Watchdog

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

The Crimean Solidarity human rights group said Russia's Southern District Military Court in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don on May 12 sentenced Tofik Abdulgaziyev, Vladlen Abduklkadyrov, Izzet Abdullayev, and Medzhit Abdurakhmanov to 12 years in prison each.

Bilyal Adilov was handed a 14-year prison term. All had pleaded not guilty.

The five men, all of whom are activists of the Crimean Solidarity group, were arrested in March 2019 along with more than a dozen other Crimean Tatars in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed the region from Ukraine in 2014. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamic group banned in Russia but not in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzheppar condemned the court ruling, calling it "further proof of Russia's deliberate policy of the annihilation of Crimean Tatars in Crimea."

"Russia must cancel the decision of the so-called 'court,' release all illegally held Ukrainian citizens, and stop the political persecution and repression of representatives of the Crimean Tatar people," Dzheppar wrote on Twitter.

Since Moscow seized Crimea, 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 by Soviet authorities under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Another Kazakh activist has been released from prison after a court replaced the remainder of his five-year sentence with a parole-like penalty amid an outcry by human rights groups over political prisoners in the Central Asian nation.

Abai Begimbetov was released from a penal colony in the town of Zarechny, near Almaty, on May 13, civil rights activist Rakhilya Beknazarova told RFE/RL.

The Qapshaghai City Court decided to replace Begimbetov's prison term with parole-like sentence on April 27. The ruling took force on May 13.

Last month, the same court replaced the remainder of prison terms with parole-like sentences for two other activists, Qairat Qylyshev and Askhat Zheksebaev, who were released on April 27 and May 3 respectively.

The three men, along with a fourth activist, Noyan Rakhymzhanov, were sentenced to five years in prison each in October last year on charge of having links with the opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) and its affiliate Koshe (Street) party.

The activists, who were recognized as political prisoners by human rights organizations in Kazakhstan, pleaded not guilty and claimed during their trial that they only participated in peaceful protests and exercised their constitutionally protected rights.

The case sparked protests by rights defenders and opposition activists in Kazakhstan, who said the harsh sentences handed to the four activists do not go along with President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev's current campaign "to build a new democratic Kazakhstan," a move to distance himself from his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbaev. Nazarbaev, along with his clan, lost control over the oil-rich nation following deadly anti-government protests in early January.

Many activists across the tightly controlled former Soviet republic have been handed prison terms or parole-like restricted freedom sentences in recent years for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe party and for taking part in the rallies organized by the two groups.

The DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled the DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch criticized the Kazakh government for using anti-extremism laws as a tool to persecute critics and civic activists. Several hundred people have been prosecuted for membership in the Koshe party.

Kazakh authorities have insisted there are no political prisoners in the country.