Watchdog

A Russian court on February 21 will start a preliminary hearing into the case against Sergei Furgal, the former governor of the Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai whose arrest in 2020 caused monthslong protests in the region.

Judges with the Lyubertsy City Court in the Moscow region will travel to the Russian capital, where they will start the hearings in the building of the Moscow City Court, the Lyubertsy City Court said on February 11.

During the preliminary hearings, the court is expected to set a date for the start of jury selection for the high-profile trial and decide on restrictions that will apply during proceedings for Furgal and other suspects in the case.

The hearings will be held behind closed doors.

Furgal was charged with attempted murder and ordering two killings in 2004 and 2005. He and his supporters have rejected the charges as politically motivated.

Furgal, of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, was elected in 2018 in a runoff that he won handily against the region’s longtime incumbent from the Kremlin-backed ruling United Russia party.

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Russian Police Crack Down On Months-Long Protest In Far East

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His arrest on July 9, 2020, sparked mass protests in the Khabarovsk Krai's capital, Khabarovsk, and several other towns and cities in the region.

The protests were held almost daily for many months, highlighting growing discontent in the Far East over what demonstrators see as Moscow-dominated policies that often neglect their views and interests.

President Vladimir Putin's popularity has been declining as the Kremlin tries to deal with an economy suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and years of ongoing international sanctions.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- A court in Russia has sentenced two Crimean Tatars to lengthy prison terms on charges of being members of a banned Islamic group amid an ongoing crackdown on the ethnic group.

The Southern District Military Court in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don on February 11 sentenced Zekirya Muratov and Vadim Bektemirov to 11 1/2 and 11 years in prison, respectively, after finding them guilty of being members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir group.

The two pleaded not guilty.

Muratov and Bektemirov were arrested in July 2020 in Crimea, which Russia has illegally annexed from Ukraine, along with five other Crimean Tatars. They were charged with being linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova wrote on Telegram that Russian police had detained three Crimean Tatar journalists -- Amar Abulgaziyev, Rustem Useynov, and Ali Suleymanov -- who came to the trial of Muratov and Bektemirov on February 11.

Denisova condemned the sentencing and detainment of Ukrainian citizens by Russia.

"By its activities, the country-occupier, the Russian Federation, is violating norms of international law, the [European] Convention on Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Denisova wrote, calling on the international community to "force Russia to stop unfounded detentions and rigged trials of illegally jailed Ukrainian citizens."

Two days earlier, four Crimean Tatars were arrested in Crimea on a charge of organizing the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

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Ukrainian Ombudswoman Condemns Russia's Arrest Of Four Crimean Tatars In Crimea

Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Islamic group.

Moscow's takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.

Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia under the Soviet dictatorship of Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.