~Russia illegally detains 25,000 Kremlin prisoners

According to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, this is the number of civilians abducted by the Russian Federation.

The ZMINA Human Rights Centre has found that at least 21 prisoners require urgent medical care and may die unless they receive it. 

During the full-scale invasion, the National Police began investigating the enforced disappearance of 8,800 people. Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova claims Russia has illegally abducted over 700,000 children from Ukraine.

The Media Initiative for Human Rights has identified about one hundred places where abducted civilians are held.

The Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Qırım) confirms 190 illegally imprisoned Ukrainian citizens, 123 of whom are Qırımtatarlar.

During the full-scale war, 2,576 Ukrainian citizens were returned to Ukraine, including 144 civilians.

Vadym Bektemirov, sentenced to eleven years in prison in the case of Crimean Muslims, was beaten by employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service in colony No. 6 in St. Petersburg.

The Crimean Solidarity public association reported this with reference to his wife, Lemara Bektemirova.

The colony staff also took away Bektemirov's medicines and a Koran.

Lemara Bektemirova did not find out about the beating of her husband immediately. Her husband could call her only after he was released from quarantine. According to the woman, Vadym Bektemirov's health is currently acceptable, and he is allowed to pray namaz. Lemara Bektemirova does not know who was behind the beating.

Vadym Bektemirov was transferred to colony No. 6 in St. Petersburg on November 16, 2023.

Human rights activist and serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Maksym Butkevych, currently in Russian captivity, has won the National Human Rights Award.

The Centre for Civil Liberties reports.

The award was presented to him by his father, Oleksandr Butkevych.

Maksym Butkevych is a human rights activist, co-founder and coordinator of the No Borders project and one of the organisers and moderators of screenings and events at the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. He worked at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ukraine.

Butkevych joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine in March 2022. Russia took him prisoner in June 2022. On March 10, 2023, the occupation "court" in the Luhansk region sentenced human rights activist and military man Maksym Butkevych to 13 years in prison for allegedly injuring two women by firing a grenade launcher into the entrance of a residential building while in Sievierodonetsk. 

The Court of Appeal in Moscow upheld the sentence but ruled that the time spent in custody since August 19, 2022, should be counted towards the sentence. Currently, Maksym Butkevych is in a colony in the temporarily occupied Luhansk region.

Earlier, the 'Alushta City Court' arrested Crimean Tatar Zinur Appazov for five days.

Nazym Sheikhmambetov, the detainee's lawyer, informed Crimean Solidarity. 

According to the lawyer, the purpose of Appazov's detention is to liquidate the religious community 'Alushta'. 

Nazym Sheikhmambetov says that the examination, which led to Appazov's accusation, was conducted by an improper expert and in "violation of all possible provisions and requirements of the law".  

To recap, on November 23, 2023, in the villages of Verkhnia Kutuzovka and Izobilne, near Alushta (Aluşta), searches were conducted on religious figures: mosque imam Yusuf Ashyrov and members of the local religious community Vilen Useinov and Zinur Appazov.

Yusuf Ashyrov and Zinur Appazov were sentenced to two days of arrest, while Vilen Useinov will serve a "punishment" for a post on the social network Vkontakte with a photo of a white flag depicting the symbol of Islam in Arabic, which he published in 2013. Employees of the 'Centre for Combating Extremism' in Crimea considered it a demonstration of the symbols of a banned organisation.

The Crimean Solidarity correspondents, political prisoners Ruslan Suleimanov and Osman Arifmemetov, do not receive parcels from their relatives in prison, who are in the detention centre in Novocherkаsk.

The Crimean Solidarity reports.

The defender of the political prisoners said that the Russian prosecutor's office had investigated the incident. The Russians showed Ruslan Suleimanov signed invoices, which allegedly confirmed the delivery of the parcels. 

However, the signatures did not belong to Suleimanov.

Currently, the relatives and defenders of the political prisoners are preparing a complaint to the Novocherkask Prosecutor's Office. 

 In November 2024, the Southern District Military Court sentenced Ruslan Suleimanov and Osman Arifmemetov to 14 years in prison for alleged "terrorist activities".

In the village of Pryvitne, Kirov district, the house of Imam Ismail Yurdamov was searched. The Russians also searched the home of activist Rustem Mustafaiev, who lives in Krynychky, Kirov district.

The Crimean Human Rights Group reports.

A report was drawn against Ismail Yurdamov for violating the laws on freedom of conscience, religion and religious associations.

According to Crimean Solidarity, the 11-year-old daughter of the imam Hatidzhe fainted twice during the search. The imam's relatives said that the men in uniform, with guns, witnesses and two civilians, did not answer any questions. Later, they became known as security forces from the ‘Centre for Combating Extremism’.

Rustem Mustafaiev was not detained. The security forces checked his house, phone and laptop. They seized Mustafaiev's book 'Gardens of the Righteous'. 

The man attributes the searches to the fact that he regularly attends the courts regarding political prisoners.