Press release, 26.11.2015
YABLOKO’s environmentalist Evgeny Vitishko announced a hunger strike as a sign of protest against the actions of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Tambov region which had challenged the court decision to commute the sentence to Vitishko.

Deputy Prosecutor Anatoly Lutov demanded that a change to the court decision must be made according to which Vitishko would not get the right to leave the city of Slavyansk-on-Cuban within one year and three months period. It is significant that the environmentalist is registered in Slavyansk-on-Cuban but hasn’t been living there for 15 years.

By law, the appeal of the public prosecution office can be considered within 30 days. We do not know how long Vitishko will be kept in the colony.

“The public prosecutor’s office used a formal pretext to settle political accounts with Vitishko. It is an outrageous breach of all limits! Evgeny Vitishko must be released,” said Sergei Mitrokhin.

The environmentalist was to participate in the All-Russian civil forum, which will take place in Moscow on November 21-22, and give a press-conference together with Andrei Babushkin.

The Kirsanovsky district court will consider Vitishko’s motion on parole on December 3.

Vitishko launched the hunger strike on November 23. It is already a second hunger strike launched by the environmentalist, he held the first one in September.

Earlier President Vladimir Putin said that the Public Prosecutor General would examine the information on violation of Evgeny Vitishko’s rights violations after Andrei Babushkin, Member of the Presidential Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, member of YABLOKO’s Bureau told Putin about them.
YABLOKO member Evgeny Vitishko is a well-known environmentalist and civil activist. In 2012 Vitishko was charged with three years on probation for criticism of Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachyov under a pretext of spray-paining on the fence of his “country house” built on the seized and fenced public lands. The environmental activist expressed his disagreement with unlawful seizure of the lands and fencing of public territories in a natural reserve near the Black Sea. At the same time, a special prosecutor’s investigation stated that no fence has ever existed at that place. On the threshold of the Sochi Olympic Games Vitishko’s suspended sentence was replaced by a real term in a penal settlement.

The YABLOKO party stood up in support of Evgeny Vitishko more than once. On Februray 18, the Day of Solidarity with Evgeny Vitishko, mass street actions took place around the world. By July 3, Vitishko’s birthday, YABLOKO turned out a batch of T-shirts in support of the environmentalist.

Both Russian and international organisations have repeatedly made statements in support of Vitishko. In 2014 Amnesty International declared Vitishko the prisoner of conscience. In March 2015, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights addressed Russia with a call to take urgent measures to protect Evgeny Vitishko’s rights and freedoms. Human Rights Watch also addressed the Russian authorities demanding to release Evgeny Vitishko. ALDE Party President Sir Graham Watson earlier this year stated that he “finds it cynical against the background of the Winter Olympics that a respected environmentalist from the Sochi region, who was protesting against the severe destruction of ecological systems in and around Sochi in connection with the Olympic games, receives such a lengthy sentence. It represents another episode in the ongoing wave of reprisals against civil society activists in Russia. Yevgeny Vitishko must be freed.” Statements in favour of the release of Vitishko were made by world and European liberals – Liberal International, the ALDE party, Norwegian Venstre, Zares, Slovenia, the Liberal Party of Moldova, Italia dei Valor and others. IOC and Olympic Committees of Norway and Sweden and Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg also asked to release Vitishko.