Aider Azamatov
Aider Azamatov – is a Crimean human rights defender and lawyer. Since the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, he has been actively involved with Crimean Solidarity movement, defending the rights of Crimean Tatars, who have become one of the major targets for the authorities, alongside civil society activists and journalists. Aider Azamatov acts as a defense attorney of Irina Danilovich, a Crimean woman human rights defender, who was disappeared and is now detained based on a fabricated criminal charge.
The environment for the work of human rights defenders (HRDs) in the Russian Federation is difficult, especially for those who defend and promote the rights of LGBTI people, ethnic and religious minorities, refugees, as well as activists of the North Caucasus and the unlawfully annexed Crimean Peninsula. HRDs are often subjected to acts of harassment, surveillance, physical attacks, threat, raids and searches on their offices and homes, slander and smear campaigns, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment, as well as violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. There have also been cases where HRDs have been murdered as a result of their work.
The anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation amended in 2016 authorises law enforcement agencies and special police to infringe on political and civil rights, as well as on the right to privacy of HRDs. At the same time, the authorities frequently fail to impartially and thoroughly investigate criminal offences perpetrated against HRDs and independent journalists, which is also abetted by the extreme corruption of the Russian judicial system and its non-compliance with international standards of justice and rule of law.
