Tag: Labytnangi

The Minimum of Solidarity (125 Days)

day 125Award-winning Ukrainian filmmaker and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov has been on hunger strike for 125 days in the Polar Bear Maximum Security Prison in the far north of Russia. His only demand throughout the strike has been that the Russian authorities release sixty-four other Ukrainian political prisoners, most of them, like Mr. Sentsov, from Crimea, which was illegally occupied by Russia in 2014.

In recent days, I have seen a lot of snide commentary from Russian nationals to the effect that Mr. Sentsov should give up his hunger strike, because it’s obviously not working.

In my opinion, what Mr. Sentsov, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison on trumped-up charges by a kangaroo military tribunal in Rostov-on-Don, does is up to him, don’t you think? I think he should get a free pass when it comes to what he does or doesn’t do after the Putin regime ruined his life while Russian society mostly stood by idly and silently once again.

Oleg Sentsov is a far braver man than most of us can hope to be. If we do not want to help him and refuse to show solidarity with him and his cause, the least we could do would be to refrain from writing and talking about him.

That would be the minimum of solidarity in this case. {TRR}

#SaveOlegSentsov

 

 

“He’s Lost Fifteen Kilos on the Hunger Strike”: Oleg Sentsov’s Cousin Visits Filmmaker in Prison

oleg

“Oleg has been on hunger strike for 52 days and 20 hours.”

“He Has Lost Fifteen Kilos during the Hunger Strike”: Oleg Sentsov’s Cousin Visits Filmmaker in Prison
Novaya Gazeta
July 5, 2018

Natalya Kaplan, cousin of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, has visited him at the Polar Bear Penal Colony in Labytnangi, reports Gromadskoe.

“I met with Oleg. We chatted for two hours. It was a short visit. Oleg, who is 190 centimeters tall, now weighs 75 kilos. He has lost 15 kilos during the hunger strike,” said Ms. Kaplan.

According to her, Mr. Sentsov’s health is currently listed as satisfactory. His lab results are not good, but “there is nothing critical.”

“Yesterday, he felt quite sick. Today, he was fine. He came to the meeting on his own. He feels worse in the evenings. He says he now has a much easier time of it. The first three weeks of the hunger strike were the most agonizing period. He has been getting IVs now. He would not survive without them. He has no plans of ending the hunger strike. His outlook is optimistic. He believes what he is doing has a purpose. And he believes he will win,” said the filmmaker’s cousin.

Kaplan added that Sentsov has asked the public not to visit him in prison, but to visit the other political prisoners for whom he has been fighting.

Mr. Sentsov was convicted in Russia on charges of planning terrorist attacks in Crimea. He has been on hunger strike since May 14, demanding the Russian authorities release all Ukrainian political prisoners in their custody except him. Many Russian and international cultural figures and human rights activists have voiced their support for him.

In recent weeks, the Russian and Ukrainian sides have been trying to agree on a prisoner exchange and iron out a schedule of visits to penal colonies. Lyudmila Denisova, the Verkhovna Rada’s human rights ombudsman, has voiced Ukraine’s willingness to implement an exchange of twenty-three prisoners from each side.

Thanks to Dmitry Dinze and Askold Kurov for the heads-up.

___________________________________________________________________

Here is what Novaya Gazeta omitted from the original article as published on the Gromadskoye website.

[…]

Natalya Kaplan told Oleg that Emir Hussein Kuku had joined his hunger strike and about the demonstrations supporting him.

“He is really grateful there have been so many rallies in his support, that people have not given up and keep on fighting. At the same time, however, he is quite disappointed very little attention has been paid to the other political prisoners. He thinks that if he alone were released, it would be a complete failure,” she said.

[…]

“In particular, he asked Ombudsman Denisova, Father Kliment, the independent doctors, and consular officials who have tried to visit him to go visit the other political prisoners, so that no one forgets them,” said Ms. Kaplan.

[…]

According to her, he has television for entertainment, and he has also been writing and editing his old diary entries. He asks that no more books be sent to him. He has lots of books as it is.

It has transpired the former so-called prosecutor of Russia-annexed Crimea, Natalia Poklonskaya, was involved in Mr. Sentsov’s illegal trial in the Russian Federation, during which he was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

On June 29, Mr. Sentsov’s attorney, Dmitry Dinze, reported Mr. Sentsov was in the prison infirmary, but his condition was stable.

Mr. Dinze also reported Russia had received two requests to pardon Mr. Sentsov.

On June 15, Ms. Denisova was not allowed to see Mr. Sentsov. Subsequently, Ms. Denisova was also not allowed to see Ukrainian political prisoner Mykola Karpyuk, imprisoned in the Russian city of Vladimir.

