The sentences handed down by a Russian military court to the Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov and activist Alexander Kolchenko have provoked a wave of international protest.
In a statement following the announcement of yesterday’s verdict in Rostov-on-Don, when Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in jail and Kolchenko to 10, the EU’s high representative and vp Federica Mogherini declared that “Russian courts are not competent to judge acts committed outside the internationally-recognised territory of Russia. The EU considers the case to be in breach of international law and elementary standards of justice.”
“The EU continues to call on the Russian Federation to immediately release Mr Sentsov and Mr Kolchenko and to guarantee their safe return to Ukraine,” Mogherini added.
Anne Brasseur, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), added in a communique that the sentence appeared “to be manifestly excessive and raises concerns about respect for the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights in the legal proceedings against them, especially in the context of the deterioration of the human rights situation in Crimea since its illegal annexation by the Russian Federation.”
The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, tweeted in English, Russian and Ukrainian: “Strongly condemn Russian farce of a ‘legal process’ leading to today’s prison sentences for Oleg Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko. Shameful.”
Marcin Wojciechowski, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, added: “Time will be the judge but sentencing Sentsov and Kolchenko seems to be a Pyrrhic victory of Russian justice.”
Heather McGill, a researcher on Eurasia at Amnesty International, observed that the trial against Sentsov and Kolchenko “was designed to send a message. It played into Russia’s propaganda war against Ukraine and was redolent of Stalinist-era trials of dissidents.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko tweeted: “Hang in there, Oleg. The time will come when those who organized this against you will find themselves in the prisoner’s box.”
And Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arsenij Yatsenyuk noted: “The Kremlin continues to break records of baseness, fear of their actions and meanness. Its masters are attempting to copy the Stalin trials against ‘enemies of the people’ of the 1930’s. Forgetting that the organisers of this trials ended up badly.”
Later in the afternoon, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a communique describing “this unlawful court decision” as “a final confirmation that the judicial system of the Russian Federation is politically biased.”
“This verdict shows the departure of the Russian Federation from the principle of impartiality of the investigation as well as from the universal norms in the field of human rights.”
The Ministry called on the international community “to condemn this cynical crime against fundemantal human rights and enhance political and diplomatic pressure on the Russian Federationto ensure that all citizens of the Ukraine who are still illegally detaind in the Russian territory be released.”
This morning (Aug 26), Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said that moves would be taken to file a lawsuit against the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights following these sentences.
In addition, New Zealand’s Ambassador for Ukraine and Poland Wendy Hinton is reportedly planning to call for an examination by the United Nations Security Council of the cases of Ukrainian citizens detained in Russia.
Solidarity for Sentsov and Kolchenko is also being shown by members of the Russian diaspora in Germany, who have announced their intention to stage a demonstration outside of the Russian Embassy on Berlin’s Unter den Linden on Thursday (Aug 27) at 6pm.
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