Citizen journalist Asan Akhtemov has spent five years in Russian captivity
Today, 3 September, marks five years since the unlawful detention of Asan Akhtemov, a Crimean Tatar activist and citizen journalist. A Russian court sentenced him to 15 years in a strict-regime penal colony on fabricated charges, as the Crimea Platform Expert Network and the Crimean Human Rights Group reported. He is now held in Penal Colony No. 5 in Koryazhma, a city in Russia’s Arkhangelsk Oblast.
Asan Akhtemov. Photo credit: Crimean Solidarity For a time, reading helped Asan cope with the hardships of imprisonment. Poor lighting has caused his eyesight to deteriorate significantly. He cannot currently undergo the eye examination he needs at the colony. Despite his prolonged imprisonment, Akhtemov continues to write letters.
As part of the “Letters to Free Crimea” initiative, Valentyna Zakhabura, a writer and head of Children’s Library No. 9 in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi District, reads aloud his letter about his love of reading.
In his letter, Asan Akhtemov writes: “Despite everything, I haven’t lost heart. I’m not giving up. As long as I breathe, I’ll keep fighting. Some people may hate it, but I have no intention of giving in. That’s not our way”.
Russian security forces detained Asan Akhtemov in September 2021, along with his brother Aziz and Nariman Dzhelial, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.
In September 2022, an occupation-run court sentenced Akhtemov to 15 years in a strict-regime penal colony over alleged “sabotage of a gas pipeline” in Perevalne, in temporarily occupied Crimea. Human rights organisations stress that the prosecution presented no credible evidence linking him to the incident. The case rested largely on testimony obtained through torture. Following his sentencing, Akhtemov was transferred to Vladimir Central Prison and later to a penal colony in the Arkhangelsk Oblast.
ZMINA previously reported that citizen journalist Asan Akhtemov’s health was deteriorating without treatment in a penal colony in Russia.
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