This information is published by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Here is an excerpt:
In response to Russia’s recent sentencing of Crimean journalist Remzi Bekirov to 19 years in prison, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement of condemnation:
“Russian authorities should immediately release Remzi Bekirov and all other Crimean journalists who became hostages of an occupying force in their homeland,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Bekirov and other Crimean Tatar journalists did nothing but cover alleged human rights abuses against their ethnic group, and must be freed at once.”
On Thursday, March 10, the Southern District Military Court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don sentenced Bekirov, a correspondent for the independent news website Grani, to 19 years in prison for allegedly organizing the activities of a terrorist organization, a charge Bekirov denied, according to his employer and media reports. The court ruled that Bekirov will serve the first five years of his sentence in a prison, and the other 14 years in a strict-security prison colony, those reports said.
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