YABLOKO’s Evnegy Vitishko and Suren Gazaryan was nothing political in the Evgeny Vitishko case”.

A criminal case of the so-called “damage to the fence” at the country cottage of Alexander Tkachyov, Governor of the Krasnodar Region, was filed against YABLOKO’s environmentalists Evnegy Vitishko and Suren Gazaryan for the their fight to return public lands seized in private property back to the people.

In 2011 the activists held a public inspection of the forest and public lands where the Governor’s cottage was situated despite the fact that the lands were registered as public. They spray painted “Alexander is a thief”, “This is our forest” and “This is our land” on the fence.

In June 2012 Vitishko and Gazaryan were sentenced to three years of probation. Gazaryan had to emigrate because of reprisals, but Vitishko stayed in Russia.

Before the Sochi Olympics Vitishko was harassed by police on different pretexts up to alleged “swearing at the bus stop”. The latter pretext served as a basis for his imprisonment for 15 days. Vitishko was arrested on February 3 on the very day when the Olympic torch had to arrive to Sochi. His appeal against the verdict of the court on probation had to be considered on February 22. Instead, a several minute trial took place on February 12 and the court replaced probation by a real three year imprisonment term.

After examination of the case Amnesty International recognized Vitishko be a political prisoner. Vitishko is recognized political prisoner by many Western politicians, such as Guy Verhofstadt, head of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament, and other politicians. Prime Minister of Norway also expressed her concern.

The reaction of the IOC was controversial: first they requested the file on the Vitishko case from the Russian authorities, but in 24 hours after a consultation with the Russian representatives the IOC spokesman issued a statement that IOC did not regard the case of Vitishko be political.