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From a Russian Prison, Server Mustafayev Looks to Crimean Tatar History for Strength [1]

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Date: 2024-05

Everyone writes their own life’s history book. My people and I are writing ours.

My sincere greetings to everyone who remembers me, my family, and all my indomitable Crimean Tatar people. For over 10 years, any Crimean with their own opinion diverging from the current political climate has been placed on “execution” lists by the “keepers” of the fictitious peace and order of the Russian Federation—the Federal Security Service (FSB). Anyone who dares to voice their views publicly or even over a cup of coffee at home is immediately subjected to fabricated accusations and criminal or administrative prosecutions, followed by forced deportation in police vans and Stolypin trains to remote areas of continental Russia, far from their native Crimean land.

Even those who find the strength to defend and support their families and inform the world about violations of fundamental rights, freedoms, and guarantees—defined not only by international but also by Russian law—have faced repression, arrests, and fines. There is no need to repeat names, dates, and events as evidence of the above, as they are readily available in open sources.

For more than six years, I have observed all the previously mentioned abuses from within this repressive machine. The descriptions of the repression and lawless impunity concerning myself and others differ significantly in the depth of feelings and emotions one must endure and sacrifice on the path to defending values, principles, and views. This difference is aptly described by the phrase, “the well-fed do not understand the hungry.” I am certainly grateful for this important life lesson, which can perhaps only be fully appreciated by someone who finds themselves cut off from the rest of the world, while realizing that neither domestic nor international laws hold any significance until the ruling despotic regime ends.

It is in such circumstances that the strength of faith, ideas, personality, and character manifests—whether it is of an individual, a society, or a nation. It is difficult to see how, over the years, all these horrors of war and repression, and endless lists of restrictions and prohibitions eventually turn into mundane, formal reports and statistics generated by various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and even state or international organizations and institutions. No number of arrests or killings can adequately convey the real number of damaged fates, broken hearts, and shed tears, over a single arrest or, even worse, a politically motivated killing, whether on the battlefield or in the clutches of the punitive Russia Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN).

If we were to describe all the stories and humiliations through which prisoners of conscience, their friends, and relatives must go during trials and arrests, the narrative would fill multiple journal volumes or multiepisode series, revealing many examples of how a society and an individual under various subjective and objective circumstances can preserve or lose their humanity and common sense while serving a tyrant and turning into a wild beast...

I have been keeping my prisoner’s diary since the beginning of my journey as a prisoner, hoping to eventually, if God wills, publish this manuscript that reflects all of the above and yet another personal stage of my “University of Life.” There are indeed many ideas and thoughts to write a book titled The University of My Life. I would like to share thoughts on how the values passed on from my mother’s milk, stories heard from the cradle from my parents, from the elders who survived deportation, and from the history of my long-suffering Muslim Crimean Tatar people, helped me during a challenging period of life, starting from 2014 and throughout the journey to the present; how all that helped me to find strength not to give up, to believe in victory, and move forward. I remember, when I found myself in a detention center, on the first days within those walls, where the entire way of life and values were alien to my beliefs, one of the experienced prisoners gave me advice: “be as your parents have taught and raised you to be.” This advice significantly helped me integrate into the new environment, remain myself as I was in freedom, and preserve the values developed and inspired by my religion and culture.

Either we change our surroundings, or society and the atmosphere around us will change and destroy us. Each person and each nation lives their life and writes a book of their life’s history. We can inscribe our name with worthy words and deeds on the pages of this history, or we can get so mired in this history that the next generations and our children will be ashamed to remember us...I do not want my people and my children to abandon the struggle for our rights that began with my arrest and continued with the arrests of dozens of hundreds after me. I do not want, even after the unfortunate facts of the death of prisoners of conscience and activists on this path, to stop or frighten those who remain committed to this legal cause in Crimea and the world. I warn everyone who stands in solidarity with us not to become mere extras, not to lose the confidence that evil can be stopped, overthrown, and defeated. One cannot acquiesce for a moment to the wild and inhumane reality that Crimea and other territories have become. We must not let any name, or any fact of repression be forgotten. They who think that nothing depends on them alone, that they are incapable of changing or stopping persecution, are mistaken. Each can and must make efforts and use all possible means not to get mired, but to inscribe their name and life in golden letters on the pages of the history of their life.

I thank all activists, human rights defenders, journalists, NGOs, and politicians who do not forget and do not let the world forget about me, about all other prisoners of conscience, and my indomitable Crimean Tatar people. You all know that your efforts, brick by brick, contribute significantly to our liberation, to the fight against evil and injustice. Each mention in resolutions of international organizations, at various summits and conferences, or a post on Facebook and Twitter, finds its audience and brings us closer to the coveted victory and freedom. It is important to put a stop to spreading false propaganda, wholesale labels, and accusations through the world, as they tarnish the glorious name, history, and culture of my Crimean Tatar Muslim people and its worthy sons, who fight and carry the word of truth before an unjust tyrant at the cost of their freedom and lives. Now is the time to erase double standards and decide which side you are on!

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[1] Url: https://freedomhouse.org/article/russian-prison-server-mustafayev-looks-crimean-tatar-history-strength

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