When armed FSB officers burst into the Abdullayev home in Russian-occupied Crimea, Fera Abdullayeva’s 8-year-old daughter asked her if they had come to kill them. After five hours of terror, the officers took the children’s father, Uzeir Abdullayev, away, together with a Quran and some other religious books – all that their violent and traumatic search had ‘uncovered’. Uzeir and his brother, Teymur Abdullayev, were among five Crimean Tatars arrested on 12 October 2016 on charges relating solely to their faith, and deported to Russian prisons, where they are held to this day.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Halya Coynash: Russia’s new-old terror and deportation of Crimean Tatars
This archive photo shows a Russian traffic police officer speaking with Crimean Tatars holding their flags as they sit in a car during a day of Crimean Tatars' national flag in the Crimean capital Simferopol, on June 26, 2014.
