Russia court sentences Ukraine activist to 20 years for terrorism

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Russia court sentences Ukraine activist to 20 years for terrorism

August 25, 2015 01:48:33 pm

[JURIST] A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced [AI press release] two Ukrainian activists to substantial jail time for the charge of conspiring to commit terror attacks. Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker, and Aleksandr Kolchenko, an ecologist and antifascist activist, received 20 and 10 years in prison, respectively, for alleged arson attacks against pro-Russian groups during the Russian occupation of Crimea that took place last year. Sentsov and Kolchenko were outspoken activists against the Crimean annexation. Their trial and sentence have drawn much criticism for what some view as the suppression of dissidents by the Russian government. Eurasia researcher at Amnesty International [advocacy website], Heather McGill noted:

This whole trial was designed to send a message. It played into Russia’s propaganda war against Ukraine and was redolent of Stalinist-era show trials of dissidents. … This trial was fatally flawed and credible allegations of torture and other ill-treatment have been ignored by the court. Both Oleg Sentsov and one of the main witnesses for the prosecution have alleged that they were tortured. Any testimony gained through torture and other ill-treatment must be thrown out, the “terrorism” charges must be withdrawn, and Oleg Sentsov and Aleksandr Kolchenko should either be released or face a fair trial in a civilian court

The placement of the trial in military court has also been questioned, as under international humanitarian law, an occupying power, such as Russia, is required to prosecute any defendants in civilian courts under the occupied country’s law.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine persists following the Crimean Annexation [JURIST backgrounder]. In March the EU committed to stand by its policy of refusing to recognize [JURIST report] Crimea’s annexation, as they purport the illegality of Russia’s referendum. In February Russian liberal political activist Boris Nemtsov was shot in the back four times [BBC report] in the middle of busy downtown Moscow. Nemtsov was openly politically opposed to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its role in Ukraine, and many believe Vladimir Putin ordered [JURIST report] the kiling. The conflict has often been labeled the biggest crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. US President Barack Obama has strongly condemned [JURIST report] Russia’s military intervention in the region as a violation of international law. Others believe [JURIST op-ed] that the constitutional provisions Russia used to annex Crimea had been carefully drafted and added to the Russian Federal Constitutional Law with the obvious goal of using them to reclaim former soviet states. To show the worsening human rights conditions, in November Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] filed a 37-page report [text, PDF] detailing cases of persecution of groups opposed to Russian occupation in Crimea, the imposition of Russian citizenship on residents of Crimea, and limitations on speech. In March 2014 Putin signed legislation [JURIST report] making Crimea officially part of Russia. Despite international criticism, the bills passed the House unanimously.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.