Asan Akhtem is a journalist, a member of the Nefes NGO, and a political prisoner.
Born on December 5, 1989, in Crimea, Akhtem completed his studies at Simferopol School No. 4 in 2007. In 2012, he graduated from the Publishing and Printing Department at the Crimean Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Printing.
From 2015 to 2020, Akhtem worked as a journalist and editorial assistant at Avdet, a Crimean Tatar newspaper.
In 2021, he was detained in Crimea and falsely charged with “sabotage of the gas pipeline in the village of Perevalne.”
In September 2022, Akhtem was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on these fabricated charges.
§§§
With this narrative portrait, we launch a special project dedicated to the free voices of Crimea. This series of stories about journalists, now political prisoners, is a joint initiative of PEN Ukraine, The Ukrainians Media, ZMINA, and Vivat, supported by NED.
§§§
“Do something.”
“When I walked into the room, I knew something horrible had happened.” Repika’s voice trails off, her eyes welling up with tears.
It was the first time she had seen her husband since his detention.
“His eyes were filled with unbearable pain and fear,” she says. “I still see that moment clearly. It was evident they had tried to break him down both physically and emotionally. But since we couldn’t speak privately, I didn’t learn much.”
As she was leaving, Akhtem whispered:
“Do something.”
Repika fought to keep her emotions in check, thinking she “shouldn’t show her emotions; he’s already having a hard time.” But as soon as she left the room, she clutched her heart where a wound that had been bleeding for decades was now gaping wide open.
The resolute spirit
Izzet Kara was among the first to resettle in Crimea after the 1944 tragedy. At that time, Stalin had ordered the deportation of all Crimean Tatars without exception from the peninsula. According to an independent census conducted by the Crimean Tatar National Movement, over 420 thousand people were affected.
In May 1967, Kara arrived in Crimea with his young children and pregnant wife, Gülümser. By then, Crimean Tatars had been actively demanding the restoration of their rights, but a decree exonerating them from charges of mass treason during World War II had not yet been issued.
The village council promised Kara a house, residence registration, and a job—until they discovered he was a Crimean Tatar. Then they instructed him to leave and return once the law changed.
When Kara and his family were sent on their way for the first time, they settled in Krasnodar Krai. However, as soon as the decree was issued in September 1967, they returned to Crimea, spending their first night on a bench in the rain.
When they tried to deport him and his family for the second time, Kara pitched a tent and fought with the police every day.
On the third try, Kara blurted out:
“You won’t be able to destroy these mountains! You won’t force us to forget our homeland. Sooner or later, I will return home no matter what!”
On the fourth attempt, they gave him just a day and a half to leave Crimea. Five people who had helped him were reprimanded.
Despite this, Kara did not give up. After living in the Mykolaiiv region for two decades, he finally returned to his home village in 1998.
This was the resolute spirit of Kara, Akhtem’s grandfather.
A step back
Eventually, Crimean Tatars were officially rehabilitated, but the ban on resettling in Crimea was not lifted until 1989.
After the collapse of the USSR, 270 thousand deportees, along with their children and grandchildren, returned to Crimea. However, they faced significant obstacles from local authorities, who were often prejudiced.
In an essay for Ї magazine, Yuliia Tyshchenko, chair of the board of the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, describes how, after Crimean Tatars protested in front of the Ukrainian Parliament in March 1992, the government began to support their resettlement. The state budget even included funds “for resettling previously deported nations.” However, local authorities often sabotaged the central government’s decrees and rulings. For example, in 1992, the police destroyed Crimean Tatar homes in the village of Krasnyi Rai, and many local protestors were beaten, some severely. In 1994, Crimean Tatars were blocked from participating in the election process.
In 1996, conflicts erupted in Sudak, and later, pro-Russian media and other sources frequently stirred up hostility.
It was not until 1999 that the Mejlis was officially legalized, and the Council of Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People under the President of Ukraine was established.
Although incidents of intolerance toward Crimean Tatars continued, the resettled community enjoyed relative peace for about two decades. After the economic crisis, they completed building their homes, settled comfortably in their homeland, and freely expressed their cultural and national identity—until Russia annexed the peninsula once more.
“It was a horrible day,” Repika recalls, reflecting on the events leading up to the annexation on February 26, 2014. “I knew everyone was at the parliament: my loved ones, my brothers, and my friends.”
At 11 a.m. that day, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People called on Crimea’s residents to protest against separatism outside the Crimean Parliament. The demonstration drew more than ten thousand pro-Ukrainian residents and around two thousand representatives of pro-Russian forces, with the police forming a cordon around them.
