Russian prison fails to release citizen journalist Seyran Saliyev from solitary confinement on time again

Russian prison administration still holds Crimean Tatar citizen journalist and activist Seyran Saliyev in solitary confinement. He has been there since July 2024, reports ZMINA, citing Saliyev's family.

The relatives tell the media outlet that the series of solitary confinement terms began in July 2024, after Saliyev was moved to a high-security prison.

He was last placed in solitary confinement on June 10, 2025; the term expired on June 24, but the journalist still remains there as of July 3.

Seyran Saliyev. Photo by Crimean Solidarity

“The flimsy grounds for the penalty cited by the administration are absurd: an undone top button on his clothes or an insufficiently neatly made bed,” Saliyev’s family members say.

Submitting official queries has yielded them responses citing “repeated violations” with no mentions of specific incidents.

The family was allowed a long-term visit to Seyran on June 27. However, the visit was canceled because the prison administration had not released the citizen journalist from solitary confinement. The relatives regard these actions as pressure, a violation of the prisoner’s rights, and weaponization of solitary confinement as a tool of repression and an excuse to cancel the visit.

Seyran Saliyev is a citizen journalist, "Crimean Solidarity" streamer. Detained in occupied Bağçasaray on October 11, 2017, along with five other Crimean Tatars. Charged with preparing sabotage operations in Crimea on the Ukrainian intelligence's orders. Sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on fabricated terrorism charges in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case. Serves his unlawful sentence in a Tula region prison (Russia).

Seyran Saliyev is on the Institute of Mass Information's list of journalists imprisoned by Russia.