Blind political prisoner Oleksandr Sizikov sent to tuberculosis hospital for examination
Oleksandr Sizikov, a blind Crimean political prisoner sentenced to 17 years in prison, has been transferred from a prison in Minusinsk, the Krasnoyarsk Krai (Russia), to Krasnoyarsk Tuberculosis Hospital No. 1 for examination, as reported by Crimean Solidarity, citing information from a lawyer who visited the prisoner of the Kremlin in the hospital.
Oleksandr Sizikov (archival photo). Source: Crimean SolidaritySizikov arrived at the Minusinsk prison on February 8, 2025, and was immediately placed in “quarantine,” where he remained for longer than the maximum 15 days, staying there for 24 days.
According to the lawyer, Sizikov was initially sent to a new wing. However, his cellmates immediately called an officer and demanded that Sizikov be transferred to a special medical wing, where people with disabilities and health problems are housed.
The prisoner was moved to an older wing. A week before his transfer to the hospital, the head of the institution visited the Crimean Muslim. Oleksandr requested a transfer to the medical unit because the old building was cold, damp, and humid. The head replied that the medical unit only had a tuberculosis ward, where it was impossible to place a Muslim.
Subsequently, a guard informed Sizikov that he would be taken to Krasnoyarsk for examination. However, Sizikov was not even told to pack his belongings, so he was left without essential items, including his bedding.
He was brought to the hospital on the evening of March 6 and placed in the third ward of the Oncology Department. He told his lawyer that the medical facility was overcrowded.
Sizikov has been using a blood pressure monitor more frequently, indicating that he has high blood pressure. Doctors prescribed him medication for hypertension and promised to provide him with the pills he brought with him.
Oleksandr Sizikov is a defendant in the “Fourth Bakhchysarai Hizb ut-Tahrir case.” He was born on October 12, 1984, in Simferopol, and later moved with his family to the village of Turgenevka, Bakhchysarai district, where he attended the local school. In 2002, he entered Sevastopol National Technical University, majoring in Automation and Computer-Integrated Technologies.
After graduating, he found employment, although not in his field, working in construction. Later, he became an assistant operator at a gas station in Sevastopol. In 2006, he converted to Islam.
In June 2009, Sizikov was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. That same year, he received a first-degree disabilityі . Since then, he has been assisted in his daily life by fellow villagers and Imam Edem Smailov until the FSB detained the imam and accused him of terrorism.
Sizikov could not reconcile himself to the arrest of the imam, so he staged solo protests in April 2019 and May 2020 with the help of two pensioners and attended court hearings.
The political prisoner was detained on July 7, 2020, after searches at the home of his friends. The FSB alleges that Sizikov “founded a terrorist cell of Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2015,” and that Alim Sufyanov and Seyran Khairedinov became members of this cell. As evidence of Sizikov’s guilt, the Russian special service cites religious and political books found during the search. However, these books are not printed in Braille.
Olha Kuznetsova, an illegitimate “judge” of the so-called “Kyiv District Court” in temporarily occupied Simferopol, ordered house arrest as a preventive measure on the day of the Ukrainian citizen’s detention.
Oleksandr Sizikov and his lawyer Safiye ShabanovaOn October 14 of the same year, the “court” decided to send Sizikov for a month of inpatient forensic psychiatric examination at the Sevastopol City Psychiatric Hospital.
Officers of the occupying police took Sizikov from his home on September 14, 2024, and took him to an unknown location. Prior to this, he had been under house arrest.
The day before, on September 13, the Moscow Regional Military Court in Vlasikha sentenced the political prisoner to 17 years in prison. However, law enforcement officers did not show documents with an official seal during Sizikov’s arrest.
The medical unit of the Simferopol pre-trial detention center (SIZO-1) refused to accept documents regarding the political prisoner’s health condition.
Earlier, ZMINA reported that Oleksandr Sizikov, a Muslim political prisoner from the Bakhchysarai District of Crimea, was transferred from Crimea to a Russian prison despite his visual impairment. His relatives were not informed of the prisoner of the Kremlin’s destination at the time.
It was later revealed that Sizikov was taken to a prison in the city of Minusinsk, the Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia: more than five thousand kilometres from Crimea.