“I sat in front of the TV watching the broadcast from ATR [Crimean Tatar TV channel],” Repika recalls. “Asan was trying to calm me, saying he wasn’t at the parliament. But I knew it was impossible. That’s just how we are: If we’re all together, we’re all together.”
On that day, the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was scheduled to hold an ad hoc meeting to address two items: “On the Social and Political Situation in Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” and “On the Report of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” essentially discussing Crimea’s secession from Ukraine.
Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis, urged Volodymyr Konstantynov, speaker of the Crimean Parliament, to reschedule the session to avoid bloodshed.
That night, February 27, armed men without insignia took control of the Crimean parliament and government buildings, hoisting the flags of the Russian Federation. On March 16, a rigged referendum on Crimea’s status was held, leading to Crimea’s accession by Russia.
“This was so wild,” Repika says. “We thought it would only last a few days and that they would leave soon.”
In the Ak-Mechet neighborhood in Simferopol, inhabited mainly by Crimean Tatars, men took turns standing guard every night to watch for unfamiliar cars. Among them were Asan Akhtem and his cousin Aziz.
“They guarded our peaceful sleep,” Repika says. “It became clear that they were here to stay, and things wouldn’t change much in the near future.”
Nefes
Breathing freely in Crimea was hard. Despite this, Crimean Tatars continued to fight for their right to their own identity.
In 2015, Akhtem decided to try his hand at working for Avdet, a Crimean Tatar newspaper.
He had long been interested in journalism. His grandfather worked for Qırım, so the world of typewriters and newspapers was familiar to him from a young age.
“No wonder he pursued printing at the academy,” Akhtem’s wife says.
At first, Akhtem delivered newspapers, but soon he began writing essays and news articles, managing the website, and designing covers. Eventually, he worked on a book about Enver Muratov, a notable Crimean Tatar journalist and writer.
In 2019, Nefes was founded in Crimea—an initiative whose name translates from Crimean Tatar as “breathing.” Its members engage in seemingly simple activities, such as running an online spelling competition in Crimean Tatar, organizing chess tournaments, and celebrating the Crimean Tatar Flag Day. However, Russia considers even these activities “extremism.”
Elmaz Akim, a coordinator for Nefes, met Akhtem while filming a video about the Executed Renaissance of 1938. On April 17, 1938, Soviet authorities executed thirty-six members of the Crimean Tatar intellectual elite—researchers, writers, artists, and professors—in the same building that now houses the pre-trial detention center.
“Asan is a very modest person, despite all that he’s done,” Akim says. Along with Akhtem and fellow journalist Nariman Dzhelyal, Akim is a core member of Nefes.
However, in late 2020, Avdet was shut down as a printed publication, and Akhtem became a food delivery driver to support his family.
Even during this challenging period, he remained publicly active. Every year, he climbed Chatyr-Dag to mark the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Deportation of the Crimean Tatar People. He also participated in cultural events and attended court sessions for political prisoner cases.
Repika never imagined they would come and take him away, too.
“Where’s Dad?”
Late at night on September 4, 2021, the Federal Security Service (FSB) officers burst into the Akhtem family’s apartment. It was not even midnight, and Akhtem and his wife had just gone to bed. The silence was shattered by screams and footsteps as armed men in balaclavas entered the room—more than ten of them.
“Asan Akhtemov. Is that you?” one of the armed men asked.
“That’s me,” Akhtem replied, half awake and sitting up in bed.
“Get up and get dressed.”
Repika, stunned, repeatedly asked the men, “Who are you? Where are you taking him?”
But they brushed her off, saying, “The investigator will come and tell you all about it.” As soon as Akhtem got dressed, they whisked him away.
The whole scene lasted just two minutes. Repika did not even have time to grasp what was happening. After they left with Akhtem, she remained at home with the FSB officers. Although there were fewer of them now, two more men in civilian clothes arrived shortly. They turned out to be investigators. They handed Repika some papers and a court ruling, asking her to sign a consent to the “inspection.” Her hands trembled. “I’m not going to sign anything,” she said.
They sat down on the couch. “Then we can’t get on with it,” they said. The clock kept ticking, and the tension felt endless.
In the end, Repika did sign the document, eager for them to leave. Her children, seven-year-old Refat and three-year-old Safiye, were sleeping in the next room.
The investigators ordered her to follow them around to confirm they did not plant anything.
“But even if they had, I wouldn’t have noticed it because my stress level was through the roof,” she admits.
