Press Release,01.08.2014

A well-known ecologist, political prisoner Evgeny #Vitishko serving a sentence in the Tambov penal colony settlement was sent to punitive confinement. One of the prisoners gave a phone call to the Environmental Watch on North Caucasus and told about this. According to this person, Vitishko was sent to punitive confinement yesterday evening.

Vitishko’s colleagues confirmed the information. The ecologist was sent to the punitive confident for three days for “keeping his belongings in the wrong place”.

“The colony administration settles accounts with Evgeny Vitishko. Another absurd punishment will make it possible to send Vitishko to a standard regime colony. It’s the revenge for Vitishko’s revealing human rights in the colony”, said YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin.

A new wave of reprisals against Vitishko started after Sergei Mitrokhin and human rights defenders paid him a visit on July 2. After the visit Sergei Mitrokhin made a number of publications on the situation in the colony and human rights activities of Evgeny Vitishko.

Vitishko also said that he might be sent to a punitive confinement due to endless and groundless nit-picking on behalf of the colony management.

Now the colony administration will be able to transfer Vitishko to a standard regime colony instead of a penal settlement he has been to.

Evgeny Vitishko and Suren Gazaryan are the ecologists who were charged with three years on probation for their criticism of the Governor of the Krasnodar Territory under a pretext of spray-paining on the fence of his “country house”. The environmental activists expressed their disagreement with unlawful seizure of lands and fencing of public territories in a natural reserve near the Black Sea. Suren Gazaryan left the country. On the threashold of the Sochi Olympic Games suspended sentence for Vitishko was replaced by a real term in a penal settlement.

Later Vitishko’s punishment was replaced by a real term in a penal colony settlement. Suren Gazaryan was forced to leave the country.

See also:
Sergei Mitrokhin and human rights defenders demanded to stop arbitrary treatment of Evgeny Vitishko
Court hearing on Evgeny Vitishko case postponed till August 4