FREEDOM TO OLEG SENTSOV, FREEDOM FOR ALL: KREMLIN’S PRISONER OLEG SENTSOV BEGINS A HUNGER STRIKE

The Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleg Sentsov was arrested by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) in his house in Simferopol on May 11th 2014 and brought to Moscow where he is detained and awaiting for trial. Ukrainian film director Oleg Senstov made several films – two shorts “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (2008) and “Bull’s Horn” (Rih Byka, 2009), feature-length “Gamer” (2011) and “Rhinoceros” (Nosorih, 2013) that is a work in progress. Sentsov is also the author of a book of short stories. Oleg Sentsov and activist Oleksandr Kolchenko were arrested in Crimea on May 10, 2014, under the charges of plotting a series of terrorist attacks. Despite the clearly political nature of the case, lack of direct evidence, and international reaction, in August 2015 the court sentenced Sentsov and Kolchenko to 20 and 10 years respectively in a maximum-security colony. Two more Crimeans were arrested in the same period of time – Hennadiy Afanasiyev and Oleksiy Chyrniy. In 2016, Afanasiyev was exchanged for Russian captured in Donbas, while Chyrniy is still behind bars in Magadan. Sentsov and Kolchenko were kept in a Moscow pretrial detention center, tried in Rostov, they were then taken to the Ural up till the Russian Arctic. Together they traveled almost 20 thousand kilometers which makes it half the way around the globe...

Oleg Sentsov. Source: UCC