Crimean rights activist detained
Emir-Usein Kuku, member of the Contact Group on Human Rights has been taken away after police arrived at his home in Yalta on Monday morning. They removed both his and his wife’s laptops, a telephone and seven religious books not on Russia’s list of prohibited literature. He was taken away without any indication where, however Zair Smedlyaev, Crimean Tatar activist assumes that this was to the so-called centre for countering extremism..
According to Mammet Mambetov, another member of the Contact Group, Emir-Usein Kuku was read a decision stating that he is suspected of “inciting hatred or enmity, and also denigrating human dignity”.
No more information is yet available, however recent warnings over the allegedly ‘extremist’ behaviour of carrying a Ukrainian flag at a meeting in memory of Taras Shevchenko or showing solidarity to the only Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR which Russia silenced give all grounds for believing that charges of ‘extremism’ or ‘denigrating human dignity’ mean precisely what the occupation regime wants them to mean.
Halya Coynash