Translated material
"Nothing is prohibited"
Damir Minadirov
At about 7 a.m., people in masks began loudly banging on the door in full combat mode, demanding that the door be opened immediately.
When asked to provide documents, introduce themselves and present the court order, they showed through the window the identification of an FSB investigator, and they said the order would be shown when they entered.
The resolution spoke about possible involvement in a terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
At the beginning of the search, the rights were not read out. The witnesses arrived along with the employees. They were not allowed to be with the investigator directly during the search on the second floor; they were told to sit in their place on the first floor. The search in the car began when the search in the house was not yet completed; during the search in the car, only one witness was present. After the search, I asked to add comments to the protocol, where I wanted to include all the violations, to which I was given a categorical refusal and was asked to write a statement separately. My signatures are not on the seized items.
During the search, a telephone, a notebook with passwords and phone numbers, a weekly journal, and possibly several books on Islamic topics, some published during the USSR, were confiscated. Nothing prohibited: weapons, drugs, literature.
Afterwards they asked to go to the FSB Department of Yalta along Kirova Street.
Questions were asked mainly on religious topics: attitude towards ISIS (an organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation), Hizb-ut-Tahrir (banned on the territory of the Russian Federation), they also asked about those detained on the same day Kuku E., Siruk V., Aliyeva M., and Bekirov E. (where they met, what they talked about , etc. ) (all four were arrested as suspects in the case - OVD-Info ).
When I exercised the right given by Art. 51. Constitution of the Russian Federation, and tried to leave the territory of the administration, they returned me back to the premises, put handcuffs and a bag over my head, limited access to oxygen, threatened to make me “lost,” complicate my living conditions and put pressure on the family business.
Having not received the necessary information, they released me as if nothing had happened, when it was already dark.
From what the employees said: “If it were our will, we would kill you openly, like in Uzbekistan.” After this case, the investigator will receive a promotion.” And they also said: “We are fighting for your safety, so that no one comes to your home, so that planes do not fly overhead.” I replied: “But for some reason today it was you who came to my house with a weapon.”
Perhaps this event should not be viewed narrowly through the prism of specific searches on February 11, but looked at more broadly and through the prism of those events that took place last year, in the summer and in April, with practically the same people. It’s just that what happened is the tip of the iceberg; in fact, there was pressure, searches, attempted kidnappings, threats before that.
Bakhtiyar Topuz
At about 6 am they started breaking the window in the room where the children were sleeping. I woke up, ran into the room, shielding the children from the glass - the fragments were flying onto the bed in which they all lay together that day.
After the glass broke, the first thing I saw was the barrel of an automatic weapon, which was pointed towards the children.
They also broke into my parents’ house - the door was covered with blankets and covered with a wardrobe, since we did not use this door. My sister lived across the wall with her husband, two-year-old and six-month-old children. They also had guns pointed at them. After this, they began to poke at the court ruling, in which only one name was registered - Aliyev (apparently, they mean Muslim Aliyev, one of the accused in the case - OVD-Info ). I may have been considered involved in the matter. There was neither the judge's name nor signature in the resolution, only a seal. I didn't sign anything. They brought their own witnesses, without allowing us to choose witnesses from among our neighbors, and they recorded the testimony of these witnesses without providing passport data. It was obvious that they had picked them up from the street; one of them was clearly under the influence of drugs, as he was constantly staggering from side to side.
We drew up a protocol of the seized items: one hard drive, a 500 GB flash drive, a laptop, a smartphone, which have still not been returned.
Then they were taken for interrogation to the department in Yalta on the street. Sadovaya. They began to interrogate. They started by showing photographs of everyone who was detained, asking if I knew them, I answered: “You know better about this.”
Then they asked if I was a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir party , I replied: “I am an imam and build my attitude towards people on the basis of Islam, and who I am or my friends is is not my job to talk about this, but yours.” . Then about ISIS they asked how I felt about them.
Most of the questions concerned Hizb ut-Tahrir : who they are, where they gather, how I feel about them, do I read their books, magazines, newspapers , etc. I answered that I read everything: “You read. That means I can’t, but can you?”
After the scribbler, who wrote down my answers, came the talker, who extracted words from me. I refused to speak and remained silent, but he continued to talk, persuade me, put pressure on my position: let’s, they say, work together. I continued to be silent, then he left, and after him comes a so-called serious guy named Sasha. He spoke more specifically: they say, come on , either you are with us, or you are against us, and follow them to prison, choose. I answered him that in such matters there was no choice for me, after which he left and came back with a repeated offer two more times. My answer was the same. All this happened at intervals of 2-3 hours, and around 8 o’clock in the evening I was released.
As it turned out, people in those days were searched and detained not only in connection with the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir , recognized as a terrorist organization on the territory of the Russian Federation, but also in the case of sabotage on the railway - unknown persons unscrewed several bolts from the railway tracks.
Aider Moscow
At six in the morning they burst in with machine guns, wearing masks, twisted and tied up. Both me and my son were tied up. The wife began to read the decision, Judge Degtyareva ( apparently , we are talking about the judge of the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Simferopol, Victoria Degtyareva - OVD-Info ). Then they started to conduct a search - there were investigators, there was riot police, everything was there. They checked the whole house, but found nothing, because I have nothing. I am a simple, ordinary working person, I have nothing and should not have had anything. What if I am a Muslim, a Crimean Tatar, does that mean I can be tied up like this? Come, please talk like a human being , it’s normal, I’ll explain everything to you that I know. What I don't know - I can't say anything.
