23:14, 3 July 2016

In Astrakhan, activists demand to release Klykh, Sentsov, and Karpyuk

Igor Stenin at the house of Taras Shevchenko. Photo by Elena Grebenyuk for the ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Igor Stenin, the leader of the community "Russians of Astrakhan", and activist Konstantin Koshkin held a protest action near the house, where Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko lived in Astrakhan. During their protest action, the activists demanded to release Stanislav Klykh, Oleg Sentsov, and Nikolai Karpyuk, sentenced in Russia to imprisonment.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 26, the Supreme Court of Chechnya sentenced Nikolai Karpyuk to 22.5 years and Stanislav Klykh to 20 years of imprisonment.

According to investigators, Karpyuk and Klykh, being members of the organization named UNA-UNSO (banned in Russia, as its activities were treated as extremist by the court, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"), on December 31, 1994, took part in warfare in Grozny near the railway station and Minutka Square, where they killed at least 30 servicemen and wounded at least 13 others. Karpyuk and Klykh denied their involvement in the conflict in Chechnya and stated that they had been tortured during the investigation.

The house, in which Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko stayed when he was returning from exile, is located in Embankment of May 1. On July 3, Igor Stenin, the leader of the community "Russians of Astrakhan", and civil activist Konstantin Koshkin washed the memorial plaque on the house and took pictures of themselves with portraits of Stanislav Klykh, Oleg Sentsov, and Nikolai Karpyuk, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"This is the house where Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian poet and patriot, also a prisoner of tsarist Russia, lived in exile in Astrakhan," Igor Stenin commented on the protest action for the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"We demand to release Ukrainian political prisoners from Russian prisons and stop fabrication of absurd criminal cases! We express our solidarity with relatives of the prisoners," Konstantin Koshkin told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

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

Author: Elena Grebenyuk

Source: CK correspondent