Ukrainian ombudsman raises alarm over torture of Crimean activist, urges immediate release

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, Dmytro Lubinets, says Crimean Tatar activist Rustem Osmanov has been subjected to torture since his detention in 2022 by Russian occupation authorities. The violence against the activist intensified in the last few weeks. In April 2022, the Russian security service reported that Rustem Osmanov was arrested "while attempting to enter Crimea through the Armenian checkpoint." He was accused of participating in a so-called illegal armed formation named after Noman Çelebicihan and sentenced to six years in jail. Çelebicihan was a Crimean Tatar politician and public figure, and the group, which is a voluntary organization, was established in early 2016 during the blockade at the administrative border with occupied Crimea, as per Suspilne.  According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, the man is currently in a colony in the city of Donskoy in the Tula region in Russia. At the end of December 2022, he sent a letter with details of his abduction in Henichesk and the torture he suffered from Russians. The situation has worsened last month. For the past three weeks, Osmanov has been held in a disciplinary isolation unit. Russians beat and threatened the activist with execution, revealed Lubinets. The ombudsman emphasized that such measures constitute a violation of human rights and numerous international acts, including the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The official noted that silence in such cases is a provocation for the aggressor to commit new crimes. Lubinets urged the international community to pay attention to Russian war crimes, saying that everyone responsible for crimes "must be punished."

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