Tatarstan's Supreme Court has announced it will rule on an appeal on the conviction of prominent Tatar pro-independence activist Fauzia Bayramova on April 27, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.
Bayramova, the chairwoman of the Milli Medjlis, a self-proclaimed pan-Tatar national assembly, was given a one-year suspended jail term on February 24 after being found guilty of "inciting interethnic and interreligious hatred and casting aspersions on human dignity."
The charges stem from an open letter issued in December 2008 by the Milli Medjlis calling on the international community to recognize Tatarstan's
independence from Russia. The appeal was later published on several websites. Russia had recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia just a few months earlier.
Bayramova, 59, and her supporters say the verdict against her was politically motivated.