In his remarks and comments Ukrainian MP Mustafa Nayyem emphasized that Oleh Sentsov is a purely artist and he has never been affiliated with government, military or political organizations and he was repressed and abused for the sole reason – public declared dissent with the attempted annexation and occupation of Crimea. The trial against Oleh Sentsov was done as if he were Russian citizen, whom he never were, that speaks of forceful adoption of Oleh to Russian citizenship which is the gross violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949 year. Ukrainian MP draw attention of American public to the initiative of amending “Magnitsky List” by the list of Russian officials engaged to the fabrication case against Oleh Sentsov and other cases against Ukrainians illegally detained in Russian prisons. Mustafa Nayeem has pointed out that the non-governmental organizations should take a lead in this process and praised the contribution of PEN America. He also highly praised efforts of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and his special envoy for peaceful settlement in Donbas Iryna Gerashchenko. With regard to sanctions against Russia issue Nayyem called everybody to refresh memory on the reasons of applying those sanctions, that Russia attacked Ukraine not vice versa.
Cousin of Oleh Sentsov and journalist Natalia Kaplan called for pressure on Russia on all levels. Natalia Kaplan has informed on total isolation of Oleh Sentsov in the place of his imprisonment in very tough region of Russia – Yakutia, restriction of access to him of Ukrainian consuls, not receiving by Oleh correspondence addressed to him.
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group member Halya Koynash spoke about possible international legal tools of pressure on Russia to release Oleh Sentsov.
During the event the panelists draw attention to the new wave of repressions in Crimea against Crimean Tatars within the new fake case of “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, criminally persecuting people by Russian authorities for public dissent with the occupation of Crimea.