Umerov was detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in May.

The occupying Russian authorities have today transfered Ilmi Umerov, the deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, to a psychiatric hospital.

He has been charged with “separatism,” for opposing Russia’s occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula.

Last Friday a judge in Simferopol ordered Umerov be sent for psychiatric examination at a hearing from which he was absent, having been hospitalised with suspected heart trouble.

QHA, an independent Crimean news agency, reported that the transfer of Umerov to a psychiatric facility is illegal as the court of appeals has not yet issued a judgement on an appeal against his transfer lodged by his lawyers.

QHA said that Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis and a Ukrainian MP, reported today that FSB officers came to the hospital treating Umerov and demanded that he be discharged so they could transfer him.

Umerov’s daughter, Ayshe, wrote on her Facebook page this afternoon that he has been moved to a psychiatric clinic in Simferopol.

His family has been barred from seeing him today and is awaiting a decision, apparently due tomorrow. Otherwise, they will have no contact with him for the next 28 days of his examination.

Ayshe wrote that she is particularly worried about her father’s access to medication, which he needs to take for Parkinson’s disease, hypertension and diabetes. All of his medication is now held by nurses on a separate floor who determine when he is allowed to take them.

Russia has a grim history of the use of psychiatric detention as a form of punishment. It was widely used in the Soviet era and has become more frequent again in the last two years.

— Pierre Vaux