A couple of weeks ago, a military court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don sentenced a Ukrainian film director to 20 years in a maximum-security prison after convicting him of terrorism. In the hours after the verdict, small groups of people went out to protest in front of Russian consulates and embassies in several countries.
Oleg Sentsov was arrested in May last year in Crimea, which had been annexed by Putin's Russia less than two months earlier. He was accused of organizing arson attacks on two pro-Kremlin organizations in Crimea and of planning to bomb a Soviet-era monument. Two of Mr Senstov’s alleged accomplices pleaded guilty in exchange for leniency – they were sentenced to seven years each – and testified against him.
Mr Sentsov denied any connections to the arson attacks or any plans to destroy monuments. He rejected the prosecution’s claim that he is affiliated with right-wing political groups. He also testified that he had been tortured while in police custody.
Two factors make Mr Senstov’s sentence, which is very harsh even by Russian standards, particularly significant. First, Mr Senstov is a citizen of another country, and he was arrested in what most of the world considers as being Ukrainian, not Russian, territory. Second, what made him a terrorist in the eyes of the Russian military court apparently was the symbolism of his alleged crimes: he was accused of targeting a monument to Lenin, effectively a stand-in for the Russian state.
Maria Alyokhina, a member of Pussy Riot who served nearly two years in prison, was shocked by the Senstov verdict. On her Facebook page she wrote: “He will spend not two autumns behind a prison fence but twenty followed by as many winters. But alas, this is Putin... this is Russia... HIS Russia, and what he says goes.”
Simply incredible! Two decades in jail for alleged crimes committed against inanimate objects. Unbelievable but true! All that we can do is silently shout profanities at the indifferent facades of Russian consulates.
Jos Edmond Zarb
Birkirkara