On June 21, the Ukrainian Embassy in Russia demanded Ms. Denisova be granted priority access to the prisons where political prisoners Oleg Sentsov, Stanislav Klykh, Alexander Kolchenko, and Vladimir Balukh have been incarcerated.

On June 21, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko again talked on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging him to release the Ukrainian political prisoners.

The ambassadors of the G7 countries have expressed deep concern about the circumstances of Mr. Sentsov and the other Ukrainian political prisoners incarcerated in Russia.

On June 14, the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding the immediate release of Mr. Sentsov and the Kremlin’s other Ukrainian political prisoners.

On June 19, President Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin’s position on Mr. Sentsov had not changed after an appeal to release him was made by prominent Russian cultural figures.

Sixty-four Ukrainian political prisoners are currently being held in Russia and annexed Crimea, twenty-seven of them in Russia proper. Fifty-eight of them were either arrested in Crimea or arrested on charges involving Crimea. These numbers do not take into account the currently held in the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Image courtesy of Gromadskoye

 

The Very Model of a Modern Major General

General Moskalkova and Human Rights
Igor Yakovenko’s Blog
June 29, 2018

Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s human rights ombudsman and a retired police major general, visited Ukrainian prisoner of conscience Oleg Sentsov on June 28, 2018, which was the forty-sixth day of his hunger strike.

“Sentsov is in good physical shape. He is up and walking. He is interested in current events and watches football on TV. He is writing a screenplay,” Major General Moskalkova reported.

The major general was joined in her visit to Sentsov by Anatoly Sak, human rights ombudsman of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and a former prosecutor. Sak’s account of the visit is like an expensive frame for Moskalkova’s humanity.

“Tatyana Nikolayevna is a wonderful woman!”

According to the Yamalo-Nenets prosecutor-cum-human rights ombudsman, this was Sentsov’s appraisal of Moskalkova.

Sak continued to “quote” Sentsov.

“Thank her very much and thank you for not forgetting me!”

According to the local human rights ombudsman, Sentsov’s heart was brimming over with love for his jailers, while if you believe Moskalkova, the Polar Bear Concentration Camp, situated north of the Arctic Circle, is the perfect vacation spot, especially if you combine your stay there with a long hunger strike.

Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, did not believe her colleague. Worse, she refused to recognize her as a colleague.

“I don’t believe that ombudsman, and I can’t bring himself to call her a human rights ombudsman,” Denisov said.

She explained why.

“We flew there on the same plane. Then she rode past me in a motorcade as I stood on the roadside trying to figure out what was happening. She does not pick up her phone, she does not respond in any way. That is why I do not believe any of Moskalkova’s statements.”

The Russian jailers, whose ranks undoubtedly include Moskalkova and Sak, did not let Denisova see Sentsov. The refusal was delivered with the trademark bullying for which the Russian bureaucracy has always had a flare, especially its policemen and jailers. The prison guards told Denisova “no one had forbidden anything,” meaning her meeting with Sentsov. At the same time, none of the prison staff would accept her written application to visit the inmate. As described above, Moskalkova, who had flown there on the same plane as Denisova, subsequently flatly refused to acknowledge her presence. Keep in mind that prior to the trip they had conducted lengthy negotiations on visiting inmates.

All of the ferocity and, simultaneously, the absurdity of Putinist Russia has been concentrated in the Sentsov Affair. The man was forcibly made a Russian national, and he has not been turned over to Ukraine on these ground. A police major general who is in charge of defending human rights claims a man who has been on hunger strike for forty-six days feels fine. The Ukrainian human rights ombudsman is not allowed to see a citizen of her country, and yet the guards claim no one has forbid her to do anything.

The chances of saving Sentsov are fewer with each passing day. International pressure must be ratcheted up to a fundamentally different level than where it is currently. Putin must be made to feel that Sentsov’s death would lead to unacceptable losses for him personally.

It is now a matter of days.

Thanks to Dmitry Dinze for the heads-up. Oleg Sentsov is now in the fiftieth day of his hunger strike. Translated by the Russian Reader

45 Days

word-image-49This map, published by Amnesty International, shows the geography of Oleg Sentsov’s ordeal, from his arrest in occupied Crimea, in May 2014, to his arrival at the Labytnangi Correctional Colony, north of the Arctic Circle, in October 2017. Courtesy of Let My People Go!

#SaveSentsov
#FreeOlegSentsov

Ukrainian film director and political prisoner Oleg Sentsov is in the midst of his forty-fifth day on hunger strike in the maximum security penal colony, north of the Arctic Circle, where the Putin regime sentenced him to twenty years for the thought crime of not approving its illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014.

