Crimean political prisoner Iryna Danylovych honored with “Stories of Injustice Award 2025” in Prague

On November 3, in Prague, the Czech human rights organization People in Need presented the “Stories of Injustice Award 2025” to Iryna Danylovych, a journalist, human rights defender, and nurse from occupied Crimea who has been unjustly imprisoned by Russian authorities. The award was accepted on her behalf by Tetiana Pechonchyk, Head of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA.

“I’ve known Iryna for a long time,” said Pechonchyk during the ceremony. “We met after Russia occupied Crimea. While working as a nurse, Iryna became involved in journalism and human rights advocacy. In her free time, she reported on healthcare issues and the provision of medical services to Crimean residents, and she attended trials of political prisoners. For this, she was sentenced to seven years in prison on fabricated charges. She is now held in Women’s Penal Colony No. 7 in Zelenokumsk, Stavropol region of Russia.“

Pechonchyk described inhumane detention conditions reminiscent of Soviet-era labor camps. Danylovych lives in a poorly heated barrack with 120 women, where ice forms on the walls in winter and drinking water is sometimes contaminated. Food portions are small, and prisoners face systematic abuse, including hours of forced standing in bad weather, loud music as punishment, and confiscation of family parcels. Reports also indicate physical violence, including the recent beating of a woman with a disability.

Medical neglect is deliberate. Iryna suffers from migraines and constant ear pain due to untreated health issues that began in custody. She lost hearing in one ear because of detention conditions and has not received any efficient treatment. Danylovych has served roughly half of her six-year, eleven-month sentence, including 15 months in pretrial detention. Her release date is projected for August 29, 2028, but she has said she does not believe she will survive that long under current conditions.

Despite her suffering, Iryna’s words — read aloud at the ceremony — were a powerful call to conscience:

“Every moment I feel pain. Physical, aching, unbearable pain. Every sharp sound is like a hammer blow straight to the brain. No treatment. No chance that it will pass anytime soon. Unless a new stroke simply kills me, and it will all finally end.

But even more acute than physical pain is the feeling of helplessness. Both my own and that of the entire free world.

Not so long ago, violations of freedom of speech seemed unthinkable. Now, in Crimea, not a single extra word can be spoken. Abductions, torture, the imprisonment of mothers — all of this has become ordinary.

What next? Execution cellars? Gas chambers? Once unthinkable, now imaginable.

And the world’s response? Concern. Then deep concern. Then strong condemnation — followed by calls to ‘be realistic’. That means to forget, to abandon millions of people taken hostage by unpunished maniacs.

Difficult times require decisive action, not concern. The united position of the European community can change this cynical rhetoric. I urge you not to be ‘realistic’, but to demand more.“

The case of Iryna Danylovych has become a symbol of the persecution faced by journalists and human rights defenders in the occupied territories of Ukraine. We call for her immediate release and demand that Russia provide urgent medical care and stop the inhumane treatment of all political prisoners.