Imminent disbarment of Emil Kurbedinov
On 10 January 2019, human rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov received a letter from the Crimean Directorate of the Ministry of Justice informing him he will be disbarred based on his two previous convictions for administrative offences. This was reported by Frontline Defenders.
Emil Kurbedinov is a human rights lawyer working in Crimea. He is actively involved in defending the rights of Crimean Tatars, who since the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation have become a target for the authorities. He has been drawing public attention to human rights violations in Crimea by using both social media and international conferences. He is the winner of the 2017 Frontline Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
On January 10 2019, Emil Kurbedinov received a letter dated December 18, 2018 notifying him that he would be excluded from the Crimean Bar Association by 1 March 2019. According to 1.2 (4) of Article 15 of the Federal Law “On non-commercial organisations”, a person that has been convicted of extremism cannot be a founder or a member of non-commercial organization and therefore Kurbedinov as a founding member of the Crimean Bar association will be disbarred. This would mean that Emil Kurbedinov will no longer be able to carry out his professional activities as a defense lawyer.
On 7 December 2018, Emil Kurbedinov was sentenced to five days of administrative detention for “propgandising for extremist organizations” in relation to a social media post from 2013 showing a video of the under Russian legislation banned organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir operates legally under Ukrainian Law. On 26 January 2017, Kurbedinov was sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention for exactly the same social media post.