There was nothing more rude. They took away a large tool that I had - I work at a service station (service station - OVD-Info ), I worked on a collective farm. The Koran was taken away. They haven’t returned anything yet, I don’t know whether they will return it or not.
Then we went to Simferopol. They said: “We will take you there, and back you yourself.” I went voluntarily, so as not to run into unnecessary rudeness, I went calmly. It is useless to deny, otherwise they will start using force, it will be worse, there will be unnecessary questions. For what? Better in a good way . I didn’t feel guilty about it and still don’t feel it to this day. What should I be afraid of? I have nothing to fear.
We were kept in the department until seven o'clock. Basically, they asked about the SIM card and whether I knew if I was involved in the fact that some routes were being dismantled somewhere . When the government changed, we SIM cards bought from Krasnodar, there were some white SIM cards here , I don’t know whose they were. (In February 2016, illegal trade in SIM cards was reported in Crimea. - OVD-Info ) Those who could take as much as they could until everything returned to normal. I didn’t work on the railroad, so I didn’t know, they were dismantling the tracks there, but they didn’t dismantle them until they came to me. Actually, I had no idea.
I have no idea why, on what basis they came, burst in, or who gave them such a plan. I absolutely don’t know why or to whom I could have crossed the path. It will be a month soon, all this is spinning in my head, I can’t understand. I had absolutely nothing to do with the railroad.
On the second day, my neighbor was detained across the street. In the same case, they said. But he worked on the railroad. He was released at three o'clock. And my son and I were released at seven o’clock in the evening.
No one else came to me or called me. I buried my mother seven days ago, I was worried about it all, I suffered a heart attack (the conversation took place on March 7 - OVD-Info ). Now I want to come to my senses at least a little, then go and find out whether they will return the instrument to me or not. The Koran should have been returned. Great-grandmother wrote with her own hand. I hope maybe they will return it.
Anna Siruk , wife of Vadim Siruk, arrested in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case
Somewhere around ten minutes to seven in the morning there was a knock on our door, they knocked actively, so to speak. They didn't introduce themselves. They stood for about five minutes, then they said: “This is the police, they will break down the door.” The husband opened the door and maybe seven, maybe ten people came in. They walked back and forth , I don’t know exactly how many there were. Maybe someone was still out there on the street. They were dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, but one or two were in some kind of special suits, balaclavas, and with machine guns. One of those who came introduced himself and showed his ID. I didn’t see it, he showed it to my husband, I don’t remember why he was there as an investigator. They showed my husband the court order for the search and brought two witnesses with them. The husband began to be indignant that they had brought witnesses with them, and asked to go find a neighbor: the owner of the house in which we lived lives on the first floor, and we are on the second. At first they refused, but then they finally agreed to go down. They went downstairs and said that he was not at home. The husband said that he was at home anyway . They went a second time, after all they brought him. In general, the witnesses they brought remained, and the owner of the house was registered as a witness.
The search began. I can't say that they checked everything they could in the room very carefully. But they checked as much as they could. They even put on shoe covers. They took my tablet, my husband’s phones, they found two flash drives and took them away. They drew up a protocol about this - as far as I could assess what actually happened, that’s what they wrote. It seems that there were no foreign things written there that should not have been found there. The search was not videotaped or photographed. One of the witnesses took a photograph of my husband’s passport, and that was all. And, as they put it, the husband was taken away to give an explanation. Then, about an hour later, my husband called me from the investigator’s phone and said that he was being transported to Simferopol from Yalta. He said the address, this is an FSB branch.
For several hours, as I understand it, he was there, and then, towards evening, he called and told me that he was being sent to a temporary detention center in Simferopol. But I don’t know to what extent he got there or not, because, as we realized later, this temporary detention center was overcrowded, and they were sent to Saki - the husband and Emir-Usein ( Emir-Usein Kuku is a human rights activist, representative of the Contact Group on Rights people in Yalta and the surrounding area - OVD-Info ). We had no more telephone contact with him, only the lawyer communicates with him. We quickly contacted lawyer Emir Kurbedinov, he spoke with the investigator the same day. By evening we already knew the article under which they were accused.
They didn't give me a date. As I understand it, we have the right to a meeting, but we couldn’t go before the court of appeal because the court’s decision had not yet entered into force, as I understand it. We have the opportunity to send some parcels and clothes to the courts.
Of course, we had concerns that something like this could happen. Many Muslims were also detained under similar circumstances. In general, this is such a common practice in Russia. It’s not that we were really expecting this, but we assumed this option. Moreover, after the arrests in Sevastopol... (In January and April 2015, four people were detained in Sevastopol, who also became accused in the case of the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir . - OVD-Info )
Literature had never been confiscated from us before. But about a month before the search, a woman came to us, introduced herself as being from the police, I don’t remember, it seemed like she had a tip about this house, that some girl from the orphanage had stolen something there , and she wrote down who lives in this house. But we do not live according to registration. I suspect that this is connected, because we did not give any other information about the fact that we live there.