Press release, 17.12.2014

The Netherlands Amnesty International conducted a letter writing marathon on December 10. About a thousand citizens of the Netherlands sent letters of support to prisons of the USA, China, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Russia, to the environmentalist Evgeny Vitishko.

In 2014 Amnesty International announced Evgeny Vitishko a prisoner of conscience and declared that he should be released immediately.

The letter writing marathon is a special Amnesty International’s event when people from all over the world unite to sent letters and help people whose human rights are under attack.

The activist of the Sochi branch of YABLOKO, Evgeny Vitishko’s colleague Olga Noskovets arrived to support the action. The level of civil activity expressed by people of different age, sex and political views surprised me a lot. The all understand that in a civilized world there should be no political prisoners. Many of them asked me about the political situation in Russia and wether we had political forces which would be able to achieve legal state.

Some of them took interest in YABLOKO’s programme booklets and asked about the activities of our party. I was glad to find support and understanding of behalf of the Dutch. For now several hundred people more learned about political prisoner Evgeny Vitishko.

Olga Noskovets

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.