Amnesty International Demands Immediate Release Of Elderly Crimean Tatar Activist

Server Karametov

Amnesty International has urged authorities in Russia-controlled Crimea to immediately release a 76-year-old Crimean Tatar activist from jail.

In its August 10 statement, Amnesty said that Server Karametov is "a prisoner of conscience, with Parkinson’s disease, who must be immediately and unconditionally released."

Karametov was detained on August 8 while demonstrating in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, in support of Ahtem Chiygoz, who is currently on trial, and other Crimean Tatars who have been prosecuted by Russia since it seized the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.

Karametov was found guilty of disobeying police, jailed for 10 days, and fined 10,000 rubles ($165).

Russia has been sharply criticized by international rights groups and Western governments for its treatment of members of the indigenous Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar minority.

The majority of Crimean Tatars opposed the Russian takeover of their historic homeland.