All Russia's sentences against Crimean Muslims who have committed no crime are savage, but here they have brought insane 'terrorism' charges and are imposing a 17-year sentence against a man who cannot see and needs help to move around
Oleksandr Sizikov Photo Crimean Solidarity
Oleksandr Sizikov Photo Crimean Solidarity
Oleksandr Sizikov has been moved to Russia from the Crimean SIZO, or remand prison, where the blind and severely disabled Ukrainian had been held since a Russian court upheld the brutal 17-year sentence passed on lawless and cynical ‘terrorism’ charges. It is hard enough for a person in good health to endure the shocking conditions of a Russian prison, and simply inconceivable that even Russia could so torment a person unable to move about without assistance.
Olena Sizikova told Crimean Solidarity on 10 December that her son has been taken from SIZO No. 1 in Simferopol to Krasnodar in Russia. It is not clear as yet which prison he is being taken to, but for the moment he will be held prisoner in a Krasnodar SIZO.
As reported, Oleksandr Sizikov (b. 1984) was taken into custody on 14 September, the day after the military court of appeal in Vlasikha (Moscow region) upheld the horrific 17-year sentence against Sizikov, as well as 12-year sentences against two Crimean Tatar political prisoners Seiran Khairedinov (b. 1988) and Akim Sufianov (b. 1990) The latter had been imprisoned since all three men were arrested on 7 July 2020, while Sizikov had earlier been under house arrest. Sizikov’s lawyer Safiye Shabanova immediately lodged a formal application to the head of the occupation Crimean branch of Russia’s penal service, Vadym Bulgakov, for a stay on any action in moving Sizikov to Russia on the grounds that his diagnosis is on Russia’s list of illnesses that preclude imprisonment. She asked for a medical commission to be called to provide confirmation of Sizikov’s condition and for Bulgakov to apply to the ‘court’ for Sizikov to be released from serving the sentence (in accordance with Article 81 of Russia’s criminal code). In October, she received a letter, bearing Bulgakov’s signature. Bulgakov claimed that he could not apply for such a release from serving the sentence as Sizikov was imprisoned in a Crimean SIZO only temporarily and that this was not the place where he was due to serve the sentence. The defence will therefore have to wait until Sizikov is taken to this, as yet unnamed, prison before being able to apply for such a release. Considering the compelling grounds why Sizikov should not be imprisoned at all, this is clearly absurd. There is also, tragically, no guarantee that any such application will have any effect, as Russia’s treatment of imprisoned Crimean Solidarity civic journalist Amet Suleimanov, who has a life-threatening heart condition, has made clear.
Зліва направо: Алім Суф’янов, Олександр Сізіков і Сейран Хайредінов. Фото оприлюднене “Кримською солідарністю”. From left Alim Sufianov, Oleksandr Sizikov and Seiran Khairedinov Photos Crimean Solidarity
From left Alim Sufianov, Oleksandr Sizikov and Seiran Khairedinov Photos Crimean Solidarity
Oleksandr Sizikov, Sergei Khairedinov and Alim Sufianov were among seven Crimeans arrested after armed ‘searches’ on 7 July 2020. The men were all charged under Russia’s ‘terrorism’ legislation, although they were accused solely of ‘involvement’ in the peaceful transnational Hizb ut-Tahrir Muslim organization which is legal in Ukraine. Russia’s supreme court declared it a ‘terrorist organization’ in 2003 in a ruling that was kept secret until it could no longer be challenged and which has never been explained. The Russian FSB began arresting Ukrainian citizens, the vast majority of them Crimean Tatars, on these charges in 2015, and has been using them as a weapon against civic journalists and activists, especially those involved in the Crimean Solidarity human rights movement ever since. The same is true here, with all three men having spoken out in defence of victims of Russian repression. Despite his severe disabilities, Sizikov held two solitary pickets (in April 2019 and May 2020) calling for the release of political prisoners and for an end to the repression against Crimean Muslims. Well-known lawyer Emil Kurbedinov suggested in October 2020 that his arrest was the FSB’s revenge for many occasions when Sizikov had expressed his outrage at the armed searches they were carrying out and the political trials underway. “There is no other way to explain the persecution of a totally blind person who has not committed any crime”.
It is worth stressing that no proof of actual involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir is even required, as the FSB use illicitly taped conversations which they then send to FSB-loyal ‘experts’ who oblige by claiming that this or that word or sentiment indicates such involvement. Such fabricated ‘evidence’ is then supplemented by ‘secret witnesses’ who may never have met the defendants and whose testimony cannot be verified. During the armed ‘searches’ that accompany the arrests, the FSB have never pretended to be looking for anything except so-called ‘prohibited religious literature’. Over recent years, they have dropped any pretence at all, and regularly bring the ‘prohibited literature’ that they then claim to have ‘found’. That is why they invariably prevent lawyers from being present. The families of Khairedinov and Sufianov stated from the outset that the armed and masked men who burst into their homes on 7 July 2020 had planted ‘prohibited books’. It later became clear that they had done so in Sizikov’s case as well but left books that were not in Braille, and which Sizikov could therefore not have read.
Oleksandr Sizikov, who turned 40 in October, converted to Islam in 2006.In 2009, he sustained catastrophic head injuries when his bicycle was hit by a car. He was blinded and also left unable to walk without assistance. At least one hearing had needed to be postponed because Sizikov had been hospitalized in a neurological ward, with the acute headaches and other symptoms he suffered probably the result of his accident. Similar delays occurred also during the appeal hearings.
The FSB invariably designate at least one person as ‘organizer’ of a supposed ‘Hizb ut-Tahrir group’ under Article 205.5 § 1 of Russia’s criminal code), with the others accused of ‘involvement’ in such an unproven ‘group’ (under Article 205.5 § 2). Aside from occasions where the charge has been changed to the more serious one of being an ‘organizer’ in reprisal, the distinction has often seemed arbitrary. It does, however, make a huge difference in sentence with those charged under Article 205.5 § 1 being imprisoned for 17-20 years.
The widespread horror that Russia had targeted a person with Sizikov’s disabilities was compounded when learned that the FSB had decided to accuse him of being the purported ‘organizer’. They asserted that Sizikov had organized a group which “carried out covert anti-constitutional activities through exerting influence on people’s religious feelings; organized and carried out meetings of the group, so-called ‘khalakaty’; looked for new participants and circulated the ideas”.
Despite Sizikov’s condition, the Russian prosecutor Sergei Aidinov tried on several occasions to get Sizikov placed in detention before the sentences were passed, and demanded an 18-year sentence. Although the Southern District Military Court had consistently rejected Aidinov’s applications for Sizikov to be imprisoned, on 17 May 2023, ‘judges’ **Kirill Krivtsov (**presiding), together with Alexei Magomadov and Sergei Yarosh found all three men ‘guilty’ both of the charges under Article 205.5 and of the additional and no less insane charge under Article 278 of ‘planning to violently seize power’.
Sizikov was sentenced to 17 years maximum-security [literally “harsh-regime”] imprisonment, with the first four years in a prison, the worst of all Russian penal institutions. The ‘court’ also added a further 18 months restricted liberty sentence at the end of the term of imprisonment. Khairedinov and Sufianov were each sentenced to 12 years, also with the first four years in a prison. In their cases, the term of restricted liberty after the main sentence is one year.
All of these sentences against men who had committed no crime were upheld by the Vlasikha military court of appeal on 13 September 2024.