The relevant authorities in Moscow have refused to allow a picket calling for the release of Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker whom Russia arrested after its annexation of Crimea. The picket was organized by film critic Alexei Medvedev for August 4, when the Kremlin’s most famous Ukrainian hostage will have been on hunger strike for 84 days. Despite the immediate danger to Sentsov’s life, Russia’s reaction so far to calls from all democratic countries to release him has been to lie about Sentsov’s ‘trial’, his citizenship, and to impose repressive measures against those Russians who have come out in the imprisoned filmmaker’s support.
On this occasion, Alexei Medvedev reports, the central prefecture in Moscow used a 2012 ban issued by the Basmanny District Court. Even if that court were not notorious for rubberstamping politically repressive measures, there could be no justification in using a ban imposed on a specific protest against Vladimir Putin’s third ‘presidential election’ six years earlier to prevent a peaceful picket in 2018. Medvedev has said that they will be appealing the ban.
