The case of Ukrainian film director, writer, and activist Oleg Sentsov, subjected to a sham trial in Russia and held there as a political prisoner for over three years, has inspired a variety of artistic performances in Ukraine and Europe.
Now the campaign to free Sentsov, whom human rights organization Memorial has declared a political prisoner, has crossed the Atlantic to the United States.
PEN America, a U.S. part of an international association of writers that promotes literature and defends freedom of expression around the world, gave its 2017 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to Sentsov in April.
And on Aug. 25, the second anniversary of Sentsov’s sentencing by a Russian military court, PEN America hosted a public performance called “Distant Lives, Forbidden Voices,” on the green-flanked walkways of the High Line, a New York city park built atop an abandoned railway line.
A letter from Sentsov smuggled from a Siberian prison was read aloud, along with poems and prose from other jailed dissident writers – Aslı Erdoğan from Turkey, Liu Xia from China, Yndamiro Restano Díaz from Cuba, Ashraf Fayadh from Saudi Arabia.
The voice of Simferopol-born Jewish-American actress Yelena Shmulenson trembled as she read out Sentsov’s letter to PEN America on an open-air stage in the New York park.
“Prison is the meat grinder of human destinies, having fallen into which you stop believing in justice, but don’t stop fighting for it,” Sentsov’s letter read.
This was one of several events planned by PEN America in order to bring Sentsov’s case to attention in the United States, amid increased interest in Russia in the West.
“While Sentsov’s case has been resonant in Ukraine and Europe, the American public has heard little of it,” says Polina Kovaleva, Free Expression Programs Manager – Eurasia at PEN America.
An ethnic Russian and native of Crimea, the prominent writer and filmmaker Sentsov has become a symbol of post-Maidan Ukraine. He participated in the EuroMaidan protests, which resulted in the ousting of corrupt former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. He later helped to deliver food to Ukrainian soldiers besieged in their bases by Russian forces during the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.
He was arrested by the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea in May 2014 on terrorism charges. Fifteen months later, in August 2015, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Russian Military Court in Northern Caucasus following a sham trial that featured falsified evidence, torture, and the violation of international law.
“I won’t ask you for anything (…). Everything is clear to everyone. The court of occupants can’t be fair per se. It’s nothing personal, Your Honor,” were the last words Sentsov said before he was taken to a prison in Yakutsk, dubbed the coldest place on earth.
There has been little news about Sentsov of late. Reportedly, he was moved from Yakutsk prison to another Siberian city, Irkutsk, about two weeks ago.
“It is hard to draw attention to the case where nothing is happening. In Oleg’s case there has been no progress,” says Kovaleva. “At the same time, it is a milestone event when, after three years, the United States joins the club of advocates for his release.”
The goal is to set Sentsov free through raising awareness among the Americans about Ukrainian hostages in Russia and increasing pressure on Russia at the government level, she said.
“Sentsov’s case is extraordinary for many reasons.”
In a sense, it transcends the issue of Russia’s war against Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. Sentsov has become a target of the Kremlin’s internal crackdown on culture and free expression. This puts him alongside artist Petr Pavlensky, film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov, and many others whom the Kremlin considers dissidents, and which it has put on trial or sent to jail.
Hollywood stars Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp have already joined the cause, posing with placards reading “Free Sentsov.” Sentsov’s story is one of the main themes of the Belarus Free Theater’s “Burning Doors” production, which will soon premier in the United States, starring Pussy Riot’s Maria Alekhina – another victim of Putin’s regime. Moreover, a new project, “Artists at Risk Connection,” was launched by PEN America recently as a platform to help oppressed artists around the world.
Russian artistic and literary circles also expressed strong support for Sentsov in the “Russia’s Strident Stifling of Free Speech” report, which was released this week following the 83rd International PEN Club Congress held on Sept. 17-24 in Lviv. It was co-written by PEN International and the Free Word Association, established by former members of PEN Russia who quit after an internal rift over political disagreements.
Besides Sentsov, the report lists 14 other Russia critics from Ukraine and occupied Crimea – journalists and activists convicted by Russian courts on bogus charges of separatism or extremism.
Over the last two weeks, news came that RFE/RL journalist in Crimea Mykola Semena had been given a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence, while Ilmi Umerov, the former deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar representative body the Mejlis, was sentenced to two years in a penal colony.
As the Kremlin’s abuses of human rights in occupied Crimea and stifling of freedom of expression in Russia continues, so does the fight for political prisoners and persecuted dissidents – even if there’s no visible progress, as in Sentsov’s case, said Kovaleva of PEN America.
“There is no recipe for counteraction against oppressive states to release political prisoners,” said Kovaleva. “In Russia, everything depends on the mood of one person.”
She said that Sentsov could be pardoned by Putin, as was former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose amnesty coincided with the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
“We don’t know whether we will succeed or not,” said Kovaleva. “But it is absolutely true that all human rights organizations have to join efforts and continue campaigning for Oleg Sentsov’s release.”
