Turkish Foreign Ministry has issued a press release regarding the sentencing of five Crimean Tatars to 13 years in prison.

“We are concerned by today’s (11 January) prison sentences of 13 years against our Crimean Tatar kinsmen Cemil Gafarov, Servet Gaziyev, Erfan Osmanov, Alim Karimov and Seyran Murtaza,” The Ministry said in a statement.

“We reiterate our support to Crimean Tatars’ right to live freely and safely in their homelands, and expect the necessary steps to be taken to ensure that all our kinsmen, who are imprisoned in Crimea for similar political reasons, including the Deputy Speaker of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis Neriman Celal, Aziz Ahmetov and Asan Ahmetov, are immediately freed and reunited with their families,” the Ministry added.

Cemil Gafarov, Servet Gaziyev, Erfan Osmanov, Alim Karimov,and Seyran Murtaza were detained by the FSB in March 2019.

On March 27, 2019, in the occupied Simferopol, Russian security forces conducted mass searches in the homes of at least 25 Crimean Tatar families.

On Wednesday, A Russian court found all the defendants guilty and sentenced each of them to 13 years in a strict regime colony. Restrictions on their freedom of movement for a year after release were also imposed on all of them, with Gaziev and Karimov having a year-and-a-half of such restrictions. (ILKHA)