colony in the village of Klekotky, Ryazan Region (Russia), and Suleyman Asanov will serve his term in the correctional colony of the village of Sosnivka, Republic of Mordovia.
It is known that the father of many children, Server Zekiriyaiev, was delivered to a colony in the Tula Oblast, which is located at least 1,500 kilometers from his home in Bakhchysarai.
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A political prisoner involved in the case of the “second Bakhchysarai group Hizb ut-Tahrir,” citizen journalist Timur Ibragimov was diagnosed with gallstone disease, but he did not receive any recommendations from doctors, the Crimean Solidarity NGO reports. As his wife, Dilyara Ibragimova, said, the right side of her body was sick for a long time. He suspected he had liver problems. The prisoner of the Kremlin waited six months for a medical examination. He underwent an ultrasound scan at the Ryazan hospital only in May, diagnosing gallstone disease. According to Dilyara, the man was given papers about the ultrasound results but without any recommendations regarding treatment or diet. Russian doctors refused to take blood for general and biochemical analysis on the pretext that, allegedly, the application that Ibragimov filled out earlier did not indicate that these analyzes were needed. According to the political prisoner’s wife, gallstone disease in her husband could have developed due to the fact that convicts do not have hot food.
Ibragimov has the third group of disabilities; he has an eye implant, which needs to be replaced a long time ago. However, the Crimean Tatar does not turn to the colony’s leadership, as he understands that this is impossible under such harsh prison conditions. The second eye, which saw well, now sees worse – the man’s vision has worsened, and he constantly feels dry.
As reported by ZMINA, political prisoner and citizen journalist Timur Ibragimov, illegally sentenced in the Russian Federation to 17 years of imprisonment, lost 27 kilograms after he was transferred from the pre-trial detention center in Bashkortostan to Colony 5 in the village of Klekotky, Ryazan Oblast.
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The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined the initiative of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), calling for the immediate release of colleagues who are being persecuted in occupied Crimea. The EFJ will refer the dossier on ten Crimean Tatar citizen journalists imprisoned by Russia for international diplomatic control to the Council of Europe’s Specialized Platform for the Protection of Journalists.
In his video message, EFJ General Secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez called on the Russian Federation to immediately release the Crimean Tatar journalists. “I believe that today, more than ever before, it is necessary to promote strong solidarity with journalists persecuted by the Russian authorities in Crimea. We consider our colleagues to be political prisoners. They are in jail just for doing their job in the public interest. Crimea has become a zone where international law and the rule of law are no longer respected,” Ricardo Gutiérrez said in his speech.
NUJU Information Service
The publication uses materials from the Crimean Solidarity NGO, the PEN-Ukraine website, the Krym.Realii website within the Radio Liberty project, the ZMINA Human Rights Center, the Memorial Society, and others. The NUJU Information Service expresses its profound gratitude to the colleagues for the opportunity kindly provided.
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