RUSSIA: Detained environmental activist goes on hunger strike

Record ID: 341263

  • Title: RUSSIA: Detained environmental activist goes on hunger strike
  • Date: 19th February 2014
  • Summary: SOCHI, RUSSIA (FEBRUARY 18, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WEBSITE OF ENVIRONMENTAL WATCH ON NORTH CAUCASUS (EWNC), WITH PHOTOGRAPH OF JAILED MEMBER YEVGENY VITISHKO AND KRASNODAR REGION GOVERNOR ALEXANDER TKACHEV AND SIGN READING IN RUSSIAN "FREEDOM TO VITISHKO"
  • Embargoed: 6th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA771X2Y0BZUZOU24TPX82RFAD4
  • Story Text: A Russian environmental group said on Tuesday (February 18) one of its activists has on hunger strike in jail after the court upheld a three-year prison sentence against him.
    Yevgeny Vitishko from the group Environmental Watch on North Caucasus (EWNC) who said Olympic construction work had damaged the environment was detained in what rights groups say is growing harassment of civil rights activists during the Winter Olympic Games.
    President Vladimir Putin has staked his political and personal prestige on the Winter Olympics and any sign of a clampdown on opponents could threaten damage those efforts.
    The environmental group reached out to the IOC over Vitishko's case but say the organisational body has said the activists detention is unconnected to the Olympics.
    "IOC is very loyal to what's is happening on the territory of the Russian Federation. We have seen it not only in their reaction to the situation with Yevgeny Vitishko, but in general it is enough for them to get some formal explanation from the Russian side on the issues raised by the public and they in a cold-blooded way tell us: "We made inquiries, Putin told us everything is fine. It was simply some type of vandalism against a certain house." So this IOC reply proves that they have not even looked into the matter," said Yulia Naberezhnaya, an EWNC activist.
    Vitishko's lawyer Alexander Popkov was quoted by the Caucasian Knot, a group that defends human rights, as saying Vitishko had been detained after seeking permission from local authorities to leave Tuapse. Amnesty International said he had been held for swearing in public. He was later sentenced to 15 days in jail.
    Vitishko was thought to be planning to present a report on the environment in Sochi. A travel ban was enforced stopping him from travelling while a court considered his appeal against a three-year prison sentence for writing "thief" on a fence around the residence of the pro-Kremlin regional governor Alexander Tkachyov.
    Last week the court in Krasnodar upheld the sentence against Vitishko, but said he could leave prison on February 18 and travel to Krasnodar by himself.
    Vitishko's colleague said she fears a hasty decision to not release the activist was a result of media attention to his case.
    "He was supposed to be released today at 13:00, after 15 days of administrative detention, but this didn't happen. Activists from various cities along with media came to meet him and we are afraid that this was the reason for the hasty change in the decision (to release Vitishko ahead of his three-year sentence) and now we have information that he was sent to Krasnodar right away, to the next penal colony, though the court decision said that he should travel there on his own," Naberezhnaya told Reuters TV.
    "On the 12th when there was an appeal hearing in the Krasnodar court against his sentence, the previous sentence by the Tuapse court was confirmed and he declared a hunger strike because he thinks and we all think that it is a very heavy punishment - three years of penal colony - for a sign on the fence, even if it was a fence around the house of the governor of Krasnodar region," Naberezhnaya added.
    The Kremlin denies using the courts for political purposes, saying there are no political prisoners in Russia and that it has not cracked down on opponents.
    Putin hopes the Games display how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 but the preparations have been marred by concern abroad over the state of civil society, human rights and democracy in his third term as president.
    Naberezhnaya maintains Vitishko's detention related to the country hosting the Olympics.
    "These 15 days of detention were directly connected to the Olympics, because they (the authorities) did not want him to be in Sochi, they did not want him to go there at all. In general the situation around Vitishko got worse after he gave several interviews to big foreign mass media companies. He came to Sochi and told them that he is taking part in the work of a group which prepares a report on the environmental impact of the preparations for the Olympics. Several days later his sentence was changed (from ban on travel to detention)," said Naberezhnaya.
    The New York-based Human Rights Watch says Vitishko was sentenced "to silence him so that he does not raise questions important for environmental protection and linked to the Olympics".
    Human Rights Watch has also accused the authorities of "abuses against Sochi residents" and local people have complained of damage to the environment and soil erosion, which they blame on Olympic construction work.
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