In annexed Crimea, security forces have for the first time since the occupation detained and jailed women in a case over alleged involvement in the banned Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir. On October 15, searches were carried out in Bakhchysarai and nearby villages at the homes of Esma Nimetulayeva, 18-year-old student Nasiba Saidova, university student Elviza Aliyeva, and Fevziye Osmanova.
According to the FSB, Nimetulayeva, who is raising five daughters, created a cell of the organization, while the others took part in it. Her children and her 73-year-old mother Aliye Bekirova were in the house during the search. When about fifteen FSB officers and special forces entered, Bekirova, according to witnesses, asked:
“Couldn’t you have sent even more people? Isn’t this too few for one woman?”
Searches took place at the same time in three other settlements. Osmanova’s relatives said they refused to sign the search record after officers, in their account, planted two books. At Saidova’s home, notebooks and Arabic-language notes were seized. All four women were then taken to the FSB office in Simferopol.
The next day, dozens of Crimean Tatars gathered outside the muftiate and the Crimean government building, demanding a response to the persecution of women. Mufti Emirali Ablaev did not appear, citing vacation. Crimean deputy prime minister Albert Kurshutov said the authorities could not comment on FSB actions.
Later, the Kyiv District Court in Simferopol, in closed hearings, ordered all four women held in custody for one and a half months. Lawyers Emil Kurbedinov and Edem Semedlyayev said the women were enduring the situation with difficulty but remained composed. Nimetulayeva feared being sent to the second remand prison, where, according to rights defenders, Ukrainian prisoners of war and abducted civilians had been held.
Crimea now has 126 detainees in cases involving various Hizb ut-Tahrir cells, including these four women. The Memorial Human Rights Center had previously recognized detained Crimean Muslims in such cases as political prisoners. An expert quoted by Novaya Gazeta Europe said this appears to be the first known group prosecution of women in Russia on charges of involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir.