02:02, 7 May 2014

"EcoWatch": POC member not admitted to colony to meet Evgeny Vitishko

Evgeny Vitishko (in the centre) at the press-conference in Krasnodar , January 19, 2014. Photo: http://www.yabloko.ru/Krasnodar/2014/01/21

Andrei Kolmakov, a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) of the Tambov Region, was not allowed to visit the Krasnodar ecologist Evgeny Vitishko, who is serving his sentence in a colony-settlement in the Tambov Region, the "Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus" (EcoWatch) reports.

In the morning on May 6, the colony-settlement (CS) No. 2 of the Tambov Region was visited by Andrei Kolmakov, Evgenia Chirikova, the leader of the movement in defence of the KhimkiForest, and activists of the "Greenpeace" international ecological organization. They planned to meet Vitishko and give him letters and books, but the colony bosses refused to provide them with the meeting, says the statement posted on May 6 on the website of the "EcoWatch".

"It is a flagrant violation that even the member of the POC was not let to the territory of the colony, although under the law they must do it at any time of day. They refused to issue a written refusal to provide a meeting, on which fact the activists drew up a respective act," says the message.