Three Crimean human rights activists were stripped of their lawyer status

Lawyers' Chamber "Nizam" in Chechnya On July 15, three lawyers working in Crimea - Lilya Gemedzhi, Nazim Sheikhmambetov and Rustem Kamilyov. They told about this to publications and.

deprived “Crimean Solidarity” of “Grati” of its status . As Sheikhmambetov clarified in a conversation with OVD-Info, he received an electronic notification of deprivation of his lawyer status on the twentieth of July. At the moment, all three are preparing to appeal this decision in court and in the Federal Chamber of Lawyers.

“The decision was made on the basis of a submission from the Office of the Ministry of Justice for the Chechen Republic to. It turns out that the Ministry of Justice demanded that our professional status be terminated,” Sheikhmambetov told Crimean Solidarity. This is a rare practice, he explained: usually a lawyer can be deprived of his status due to a complaint from a client, but not from a government agency.

Bar Association of Chechnya, whose lawyers we were, Sheikhmambetov emphasized that none of the three lawyers were informed about the meeting of the qualification commission on time and, thus, were not allowed to prepare for it.

Due to the deprivation of status, lawyers are currently unable to participate in criminal cases. They acted as defenders in many trials against members of the Islamic Party, declared a terrorist organization in Russia.

Hizb ut-Tahrir Sheikhmambetov, Kyamilev and Gemedzhi associate the deprivation of their status with their human rights activities in Crimea. Over the course of several years since 2014, they have faced various pressures: administrative arrests, detentions, attempts to expel them from the bar, searches, attacks on the office. The deprivation of the status of three lawyers at once was a sharp increase in persecution. “This is unprecedented when three lawyers are simultaneously deprived of their status. In 8 years of legal work, including our colleagues in Crimea, this has never happened,” commented Sheikhmambetov.

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