Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has urged the country's authorities to close the border with Russia and ban Russian citizens from entering. He outlined his position on Facebook from custody, commenting on reports regarding the death of an employee at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute.
In the village of Krasnokamenka, Crimean Tatars Emil Nazarbekov and Arsen Dzhepparov were detained.
Security forces searched Nazarbekov's home, saying they were looking for drugs and weapons in the house. Nazarbekov is married to the sister of Refat Alimov, convicted in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. After the search, he was taken away in an unknown direction.
Dzhepparov was released from prison in April after serving his sentence in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. The security forces stopped him at the store, grabbed him, threw him to the ground and put a gun to his head, and then pushed him into a car.
The Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir was recognized as a terrorist organization in Russia. Its participants are accused and sentenced to real terms only on the basis that they met in apartments, read religious literature and recruited new participants. According to the SOVA research center and the project “Support for Political Prisoners. Memorial”, the party was unlawfully recognized as terrorist in Russia.