To mark the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on 15 November, PEN highlighted the case of a Crimean Tatar, Server Mustafayev, a 36-year-old citizen journalist and human rights defender. Mustafayev is coordinator of the human rights movement Crimean Solidarity in Russian-occupied Crimea.

On 21 May 2018, officers from Russia’s Federal Security Services raided Mustafayev’s house in Bakhchisaray, southern Crimea, before taking him to its regional headquarters in Simferopol, the capital of the peninsula. He was detained and charged with ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ over his alleged links to Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group banned in the Russian Federation but legal in Ukraine.

On 22 February 2019, Mustafayev was further charged with ‘conspiring to seize power by violent means’. Seven months later, on 12 September, he was transferred from Crimea to the Russian Federation. His trial opened in Rostov-on-Don shortly afterwards. Before being transferred, Mustafayev expressed his determination to speak out against the Russian occupation of Crimea and encouraged fellow journalists to write about human rights abuses in the peninsula.

Despite falling ill several times during his trial, Mustafayev was denied adequate medical care and was forced to appear in court. On 16 September 2020, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don convicted him on trumped-up charges and sentenced him to fourteen years in a strict penal colony. In March of this year, a military court of appeal upheld his sentence. Mustafayev is not expected to be released until September 2034.

Mustafayev, who is married and has four children, is currently being held in Tambov, Siberia, far from his home and family. PEN has denounced the serious flaws in the judicial proceedings against him, including his lengthy pretrial detention and the fact that he is being held in the Russian Federation. Under international law, Crimea constitutes occupied territory and the Russian Federation is obliged not to transfer civilian prisoners elsewhere. Trying civilians in military courts also violates international human rights norms. In June 2018, the European Parliament urged the Russian authorities to immediately release Mustafayev.

Mustafayev is one of around fifteen Ukrainian citizen journalists and human rights activists currently imprisoned in the Russian Federation and occupied Crimea on political grounds. Following the Russian Federation’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the limited civic space in the peninsula has decreased further, with scores of Crimean residents who have called for peace being arrested. ‘Russian standards’ are imposed in local schools, and the teaching of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages, history and literature is discouraged.

PEN believes that Server Mustafayev is being targeted for his human rights work and for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression. Readers might like to contact the UK Foreign Office, calling on it to raise Server Mustafayev’s case in international forums, to demand his immediate and unconditional release, and to seek assurances that he is provided with adequate health care.

Messages to be addressed to:

The Rt Hon James Cleverly, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Email: james.cleverly.mp@parliament.uk

Readers can raise awareness of Server Mustafayev’s case on social media by using the hashtag #FreeMustafayev.

Update: Last month, there were fresh calls for the release of author Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British citizen who has spent nearly a quarter of his forty-one years in prison in Egypt (LR, July 2022). El-Fattah had escalated his hunger strike after having already subsisted on minimal calories in prison in Egypt. During COP27, family members and campaigners lobbied the UK government to secure his release. At the time of writing, el-Fattah remains behind bars in serious ill health. His writings can be read in You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011–2021, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021. Readers can write to the UK Foreign Office, asking it to intervene on behalf of Alaa Abd el-Fattah to secure his release (see details above). Readers can also send appeals to:

His Excellency Mohamed Ashraf M Kamal Elkholy
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
26 South Street
London W1K 1DW
Fax: +44 20 7491 1542; email: eg.emb_london@mfa.gov.eg

Raise awareness about his case on social media with the hashtag #FreeAlaa.