Russia frees Crimean dissident from psychiatric clinic

Ilmi Umerov, deputy head of the Crimean Tatars' semi-official Mejlis legislature, which was suspended by Moscow after it annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, was committed to compulsory psychiatric testing by local authorities in August. Western countries, including Britain and the United States, had called for Umerov's release, and rights activists had accused Russia of reviving the Soviet practice of subjecting political dissidents to enforced psychiatric treatment. Authorities have opened a criminal case against the 59-year-old, who says his mental health is fine, accusing him of making statements that undermine Russia's territorial integrity by calling in an interview for an end to Russian control of Crimea.