SIMFEROPOL, Crimea – Anna Bogacheva picks up her newborn daughter, rocking the baby as she starts to make a fuss in the quiet Simferopol restaurant. It’s a simple joy her father has yet to experience.
Vadim Siruk has been jailed in a Simferopol detention center since February on suspicion of involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islam organization deemed as “terrorist” by Russia.
Siruk has only seen three-week old Hanifa once, fleetingly on the way to a hearing on Sept. 6, when Simferopol’s district court extended his detention, along with that of five others (on Sept. 5 and 6) on similar charges, for another three months.
“When my husband was brought to the hearing, they led him from the police van to the courtroom building – it was about a meter and a half, maybe two meters walk,” Bogacheva said.
“That was how long he was able to look at her.”
Siruk was one of 14 Crimean Muslims detained on charges of links to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Crimean Muslims have been among a number of groups- including Crimean Tatars, journalists and activists – persecuted since Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014, in what has been deemed as a war on extremism and propaganda by Russia and an attack on human rights by the West.
Bogacheva was less than three months pregnant with their second child on Feb. 11, when in the early hours of the morning members of Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, raided the family’s Yalta home without any warning and took her husband into custody.
They transferred him to Simferopol that evening and after a hearing the following day Siruk was placed in the city’s detention center.
Siruk’s case was not an isolated incident, not even that day.
On Feb. 11 and 12, 11 other Crimean Muslims were detained alongside Siruk on similar charges.
Eight of those detained between the two days were released.
Enver Bekirov, Muslim Aliyev, and Emir-Husein Kuku remained in custody alongside Siruk.
The arrests started less than a year following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, with authorities escalating their pursuit of local Muslims in the past year.
The first wave of arrests came in early 2015, when four Crimean Tatars were detained in Sevastopol on charges of involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir.
The latest series of arrests was carried out in May this year.
The FSB did not respond to Kyiv Post’s request for comment by deadline.
On Sept. 7, the day after the Simferopol district court extended Siruk’s detention, North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don handed down its first sentences in the series of cases to the four men detained in 2015.
Ruslan Zeitullayev was sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly organizing a terrorist group while Ferat Saifullayev, Rustem Vaitov and Yuriy Primov were sentenced to five for involvement in a terrorist group.
Bogacheva said the case against her husband was built on a single recording of political talk.
“There is a recording, an audio recording as far as I understand, in which apparently these four people were sitting together somewhere and discussing politics, and as part of that what Hizb ut-Tahrir were doing.
“That was all, but that was apparently enough.”
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Islamic organization which considers itself peaceful and is legal in Ukraine and most Western countries but was outlawed by the Russian Supreme Court in 2003 in a covert hearing that human rights groups and the organization itself were unaware of for an entire year, after which it was too late to appeal the decision.
Furthermore, Emil Kurbedinov, a Crimean lawyer representing Siruk as well as several other detained Muslims, said there was also no evidence that any of the men were even involved in the organization.
Kurbedinov said in addition to the recording the only other evidence presented against the men is a witness, whose details are being withheld.
According to Kurbedinov these are among a series of unlawful proceedings carried out by Russian authorities in relation to these cases, among others.
“We think there are many breaches of human rights, starting with the actual arrests and the conditions of detention,” he said.
“(Simferopol’s detention center) is unsanitary, there are fleas and cockroaches and it’s filled at double its capacity.”
Siruk and three others arrested in February have been in detention for seven months and following September’s hearings, are set to remain there at least until December 8.
According to Russian law a person cannot be detained without a sentence for longer than six months- in special circumstances for more than a year.
“That is the law but unfortunately the law in these matters has not been upheld,” Kurbedinov said.
“If the law worked properly, these cases would have fallen apart. But because this serves political purposes, the matter is still ongoing. “
Kurbedinov said they will be appealing the matter in a European court and hopes that international influences will have an effect on the final outcome of these cases.
The arrests have been widely touted as Russia’s continuing persecution of Crimean Tatars- many of whom have condemned its annexation of the peninsula- with all but one of the 14 men at least part Tatar.
Siruk is the one exception.
The 27-year-old has no Tatar parents and converted to Islam in adulthood, as did his wife.
Human rights activists and even Siruk’s lawyer have been speculating the reason for the discrepancy for some time now.
Kurbedinov theorised his arrest may have been a warning of sorts, aimed at deterring others from converting to Islam.
Meanwhile Halya Coynash, a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, previously suggested Siruk’s arrest may have been a deliberate attempt at taking the focus away from Russia’s persecution of Tatars.
Tamila Tasheva, co-founder and coordinator of CrimeaSOS, says it’s possible that Siruk’s arrest could be Russia’s way of showing that they weren’t just targeting Tatars and instead battling extremism.
But, she added, the situation also needed to be examined within the wider context of religious repression that began after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Tasheva said before the occupation more than 2000 different religious organisations- a 1000 of them Muslim- were active in Crimea.
“Since 2014, there were a few periods of re-registration and the last period ended in January 2016,” she said.
“As of January 2016, a little more than 200 groups have been granted reregistration.”
May marked the last series of Muslim arrests in Crimea but Tasheva said Russian authorities have continued to raid homes of Crimean Muslims.
She believes the Russian authorities have refrained from going to the extremity of making further arrests due to the international focus on prominent Crimean Tatar activist Ilmi Umerov, who was arrested on terrorist charges and admitted to a psychiatric hospital against his will in August.
He was released from the hospital on Sept. 7 after mounting pressure from international bodies as well as a Twitter campaign.
With Russian elections held in Crimea for the first time on Sept. 18, Tasheva also surmised that the authorities were currently preoccupied and trying to steer clear of bad press.
“They just (didn’t) want to draw attention to these actions in the lead up to the elections,” she said.
“In time, I’m more than certain that they’ll resume matters more actively.”
Anna Bogacheva, wife of detained Crimean Muslim Vadim Siruk, holds their baby in a Simferopol restaurant. (photo by Natalie Vikhrov)
