You're reading: Crimean lawyer for Mejlis members arrested for ten days in extremism case

SIMFEROPOL – The Simferopol Zheleznodorozhny District Court on Jan. 26 evening arrested for ten days lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, who is working on a number of high-profile cases involving members of the Majilis of Crimean Tatars (organization banned in Russia); he is charged with dissemination of extremist information on the Internet, his colleague Edem Semedlyayev told Interfax.

“They gave ten days of arrest,” Semedlyayev said.

The lawyer was charged with a crime enshrined by Article 20.3 of the Russian Code of Administrative Violations (propaganda or public demonstration of Nazi attributes or symbols, or attributes or symbols of extremist organizations, or other attributes or symbols whose propaganda or public demonstration are prohibited by federal laws).

According to information obtained by Interfax, he was charged with posting on a social networking site a video and photos from a rally held by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Crimea in 2013, the organization is banned in Russia, but is freely operating in Ukraine.

“Emil said he may have posted it, it happened a long time ago, but he didn’t post it for propaganda purposes and just forgot to delete it,” Semedlyayev said.

Law enforcement officers who said they were officials from the E Center of the Crimean Interior Ministry detained the lawyer and searched his office and residence, where a bar association is registered, earlier on Jan. 26.

The press service for the Crimean police is not commenting on the situation.