Ruslan Zeytullaev declares about his hunger strike in court and demands to release all Crimean Tatar political prisoners (AUDIO)

The political prisoner, Ruslan Zeytullaev announced a termless hunger strike and put forward a number of demands, in particular, to release him and other detainees related to the Ukrainian case at a court hearing of the North Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, the Russian Federation, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017.

Zeytullaev noted in his petition that since Crimea had become actually under the jurisdiction (occupation) of Russia, the Crimean Tatar people’s rights are deliberately violated on the peninsula. In addition, the political prisoner said that he refused eating until all those persecuted people in politically motivated criminal cases would be released.

«I am Zeytullaev Ruslan Borisovich, immediately being in this difficult situation together with my nation, the Crimean Tatars, for the sake of justice I refuse eating and declare about my hunger strike and demand the following:

1. Discharging the criminal cases against all Crimean Tatars on articles on extremism and terrorism related to the case «February 26»;
2. Allow the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine coming to the predetention center # 1 in Rostov-on-Don city and meeting personally with its representatives;
3. Nullify the decisions of the North Caucasian District Military Court in Russia about three Ukrainian citizens who are in the general regime penal colony only because of their religious and national grounds. So I see it and my long-suffering people as well as all human rights organizations in the Russian territory and beyond it. The same are the other countries as well as the General Consulate of Ukraine in the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, international organizations, such as the OSCE and PACE, the European Parliament and finally adopted the UN resolution on human rights situation in Crimea and the forced displacement of Crimean citizens to the Russian territory in 2016;
4. Pass me and three other defendants of this criminal case to the state of Ukraine as its citizens;
5. I ask the court to consider this petition and to accept the general procedural decisions».

The political prisoner’s request to attach his statement to the criminal case materials was rejected by the judges having considered him as «political and having no relation to him».

As the newsblog «15 minutes» reported, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, the Crimean Tatar political prisoner, Ruslan Zeytullayev being accused of creating an office of the «Hizb ut-Tahrir» organization in the occupied Crimea had declared a termless hunger strike in the hall of the North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don.

To remind some facts, on December 27, 2016, the Supreme Court of Russia discharged the verdict of the Crimean Tatar Ruslan Zeytullaev and sent his case to a new trial.

The lawyer Emil Kurbedinov is sure that his client will be toughened the verdict.

Ruslan Zeytullaev, Rustem Vaitov, Nuri Primov and Ferat Sayfullaev were accused of creating and participating in the Sevastopol office of «Hizb ut-Tahrir». The North Caucasian Military District Court sentenced Zeytullayev to seven years and the rest people to 5 years in prison.

Sayfullaev and Vaitov are sentenced in the Rostov colony, and Primov is in the colony in Yasniy village in Sovetskiy district in the Republic of Mari El.