Stories of 16 political prisoners: the book “The Free Voices of Crimea” was presented at the Book Arsenal

On 30 May 2025, at the 13th International Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv, the book “The Free Voices of Crimea” was presented as part of PEN Ukraine’s special programme “Cardiogram of Translation”. The book tells the stories of 16 Crimean political prisoners – journalists, activists and representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.

The publication is a joint initiative of PEN Ukraine, The Ukrainians Media, Vivat Publishing House, and the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The book is a collection of stories about people who resisted Russian terror and paid for it with their freedom. The Russian authorities illegally imprisoned these journalists for terms ranging from 7 to 19 years. Most of them are Crimean Tatars. The collection includes letters, diaries, and court statements that have become the voices of those whom Russia has deprived of their freedom for decades.

The presentation was attended by Rustem Khalilov, a journalist and writer who wrote about citizen journalist Seiran Saliiev; Tetiana Teren, a journalist, Cultural Manager, and initiator of the publication; Nari Usenko, an Analyst of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA; and Kateryna Yesypenko, the wife of Vladyslav Yesypenko, a Freelance Journalist at Radio Liberty who was sentenced by a Russian court. The event was moderated by journalist and writer Olesia Yaremchuk, who co-edited the book and curated the English edition.

During the presentation, Nari Usenko spoke about persecution in Crimea and reported that there are currently at least 230 Crimean political prisoners, more than 70 of whom require urgent medical attention.

“The scale of repression is much greater than these figures. A large number of victims of persecution or their relatives, under pressure from the FSB, simply do not report their detention due to fear and intimidation,” said the analyst of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA.

Nari Usenko

She also emphasised the importance of citizen journalism in the conditions of isolation following the occupation of Crimea in 2014.

“After the closure of most independent media outlets in 2014-2015, it was ordinary people – shop assistants, builders, teachers, nurses – who began to report the truth about Crimea. They covered mass searches and detentions, and thanks to them, Ukraine and the world learned what was happening on the occupied peninsula,” the human rights defender said.

Tetiana Teren, a journalist and Cultural Manager, initiator of the publication “The Free Voices of Crimea”, said that the work on the book took 4 years.

“I really wanted the letters of the Crimean journalists not to be lost in the flow of our lives, so that we could preserve these voices and this experience. We had a period of Soviet dissidents, and we are all familiar with their letters and memoirs. Now we live in a period of new dissidents who suffer from the same empire,” said Teren at the presentation.

Rustem Khalilov, Tetiana Teren

The collection includes the stories of Asan Akhtem, Amet Suleimanov, Remzi Bekirov, Osman Arifmemetov, Iryna Danylovych, Oleksii Bessarabov, Seiran Saliiev, Rustem Sheikhaliiev, Server Mustafaiev, Marlen (Suleiman) Asanov, Vilen Temerianov, Ruslan Suleimanov, Tymur Ibrahimov, Ernes Ametov, Vladyslav Yesypenko and Nariman Dzhelial.

Kateryna Yesypenko, the wife of Vladyslav Yesypenko, a freelancer at Radio Liberty who was sentenced by a Russian court, said during the presentation that her husband has now been illegally imprisoned for five years.

“Captivity caused significant harm to Vladyslav’s physical health and mental state. He worries that the world will forget about him in the context of negotiations. There should be key priority points on which we could return the priority categories of civilian prisoners – seriously ill, elderly, women and people who were detained before the full-scale invasion. After all, there are civilian Ukrainians who have been held in torture chambers since 2014, for some of them it is a third of their lives,” said Kateryna Yesypenko.

Kateryna Yesypenko

You can buy the book in Ukrainian in both electronic and printed formats by following the link on the Vivat publishing house website, as well as in Vivat bookstores. The English-language e-book version of “The Free Voices of Crimea” is also available on the website.

Nari Usenko also spoke about the Letters to a Free Crimea initiative, which has been uniting people from all over the world in support of Crimean political prisoners since 2023, and urged everyone to write letters.

“This campaign is not only about letter-writing. It is about the value of our people, about solidarity and about the fact that prison cannot break a person who is remembered,” she stressed.

At the Book Arsenal, anyone can write such a letter to political prisoners. You can do this at stand E 2.4, where you can find all the instructions and information on how to write a letter.

For reference:

Initially, the portraits of political prisoners were published in a media format on The Ukrainians Media website.

The first presentation of the book took place on 10 April 2025, hosted by PEN Ukraine.

The release of The Free Voices of Crimea was preceded by PEN Ukraine and ZMINA’s #SolidarityWords campaign, launched in 2021 to support authors-political prisoners in occupied Crimea: as part of the initiative, Ukrainian writers and journalists became ambassadors for their colleagues imprisoned in the occupied peninsula.

The Book Arsenal is an international event organised by Mystetskyi Arsenal. The festival has been taking place since 2011 and has become one of the most influential literary and artistic events in Eastern Europe. In 2019, it was awarded the title of the Best Literary Festival in the World. The mission of the International Book Arsenal Festival is to create interactions between people, communities, and institutions where the combination of aesthetic experience and intellectual engagement in the context of books strengthens the capacity of both individuals and society.