You're reading: RFE/RL: Bashkortostan court sentences 21 men to prison on terror charges

RFE/RL: Bashkortostan court sentences 21 men to prison on terror charges

Published July 31, 2018 at 11:32 am

Supporters of the Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Freedom) gathered in Simferopol. The first devotees of Hizb ut-Tahrir appeared in the Crimea in the early 1990s. Twelve per cent, or 250,000 of the nearly two million inhabitants of Crimea are Sunni Muslim Crimean Tatars.

Photo by UNIAN

A court in Russia’s mainly Muslim-populated Bashkortostan region has sentenced 21 alleged members of a banned Islamic group to prison.

Relatives of the defendants told RFE/RL that the 21 men were handed prison terms on July 30 ranging from five to 24 years after they were found guilty of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.