They turned the entire apartment upside down, confiscating the laptop and cell phones.
It was not until 11 a.m. that Repika was finally able to leave the house. She used a neighbor’s phone to call her father-in-law and inform him that his son had been abducted. She also learned that Akhtem’s cousin, Aziz, as well as entrepreneurs Eldar Odamanov and Shevket Useinov, and Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, had also been detained in connection with the same case.
Her children asked: “Where’s Dad?”
“Babashka [“daddy” in Crimean Tatar] is running some errands. He’ll be back soon,” she told them.
“I forget how to breathe.”
Desperate to find her husband, Repika knocked on the door of every police precinct in Simferopol.
“We don’t have any information,” everyone told her, shrugging their shoulders.
“We were walking off our feet looking for him,” Repika says, recalling how helpless she felt. “Only late at night did an investigator finally come out to meet the lawyers.”
“Yes, they’re here,” he said curtly.
On September 6, Repika was not allowed to attend the court session. The investigator permitted her to see her husband only two days later, on September 8. As soon as she saw him, she knew the situation was dire.
Despite the investigators’ objections, Akhtem’s lawyer, Aider Azamatov, managed to visit him at the pre-trial detention center on September 13, ten days after his detention. Azamatov documented Akhtem’s detailed account of the events.
They covered Akhtem’s eyes with a mask, handcuffed his hands, and shoved him into a car, taking him in an unknown direction. Once they arrived, they led him into a room, made him sit on a chair, and strapped his legs to the legs of the chair and his arms to its back with tape.
They threatened to plant weapons and drugs on him and harm his family.
Next, they attached bare wires to Akhtem’s ears. He felt a powerful electric shock that lasted about ten seconds. This happened six or seven times.
“They gave me small electric shocks while talking to me. My body jerked every time they did it,” Akhtem later told his lawyer.
They accused Akhtem of being responsible for blowing up the gas pipeline in Perevalne and claimed his cousin, Aziz Akhtem, had already confessed to it. They also threatened to ensure he would not leave alive.
After enduring brutal torture, Akhtem agreed to say whatever they wanted. Despite this, they kept threatening him and beat him on the neck and the back of his head.
They then dragged him to the basement, where they made him sit on a chair again, attaching the bare wires to his ears. They told him to say “the right things” on camera and warned him that it was his last chance.
Akhtem squeezed out a “confession” on camera. Then they covered his eyes with a mask again and took him outside. He feared they would execute him, as they had threatened to take him to the forest and kill him for an “attempt to escape.”
One of the officers dragged Akhtem out of the car and yelled, “Go! Run! And don’t forget I’m a good shot.”
“I’m not going to run. Kill me here,” Akhtem muttered.
Instead, they took him to the FSB building, where he was forced to sign a stack of papers. Here is his account of the events:
“I felt very sick. My whole body ached, and I struggled to breathe. In the FSB building, they turned on the camera, and I said whatever they wanted me to. Even now, I have these attacks when I fall asleep. It feels like I forget how to breathe.”
Trial
It took them just a day and a half to extract the “right testimony” through torture.
Oleg Glushko, a court-appointed lawyer, was present when they broke Akhtem’s fingers only to dismiss it as a “standard procedure.” An independent lawyer, Aider Azamatov, was not allowed to see Akhtem; he was only permitted into the pre-trial detention center on September 13. Fortunately, on that day, Akhtem managed to sign an agreement appointing Azamatov as his lawyer.
Azamatov requested a medical exam to document the physical evidence of torture, but his request was denied. Instead, Akhtem was kept in a medical quarantine cell for fifty-eight days, effectively erasing any physical evidence.
Physical evidence was indeed present—a burned mouth and chest pain. Inmates woke him every night because he struggled to breathe.
Even after the quarantine, they still did not allow him to undergo a medical exam.
Repika explains that all of Akhtem’s fellow inmates provided written testimonies. It would have been easy for the judges to question them via video conferencing. Instead, the judges dismissed their written testimonies as unreliable, claiming anyone could have scribbled them. They also refused to hear any witness testimonies.
The pre-trial detention center where Akhtem was initially held accepted the medicine Repika brought, but another center refused to accept it. “His medical records are clean,” they claimed. “He doesn’t seem to need any medicine. He doesn’t complain.” With the harsh conditions in place, it was nearly impossible to complain.
“In January, after the criminal case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office, the investigator allowed a visit at the pre-trial detention center. Through glass partition and over the phone. It was difficult, but I was happy to see him. To know he was alive,” Repika says.
