The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the sentence of three Crimean Tatar political prisoners - Enver and Riza Omerov and Aider Dzhapparov. They will spend 18, 13 and 17 years in prison respectively.

The defendants called their criminal case “a link in a large chain of persecution of Crimean Tatars on national and religious grounds.” The defense insisted on the next interrogation of hidden witnesses; previously this had happened in gross violation of criminal law.

According to investigators, in 2017, Enver Omerov and Dzhapparov organized a cell of the Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned in the Russian Federation, in the territory of the Crimean city of Belogorsk, which included Enver Omerov’s son, Riza.

Since January 2015, criminal cases against Hizb ut-Tahrir began to be initiated in Crimea, which came under the de facto control of Russia. In Ukraine, the party’s activities are not prohibited; activists of the organization published a newspaper, could speak openly in the media and hold mass public events.