Sentsov’s only demand is that the Putin regime release the several dozen other Ukrainian political prisoners it has imprisoned.

It should also release Mr. Sentsov, made to suffer for a crime he did not commit. (He was convicted on terrorism charges). It would be a gesture of peace and reconciliation appreciated round the world, especially during the World Cup, which Russia is currently hosting.

But I am not holding my breath. Russia has been misruled for the last twenty years by a clique of KGB officers who morphed into some of the most reckless and impudent gangsters the world has ever seen once the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet this utterly destructive regime gets oodles of aid and comfort from the international far left and far right, as well as corrupt entities like FIFA and the London City, who want to partake in Russia’s embezzled riches.

A wiseguy like Putin knows this and, I am afraid, has calculated that the fallout from Sentsov’s death in prison is an acceptable risk. Releasing Sentsov, on the other hand, would show that Putin is susceptible to pressure from the outside world. Unless I am misreading him, he is loath to do this, at least in an obvious way. // TRR

 

Comrade to Comrade

1465990524-5252Crimean political prisoners Oleg Sentsov and Alexander Kolchenko during their so-called trial by a Russian kangaroo court. Photo courtesy of Unian Information Agency

Alexander Kolchenko, Convicted in the Case of the “Crimean Terrorists,” Writes a Letter to Oleg Sentsov
Mediazona
May 22, 2018

Antifascist Alexander Kolchenko, convicted in the Case of the “Crimean Terrorists,” has written a letter to filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is in the ninth day of a hunger strike meant to force the Russian authorities to release all Ukrainian political prisoners from the country’s prisons. Mediazona was told about the letter by attorney Svetlana Sidorkina.

According to Sidorkina, Kolchenko was afraid the censor would not pass the letter on to Sentsov, so he gave her a detailed acount of its contents when she visited Kolchenko at Corrective Colony No. 6 in the town of Kopeysk.

“In the letter he wrote that, in his opinion, a hunger strike was an effective means of defense only in cases in which a country valued its reputation. Alexander believes that, in Oleg’s case, Russia could ignore his hunger strike, but not let him die by forcibly feeding and sending him off for a psychiatric examination. Sergei Magnitsky’s death changed nothing in Russia. Instead, the Dima Yaklovev Law was adopted. He did not try and dissuade Oleg, since he knows Oleg is stubborn and does not change his mind. He is quite concerned for his health, since he knows what the climate and living conditions are like in Labytnangi from prisoners he met when he and Oleg were in transit to the prisons where they would serve their sentences. Although Alexander doesn’t agree with Oleg’s method, he respects his stance on freeing Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons and is ready to support Oleg if he needs to,” said Sidorkina.

Sidorkina tried to dissuade Kolchenko from a possible hunger strike by pointing to his health problems and the fact he is underweight. Because of this, he is on a special diet.

Aside from the letter to Sentsov, Kolchenko wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin demanding he intervene in the situation and release Sentsova. Kolchenko, however, was afraid the censor would also prevent the letter from reaching its addressee.

Kolchenko added he had no complaints about conditions in the penal colony. According to Sidorkin, he looked cheerful, but was quite worried about Sentsova. Sidorkina had wanted to show him articles about the Ukrainian filmmaker’s hunger strike, but penal colony staff stopped her from doing so.

In 2015, a court sentenced Kolchenko and Sentsov to ten years and twenty years, respectively, in maximum security penal colonies. According to police investigators, in 2014, Sentsov established a “terrorist community” (illegal under Article 205.4 Part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code). Members of the alleged community supposedly set fire to the doors of the Russian Community of Crimea and the windows of a United Russia Party office. These actions were deemed terrorist attacks, punishable under Article 205 Part 2 Paragraph A of the Criminal Code.

In addition, police investigators insisted members of the alleged “terrorist community” were planning to blow up a monument to Lenin and the Eternal Flame, punishable under Article 30 Part 1 and Article 205 Part 2 Paragraph A. Sentsov was also charged with trafficking in arms and explosives as part of a group, punishable by Article 222 Part 3. Kolchenko was found guilty of involvement in the alleged terrorist community and planning terrorist attacks on the Crimean Peninsula. Both men have denied their guilt.

In the spring of 2016, Sentsov was transported to a penal colony in Yakutia, but in 2017 he was transferred to the White Bear Colony in Labytnangi. In the winter of 2017, the Ukrainian authorities announced they were prepared to exchange Russian prisoners for Sentsov and Kolchenko. On May 14 of this year, Sentsov announced he was going on an indefinite hunger strike to secure the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia.

Translated by the Russian Reader