Campaign news

UKRAINE: FREE KOLCHENKO AND FREE SENTSOV

28th August 2015

STEP UP THE CAMPAIGN TO FREE KOLCHENKO AND FREE SENTSOV

NO RETURN TO STALINIST SHOW TRIALS IN RUSSIA

The decision on 25th August by a military court in Russia to sentence the Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov to 20 years in prison and socialist and anti-fascist activist Oleksandr Kolchenko to 10 years has sparked an international outcry.  They are to be held in a high-security penal colony, Sentsov has been denied the right to even see his children. 

Both were arrested by the Federal Security Service (successor to KGB) on 11th May 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea, held on trumped up charges of ‘terrorism’. Despite being Ukrainian citizens both were taken from Crimea and the trial held in Russia’s city of Rostov-on-Don under Russian law.

Kolchenko a well-known anti-fascist activist has been absurdly accused of being part of a plot with ‘Right Sector’ the ultra-right nationalist organisation.  The whole trial has been denounced by human rights organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty International describing the trials as being “redolent of a Stalinist-era show trials of dissidents.” Stating that that it was “was fatally flawed and credible allegations of torture and other ill-treatment have been ignored by the court. Both Oleg Sentsov and one of the main witnesses for the prosecution have alleged that they were tortured.” See: Crimean activists sentenced after a fatally flawed military trial .

Human Rights Watch in their dispatches pointed to the political motive of this trial:

“Since the Russian occupation of Crimea, Russian authorities have been quick to silence those who oppose their actions there – be they Crimean Tatars, pro-Ukraine activists, or Moscow-based independent advocates. But this latest case, and the terribly harsh sentences for Sentsov and Kolchenko, is the starkest warning yet to Russia’s critics in Crimea: keep quiet or else.”  See: Dispatches: Crimea keep quiet or else!

As the judge read the sentencing Kolchenko and Sentsov were defiant standing arm in arm and singing Ukraine’s national anthem including the lines “We will lay down our body and our soul for our freedom”.

From the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign website