‍The occupation court in Crimea arrested lawyer Rustem Kiamilev for 10 days and fined him 50 thousand rubles for two reposts on Facebook.

The lawyers, Rustem Kiamilev and Lilya Gemedji have been defending political prisoners in Crimea since 2015. Every day, dozens of people who have faced violations of their rights and need advice come to their office. In the summer of 2022, they were deprived of their lawyer status, but the lawyers did not give up their activities.

But now they themselves needed the help of a lawyer. On the morning of November 7, during breakfast, the occupiers, employees of the Crimean Center for Countering Extremism, broke into the family's house armed with assault rifles. Gemedji and Kamilev's four children woke up screaming.

“Rustem Kiamilev, seeing the operatives trying to take his wife's phone by force, tried to protect her. But they put him face down on the floor, tearing his T-shirt,” the website of the Crimean human rights movement Crimean Solidarity reported.

They didn’t even let Lilya and her 21-year-old daughter Niyara put on their headscarves - they do not cover their hair at home.

“The door is open, and a guy from the riot police is standing there looking at me: “Give me a chance to get dressed.” He: “No, stay here.” Niyara says, ”I went into the room, and started to take out my dress. And I need to go into another room to get a headscarf, and he says: “No, you're not going there.” Finally, I went and got dressed,” the girl recalls.

The security forces told the lawyers that they were investigating Kiamilev's suspicion of “participation in a terrorist organization”. Lilya Gemedji is sure that this was a formal reason to search the house and seize the equipment, as it is impossible to do this within the framework of administrative proceedings.

Five cell phones, a system unit, lawyers' seals, and documents related to their professional activities were taken from the house. Rustem Kiamilev was taken out of the house under escort and taken to the police station. Lawyer Edem Semedlyayev followed.

“I believe that the search had one goal - to gain access to our equipment and documents,” says Lilya Gemedji.

In the building of the Crimean Center for Countering Extremism, Center “E” operative Roman Filatov drew up two protocols against Kiamilev at once - because of his posts on Facebook. A few hours later, the human rights activist was brought to the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol.

One of the reports was drawn up because of the repost of a seven-year-old video with Russian politician Grigory Yavlinsky. In the video, Yavlinsky says that the wars in Syria and Ukraine are an ethical disaster for Russia, which will not be forgotten for decades. The politician goes on to say that training the army to kill people is an absolute downfall. “Killing peaceful Muslims and interfering in someone else's civil war is an absolute evil,” Yavlinsky concludes.

Filatov, an employee of the E Center, called these words “discrediting the Russian army” (part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). At the trial, Rustem Kiamilev tried to deny that he did not even remember posting this video, recorded in 2017. Lilya Gemedji, in turn, asked whether Yavlinsky had been prosecuted under a similar article, and at the same time reminded that the article on “discrediting the Russian army” was adopted much later than the video was published. But Judge Lyudmyla Sologub was not convinced by this fact.

She also considered the second report against Kiamilev, drawn up because of another repost. The lawyer is accused of propaganda and public demonstration of the symbols of an extremist organization (Part 1 of Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code). In 2020, Crimean political prisoner Oleh Prykhodko brought a drawing of a red and black flag with a trident to a court hearing in his case. His photo was published by the Crimean Solidarity human rights organization, and Kiamilev reposted it on his page. Filatov called the drawing a symbol of the Ukrainian organization Right Sector, banned in Russia. Edem Semedlyayev reacted as follows: “Because the competence and education of the person who drew up the document entitled 'Specialist Opinion' has not been confirmed, I ask that this document be removed from the case.”

“My husband pleaded not guilty. And during the hearing, the judge repeatedly uttered phrases indicating her interest in a guilty verdict. Because of this, we demanded that Sologub be recused, but she simply continued the hearing,” says Lilya Gemedji.

The court sent Rustem Kiamilev to 10 days' detention for reposting about the trial of political prisoner Oleg Prykhodko. And for the publication from Yavlinsky's page, he was fined 50 thousand rubles, which is equal to 20 thousand hryvnias or 5 thousand euro.

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