For the fifth month in Vladikavkaz, security forces have been holding 25-year-old Ukrainian citizen Lenya Umerova, who left Kiev in December to visit her sick father in Crimea. This is reported by the «Crimean Human Rights Group» and «Grati».
In early December, Umerova left Kyiv for the Crimea to her father, who was suffering from cancer. The way to the peninsula lay through Bulgaria, Romania and the border of Georgia with Russia. The girl was detained at the Upper Lars checkpoint on the night of December 3-4 “for additional checks and conversations” and taken to the police station in Vladikavkaz. She was later released on a promise to appear in the morning.
Umerova went to a hotel in the vicinity of Vladikavkaz by taxi. On the way, the car was stopped by traffic police officers, who were not satisfied that a foreign citizen without a special permit was driving not along a federal highway, but along a country road. The girl herself was not aware of such restrictions and did not know how the taxi driver was taking her.
A report was drawn up against Umerova on violation of the rules for crossing the border (Part 1 of Article 18.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses), on December 4, the Prigorodny District Court of North Ossetia fined a citizen of Ukraine two thousand rubles and ordered her to be expelled from Russia.
For more than three months, Umerova was in the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens (TsVSIG) near Vladikavkaz. On the night of March 16, she was released from the TsVSIG, however, according to the Crimean Human Rights Group, a car with four men was waiting for the girl near the gate. They grabbed a citizen of Ukraine, put a bag over her head and took her to an unfamiliar district of Vladikavkaz. There she was thrown out of the car, and the police officers who arrived at that moment again detained the girl and demanded that she drive with them to the police station.
As Grati clarifies, Umerova was released from the TsVSIG after the decision to expel her was canceled by the Supreme Court of North Ossetia and the Fifth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction in Pyatigorsk. They decided that the girl did not pose a danger to Russia. «Grati» write that Umerova was seized not at the Central Military District, but at the courthouse — in Pyatigorsk or Vladikavkaz, it is not known.
On March 14, the Leninsky District Court of Vladikavkaz arrested the girl for 15 days under a protocol of disobedience to police officers (Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). On March 27, the same court re-arrested her for 15 days under a similar protocol. Umerova's father, Rezvan, clarified to «Gratam» that the second protocol was drawn up because «she did not give up her phone after the conversation.»
On April 11, the day the second arrest of the girl ended, the Soviet District Court of Vladikavkaz again arrested her for 15 days under a protocol of disobedience to police officers.
“They say that she did not get out of the car. <…> We have been here for three trials and support her, otherwise it will be very difficult for her daughter. She again remained in isolation. Before that, she held on, but today burst into tears. They break it, I don’t know why,” Umerova’s father said.