A few months after the detention, Suspilne Crimea talked to the families of the detained men.

“On the early morning of March 27, unknown people knocked on the door. The husband opened the door. There were “security officers” in masks. They broke into our house and started filming without taking off their shoes. They started searching the children’s room, and the husband went with them", - Zarema, Shaban Umerov’s wife recalls.

Shaban Umerov has three children and five grandchildren. “Prosecutor” Yevhen Kolpikov requested an 18.5-year prison sentence in a maximum-security prison for Umerov.

Zarema Umerova. Source: Alexandra Yefimenko

The second Simferopol “Hizb ut-Tahrir case” is the largest in terms of the number of participants in this article. They charged all those arrested under Articles 205.5 (participation in a terrorist organization) and 278 (attempt to seize power by force) of the Criminal Code. When the “trials” began, in fact, all the defendants were divided into groups of five.

“Despite pleas of not guilty of ​​the defendants, who had repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the policies and intelligence services of the Russian state, their guilt was proved in court", - Kolpikov said.

On the night of April 17, 2019, Raim Aivazov was detained while crossing the Russian border at the Kalanchak checkpoint. There was no contact with him for over 12 hours. In the afternoon, Raim Aivazov called his sister and said he had been detained by “FSB officers”.

On April 18, 2019, the occupational Kievsky District Court of Simferopol chose a measure of restraint in the form of detention against Raim Aivazov. He also became a defendant in this case. At the trial, lawyer Maria Eismont stated the client was tortured.

“Prosecutor” requested an 18-year prison sentence for Raim Aivazov.

“What was Raim Aivazov really doing? Let’s decrypt. If you look at this text, you can see what the people marked with the letter “M” are saying. These people discuss classical philosophical currents. Who tells a philosophical parable, and the rest discuss. If the word “Muslim” is replaced by the word “person” or “employee of Coca-Cola”, nothing will change. They will continue to discuss the parable,” this is a fragment from the speech of the lawyer Maria Eismont in defence of Aivazov in the “court", - where she explains why Raim Aivazov is being held in captivity for the third year in a row.

Raim Aivazov in court. Source: Alexandra Yefimenko

The “prosecutor” requested an 18-year sentence in prison for the civil journalist Remzi Bekirov.

The prosecution requested 18.5 years in prison for public human rights activist Riza Izetov.

The “prosecutor” requested an 18.5-year prison sentence in a maximum-security prison for Crimean Tatar activist Farkhod Bazarov.

“These people are guilty only of defending their position, of being activists who met and discussed the political situation in the country, persecution of Muslims, persecution of the Crimean Tatar people - that is their fault today. They hung terrorist labels on them, and now everyone faces a prison sentence of 16 to 18 years in a strict regime colony, they impose shorter sentences for murders in Russia", - lawyer Emil Kurbedinov said.

He stressed that the “prosecutor” is requesting 90 years in prison for five people who did not have weapons, explosives, or other evidence indicating that they are terrorists.

So far, all the defendants, in this case, have been in custody for the third year.