282-Page Report on the Kremlin's Political Prisoners Published The report, published as "The Kremlin's Political Prisoners: Advancing a Political Agenda by Crushing Dissent" was written and released by the law firm Perseus Strategies, with support from Memorial Human Rights Centre (Russia), and was commissioned by several other human rights organizations. The report documents the widespread arrests and detention of activists, regime opponents, and disfavored minorities. In the past four years alone, the number of political prisoners in Russia has risen from 50 to more than 250. According to the report, persecution of minorities and of opposition is enabled by an ever-increasing array of laws specifically designed to criminalize acts of everyday life and, therefore, allow the authorities to arrest, detain, and imprison anyone they want.
The full report is available as a downloadable PDF here.
Kyiv asks UN Tribunal to order Russia to release illegally seized Ukrainian sailors
Ukraine has called upon the International Tribunal for the Law of Sea to order the immediate release of the 24 Ukrainian sailors who were seized by Russia in November of last year. Ukraine's Deputy Foreign Minister of European Integration said the tribunal should take measures to require Russia to release the sailors and the naval ships, and to return them to Ukraine.
May 10th marked the first day of the trial, and the judges on the case are expected to come to a decision by the end of the month. Meanwhile, Russia is not participating in the trial, and has said that the UN court does not have jurisdiction over Russia's military activities.
Russia claims the European Court of Human Rights has no jurisdiction to investigate torture used in Sentsov and Kolehcnko's trials Five years have passed since Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, along with activist Oleksandr Kolchenko, were arrested by Crimea's occupying Russian authorities. Several factors about their arrest and subsequent imprisonment do not line up, or have been outright denied by the Kremlin, including the exact date of the men's arrest, and allegations of torture being used to extract "evidence."
In light of this, Russia has reportedly claimed that the European Court of Human Rights does not have the jurisdiction to consider evidence that points towards torture or the falsification of information for the sake of the men's trial. Despite the fact that the European Court is unlikely to agree with this claim, the Court has not taken this legal action against the Russian courts regarding this case in the five years that Sentsov and Kolchenko have already been imprisoned.
Ukrainian political prisoner beaten by Russian prison staff for Maidan According to political prisoner Oleksandr Shumkov, he has been beaten by prison staff both in Tver SIZO No. 1, and later in the prison colony he was transferred to. In addition to the beatings, which resulted in at least 15 blows to his back and legs, he was held with other prisoners in a damp and moldy cell, and later placed in a punishment cell for allegedly putting on a prison jacket. Public verdict lawyer Iryna Biryukova visited Shumkov and filed a complaint regarding the conditions he was being held under, including the fact that he was placed in a punishment cell the day after arriving at the prison, under what she considers unreasonable pretext.
Shumkov is believed to have been arrested when the car he was driving near the Ukrainian-Russian border came under attack and he was taken, unconscious, across the border into Russia. It is believed that he was on his way to meet with an informer who was reporting back regarding drug-trafficking between the separatist-controlled and government-controlled territories.
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This newsletter is a part of the project “Combating human rights violations arising from the armed conflict in Ukraine by supporting journalist investigations, national advocacy, and an international information campaign” which is supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands to Ukraine. Euromaidan Press’ work is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.
