Sentenced to 12 years in a Russian prison on politically motivated charges, Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko is now facing more abuse: he has been placed in a disciplinary segregation cell and his rights are being violated, according to Liudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner.
“Prison officers are forcing Roman to wake up earlier than all other prisoners — at five o’clock in the morning — and are seizing his bedding,” Denisova wrote in a Dec. 29 post on Facebook. “This inhuman treatment of Roman is happening on the eve of the New Year holidays.”
After learning of the mistreatment, Denisova immediately appealed to her Russian counterpart, Tatiana Moskalkova, to investigate and take steps to ensure Sushchenko’s rights are respected, the Ukrinform news agency reported.
A Paris-based correspondent for Ukrinform, Sushchenko traveled to Moscow on what he described as a private trip over two years ago and was detained after arriving on Sept. 30, 2016. Until three days after Sushchenko was taken into custody, neither his wife, his employer, nor the Ukrainian Embassy were aware that he had been arrested.
His arrest was only discovered when members of the Moscow branch of the Public Monitoring Committee, a Russian regional agency the monitors human rights in prison, accidentally found Sushchenko in the Lefortovo detention center during a routine inspection. A week later, Sushchenko was accused of spying for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, claimed that Sushchenko had purposefully collected information about the activities of the country’s National Guard, considered a state secret. The Ukrainian journalist denied the allegation.
On June 4, 2018, a Moscow city court sentenced Sushchenko to 12 years in prison. Three months later, on Sept. 12, the Supreme Court of Russia upheld the verdict.
Currently, Sushchenko is incarcerated in a high-security penal colony in Russia’s Kirov region, almost 800 kilometers from Moscow. The journalist shared his observations of life inside the prison in a letter to Ukrinform, publicly released on Dec. 17.
“I had to endure culture shock, which was primarily connected not with conditions and ‘charms’ of forced displacement (the convoy wagon, unsanitary conditions, cockroaches the size of a matchbox, ubiquitous rodents of all kinds, mold, moisture, impenetrable darkness, malnutrition and cold), but with the attitude toward people who have had their social status changed by a court decision,” Sushchenko wrote.
“Treatment is formal, supposedly sympathetic, but, in essence, indifferent. The dialogue…was conducted in a way that would exclude any possibility of an answer. The purpose is to intimidate, demean personal dignity, ignore any legitimate needs … Fortunately, every road has an end.”
