During a press conference in Kiev, Tuesday, October 16, cousin to the film director Ukrainian Oleg Sentsov, imprisoned in Russia, which has recently put an end to his hunger strike for 145 days, was alarmed of the risk that he is liable not to survive after this long period of deprivation. The prison administration of the Russian region, which is imprisoned Oleg Sentsov, however, said, Tuesday, in a press release that his state of health “has not deteriorated” and that he was not in intensive care.
” give up hunger strike is a process that is quite complicated. Nobody can say at the moment that Oleg is going to get out of it. The situation is very, very serious, ” assured Natalia Kaplan. The health of Mr. Sentsov, 42 years old, was “severely challenged” by his hunger strike, said Ms Kaplan. “Almost all his organs have been severely affected,” she continued, referring to problems of liver, heart and brain. “Her last letters are quite pessimistic,” she said, noting that the filmmaker ” wrote a testament where he asked not to abandon his children “.
Twenty years in prison
Oleg Sentsov, a native of the peninsula of Ukrainian Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, is imprisoned in the penal colony Russian Labytnangui, beyond the arctic circle. Arrested at home in may 2014, this father of two children was sentenced in August 2015 to twenty years in prison for “terrorism” and “illicit arms trafficking” in the outcome of a trial called “stalinist” by the NGO Amnesty International.
He had begun a hunger strike to obtain the release of all “political prisoners” ukrainians detained in Russia, before ending in early October, in order to avoid, according to him, to be force fed. Called “kamikaze” in Ukrainian, “by his attorney, who said,” ready to die “, the director had consented, however, this was to take dietary supplements intended usually to patients unable to feed themselves. The G7 countries, as well as numerous personalities of the cultural world, have called for the release of Oleg Sentsov. Russia and Ukraine are at loggerheads since the arrival to power in 2014, when pro-Western in Kiev, followed by the annexation of the Crimea and armed conflict with separatists prorusses in Ukraine, which has claimed more than 10,000 dead.
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