AI calls to free Sentsov and Kolchenko

Russian authorities shall eliminate injustice and immediately release the Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov and ecologist Alexander Kolchenko, said the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI).

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 30, 2014, in the Crimea, a group of four persons, Sentsov and Kolchenko among them, was detained. Law enforcers believe that all of them are members of the "Right-Wing Sector", an organization, which is banned in Russia. Oleg Sentsov is accused of creating a Crimean branch of the "Right-Wing Sector", which committed "arsons of the office of the public organization 'Russian Community of the Crimea' "and the representative office of the 'Edinaya Rossiya' (United Russia) Party in Simferopol on April 14 and 18, 2014." Alexander Kolchenko is charged with involvement in a terrorist community and commission of a terror act. Both defendants state political motives of their case.

The AI believes that the charges against Oleg Sentsov and Alexander Kolchenko must be cancelled.

"All the allegations about torture and other ill-treatment received from the defendants, their advocates and witnesses in this case must be promptly, effectively and impartially investigated," The AI quotes in its statement Bogdan Ovcharuk, the press secretary of the AI's representative in Ukraine.

Sentsov and Kolchenko "are citizens of Ukraine and residents of the Crimea", who "during the time of their arrest spoke against the Russia's annexation," says the AI's statement.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.