In February 2022, the trial began. The lawyers informed the wives of the political prisoners that, according to Article 49 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, they could be admitted to court sessions as defenders alongside lawyers based on a court order or ruling if the accused submitted an appropriate request.
Repika began attending the court sessions, which were held three times a week. It became her 10-to-5 “job.” Preparing for the sessions, she often fell asleep at the computer. Sometimes, she could barely move. Juggling care for her children and the demands of the trial exhausted her. She would come home late, only to wake up early the next morning and start all over again.
“Two days after the detention, the door of our house barely closed,” she says. “It’s true that grief and misfortune bring people closer: People came to us from all over Crimea. Their support helped us endure.”
Akhtem’s case contains twenty volumes of documents. Yet, there is not a single piece of evidence against the three accused.
“It was hard for us wives to control ourselves in court and not shout at the false witnesses, ‘You’re lying!’” Repika says.
“I couldn’t understand how the judges could even listen to such nonsense. They were desperate to find ‘actual perpetrators,’ and they fixated on the fact that they [the Akhtem brothers] had traveled to Kherson. Yes, they did go there to renew their documents. So, it just clicked for them.”
On July 31, 2023, despite numerous obstacles, the wives of the political prisoners managed to enter the Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 2. Since then, they have not seen their husbands.
“I knew that was it,” says Repika, her voice trailing off.
Separation at a distance of two thousand kilometers
On September 21, the verdict was delivered. Akhtem was sentenced to fifteen years in prison under Part 2 of Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code for “committing sabotage by an organized group” and Part 4 of Article 221 for “purchasing and storing explosives by a group of persons” and “smuggling an explosive device.”
Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy head of the Mejlis, was sentenced to seventeen years in prison, while Aziz Akhtem, Asan Akhtem’s cousin, received a thirteen-year sentence.
“My legs went limp,” recalls Repika, describing that dreadful moment. “For a second, I felt like bursting into tears. But I knew they would only rejoice at seeing that. We kept our composure and left, but it took me days to recover from what I heard.”
According to the verdict, Akhtem is set to be released from prison and, later, a high-security penal colony in 2035. By then, his son will be twenty-one, and his daughter will turn seventeen.
The wives of the political prisoners filed complaints in both Crimea and Russia, only to be told that “they no longer need defense.” There is no law stating that defenders stop being defenders once a verdict becomes effective. The wives and the lawyers submitted an appeal. However, after the verdict of the Third Court of Appeal in Sochi, Russia, the punishment was increased further.
The political prisoners were transferred from prison in Crimea on October 2 and arrived at their destination on November 15.
For the first time in six months, lawyer Refat Yunus was allowed to visit Akhtem at the Vladimir Central Prison, a maximum-security facility outside Moscow.
In prison, Akhtem works assembling electric plugs.
Unlike other political prisoners, he seldom writes letters, and when he does, they are usually brief. Repika learned how to read between the lines.
Repika has not yet been permitted to call her husband. She is planning a 2,000-kilometer journey to visit him. Visits are limited to two brief forty-minute sessions through a phone and glass partition, plus one extended three-day visit per year.
She can also send one package up to twenty kilograms and one parcel up to five kilograms per year.
Repika has already sent her husband a package with smoked lamb and Crimean coffee, which he appreciated as comforting reminders of home.
Sometimes, Repika feels overwhelmed, but she quickly gets over it. “I can’t be weak,” she tells herself. “We have children.”
“I know he has chest pains. But he’s holding up, and I know he’ll endure everything,” she adds.
Repika tears up as she talks about the letters from strangers and people helping her.
They ask her:
“Are you still holding up?”
And she replies:
“What else can I do?”
Postscript
Dzhelyal and Akhtem, two of the three founders of Nefes, are in prison.
The organization’s project coordinator and citizen journalist, Elmaz Akim, covered the trials of the political prisoners. However, after the police visited her house three times in two months, she temporarily left Crimea.
Arrests are widespread: Iryna Danylovych, Akim’s friend, is imprisoned along with her relative, charged with “discrediting the Russian army.”
Despite the distance, Akim continues to coordinate Nefes’ activities and organize Crimean Tatar spelling competitions. Dzhelyal wrote his dictation text from pre-trial detention, while Akhtem did so from the Vladimir Central Prison. They have been fighting and will keep on fighting.
For the right to breathe freely.
This text was written in April–May 2024
Translated by Hanna Leliv
Колажі Анастасії Струк. У зображеннях використано ілюстрацію Марії Глушко, фотографії зі сімейного архіву та Elmaz Qırımlı.
