Press release, 22.12.2015

Today the Tambov regional court has made the decision to commute the sentence to Evgeny Vitishko, environmentalist and YABLOKO member. Imprisonment was replaced with custodial restraint according to the place of Vitishko’s residence, which means he will return home and stay their until the end of the detention period under supervision.

The Tambov regional court satisfied the motion of the prosecution on the decision of the Kirsanovsky district court. In November the Kirsanovsky court commuted the sentence to Vitishko, but did not declare where exactly Vitishko must live. The prosecutor asked the appeals instance to do it. The documents giving evidence that Vitishko has a domicile in Tuapse were brought to the regional court and the court decided that Vitishko will spend the rest part of the term there.

Vitishko refused to participate in the court session, therefore he could not be released in the court room. According to the criminal procedure code, the court decision must be immediately transferred to the colony and enforsed. Vitishko’s lawyer Sergei Loktev supposed that it would be done today.

YABLOKO Chairperson Emilia Slabunova, former Chairman Sergei Mitrokhin and the party founder Grigory Yavlinsky congratulated him on being released.

“I am really glad to learn this news. It is a big victory for the whole civil society, for everyone who struggled to release Evgeny Vitishko”, said Sergei Mitrokhin.
Earlier the Kirsanovsky court decided to replace Vitishko’s colony settlement imprisonment with a supervised release. However, the Public Prosecutor’s Office challenged this decision. 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. But for the prosecution’s initiative, Vitishko would have been released on November 21.

On November 23, Vitishko announced a hunger strike as a sign of protest against
the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Tambov region.
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.