Human Rights

Prisoner of Conscience: Server Mustafayev

Crimean human rights defender Server Mustafayev was arrested in May 2018 in Bakhchisaray, a town in southern Russian-occupied Crimea. He was detained after FSB officers searched his home, seizing documents and all his electronic devices.

Born in Uzbekistan before settling in Crimea, Mustafayev became a vital voice for his community's rights. In 2016, he founded Crimean Solidarity, a grassroots movement uniting activists and lawyers to support Crimean Tatars facing persecution by Russian authorities.

Russian forces charged Mustafayev with alleged links to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamic organization that operates legally in Ukraine but is banned as "terrorist" in Russia. Such accusations have become a common tool for Russian authorities in Crimea to silence critics and target the Crimean Tatar community. In 2020, a court sentenced him to 14 years in prison for "participating in the activities of a terrorist organization" and "preparing for actions aimed at the forcible seizure of power."

Mustafayev's case exemplifies the broader campaign of repression against the Crimean Tatar community, which has intensified since Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The European Commission condemned the verdict, stating: "The European Union does not recognise the enforcement of Russian legislation in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as it is illegal under international law, nor the transfer of Ukrainian citizens from Crimea to courts in Russia. The EU calls on Russia to reverse these decisions and to release all illegally detained Ukrainians without delay." Multiple Ukrainian and international human rights organizations have denounced the trial as politically motivated.

Despite his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony, Mustafayev continues to speak out. In spring 2024, Freedom House published his powerful letter condemning Russian authorities: "No number of arrests or killings can adequately convey the real number of damaged fates, broken hearts, and shed tears, over a single arrest or, even worse, a politically motivated killing, whether on the battlefield or in the clutches of the punitive Russia Federal Penitentiary Service."

In an earlier letter from 2023, Mustafayev described Russia's systematic oppression of his community: "Unfortunately, just like a boa constrictor, which quietly and ruthlessly suffocates and devours its victim, the Russian Federation – all these years in the Crimea, although without military action, but no less catastrophically – has destroyed and continues to destroy the cultural and historical heritage of the Crimean Tatars and Muslims, deporting and forcing undesirables to leave."

Prisoners of Conscience

Prisoners of Conscience from East and Southeast Europe

We feature select few prisoners of conscience out of the many in East and Southeast Europe. One political prisoner is one too many. 

Find out who the other political prisoners are #PrisonersofConscience  #FreeThemAll and in the special Focus on our website.