Halya Coynash
Grave Fears for Crimean Tatar leader in Psychiatric Clinic for Saying Russia must Leave Crimea
Family members
have reported a sharp deterioration in the health
of Ilmi Umerov,
the Deputy Head of the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis [representative assembly] who has
been forcibly confined to a psychiatric
clinic in Simferopol. The 59-year-old
has several potentially life-threatening illnesses, and there is real
cause for concern. There are no grounds
at all for
the criminal charges Russia has brought against
him, nor for the supposed
‘psychiatric assessment’.
Ilmi Umerov
had been under observation in a cardiac unit
since the court hearing at
which the forced psychiatric tests were ordered.
On August 18, he was taken
against his will to Psychiatric
Hospital No. 1 in
Simferopol, where he is to
be forcibly held for 28 days.
His medication was taken away
from him, and on that
first day it appeared that
all visits were to be
prohibited, even those from his
lawyer. He has now been
allowed visits, but everything is being restricted,
and he is
not allowed to have a telephone
with him.
On Sunday
his daughter reported a sharp deterioration in Umerov’s health. Thankfully, she was present when
her father’s blood pressure dropped and he
first went very pale, then
lost consciousness. She immediately called for medical
staff, however she is understandably
terrified that the next time
this could happen when there
is nobody around.
Ayshe Umerova
believes that her father’s state
on Sunday morning was likely
caused by sharp fluctuations in his blood
sugar level. Umerov suffers from sugar diabetes,
and the regime
where he gets meals only
twice a day with a huge interval
is dangerous. He is clearly
only able to eat the
meals his family brings him.
Umerov had
been hospitalized because of the
risk of a heart attack on
August 11, and was forcibly discharged
and placed in the psychiatric
clinic just 7 days later, with
the FSB showing
criminal disregard for his poor
state of health.
Umerov has
other chronic conditions, and Refat Chubarov, Head of the
Mejlis, stresses that this incarceration in a psychiatric clinic is placing
his life in real jeopardy.
Umerov’s lawyer Mark Feygin adds
that, given his deteriorating health, this should
be qualified as torture and
ill-treatment as per the European
Convention on Human Rights. He says that he will
be contacting the Committee for
the Prevention of Torture.
Umerov has
been forced into a psychiatric clinic, supposedly for a psychiatric assessment, and is facing a possible
5-year term of imprisonment for expressing the position taken by all democratic
countries, namely that Russia must
stop occupying Crimea and leave
Donbas. He believes that the
prosecution may be seeking to
get him declared
mentally unfit as part of
their efforts to discredit both
him and the
Crimean Tatar Mejlis (more details here).
He was
initially detained on May 12, officially
in connection with an interview
given to the Crimean Tatar
ATR TV on
March 19, 2016 in Kyiv. He is charged under
Article 280.1, a new article introduced within months of
Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. As
feared, the new norm has
been widely used against critics
of annexation.
Russia is,
with supreme cynicism, claiming that Umerov’s interview
contained “public calls to action
aimed at violating Russia’s territorial integrity’.
The indictment
is quite grotesque in its
absurdity. It is asserted, for
example, that Umerov “deliberately and publicly called
on an unlimited
number of people to carry
out actions aimed at returning
the Republic of Crimea under
Ukraine’s jurisdiction”.
The interview
was then posted on YouTube.
It is in
Crimean Tatar, however the supposedly
‘incriminating’ utterances are as follows:
“Russia
must be forced
to leave Crimea, Donbas and Luhansk, if
the borders of Ukraine are
restored to their former position….”
“I repeat, Russia must be forced
to leave Crimea and Donbas”.
“… Ukraine
must not change its point
of view, and it should
soon pass several laws, about
indigenous peoples, about the status
of the Crimean
Tatar people, and then make
amendments to the Constitution changing a territorial autonomy to a national
Autonomy”. “In order to help
the Crimean Tatar Mejlis all
should be extended and intensified,
I would strengthen these sanctions and force Russia
to leave Crimea”.
On August
3, the Memorial Human Rights Centre condemned the charges
against Umerov as politically motivated and called
for their immediate withdrawal. The NGO pointed
out that Umerov had expressed
an opinion shared by most
of the international
community and many Russians.
Memorial called
the prosecution of Umerov politically
motivated and aimed both at
preventing him from legal public
activities and at intimidating Crimean Tatars and others who
express a view in opposition to
the official position regarding the status of
Crimea, events in Ukraine and
Russia’s policy with respect to
Ukraine.
Russia has
now resorted, with the same
political motives, to punitive psychiatry.
It is placing
Ilmi Umerov’s life in danger
for saying that his homeland
is part of
Ukraine, and that Russia should
end its occupation.
22 08 2016
http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1471793333
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