Third proceedings against the newspaper «Qirim» this year 

The administrative proceedings against the independent Crimean Tatar newspaper “Qirim” are scheduled in the Simferopol district court of Crimea. According to the official website, the legal entity is charged under the Article  13.15 of the Code of Administrative Offenses “Misuse of freedom of information”. The court hearing is scheduled for 16 October. 

According to “the Crimean process”, the edition is charged as it failed to mark the organizations proclaimed “foreign agents” in its text. The text containing the biography of the known soviet human rights defender Liudmila ALEKSEYEVA reported about her collaboration at the late 1970 with the “Radio.Liberty” and “Voice of America”, which according to the russian regulations shall be always mentioned as foreign agents. These proceeding will be the third case within last 6 months. 

Earlier this year, in June, the judge of the Kyiv district court of Simferopol Anton TSYKURENKO found the edition to be guilty of discreditation of the russian army for the author publication by Ali OZENBASHI,  Kurultay representative of the Crimean Tatar people, with the heading “Is human being entitled to protect oneself against artificially forced death?”  The publication covered the mobilization of the Crimean Tatars on the occupied territories to the russian army.  In line with the court ruling the paper was fined for RUB 300 000. On 18 of June the editor of the paper, Bekir MAMUTOV, was charged too for the same publication.The judge Yanina OKHOTA fined him for RUB 110 000. 

This year in August the paper was charged with the “misuse of the freedom of information” as it had published  the report of the UN Secretary General Antonio GUTERRES addressing the tortures and kidnapping of people.   The judge Sergey MOSKALENKO found the data to be not proved and ruled to fine [the edition] for RUB 250 000. 6 weeks earlier  the editor Bekir MAMUTOV was found guilty on the same grounds. The judge Aleksandr PIATNIKOVSKYI fined him for RUB 130 000. 

*Bekir MAMUTOV, the editor of the paper “Qirim” is on the photo credit 

This information is provided by the Crimean Process, a member organization of HRH-Crimea.