Oksana Senedzhuk: Ukrainian Activist is Sentenced in Temporarily Occupied Crimea. Statement of Human Rights Organizations

On December 26, 2024, the so-called Sevastopol City Court, acting in the occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, sentenced Oksana Senedzhuk, a citizen of Ukraine, Ukrainian activist, resident of Sevastopol, to 15 years of custody, with a penalty of 200,000 rubles and liberty restriction for one year.

RF FSB bodies started persecuting Ms. Senedzhuk in 2022 due to her open pro-Ukrainian position and negative statements regarding the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Since then, she had been called in for an interview several times, and on August 14, 2024, the FSB conducted a search of her home in Sevastopol and detained the activist. On August 15, 2024, so called Leninskiy District Court of City of Sevastopol passed a judgement on talking the detained in custody, and since then she has been held in Pre-Trial Detention Center no 1 of Simferopol.

Oksana Senedzuk was charged with treason under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, in particular, it was said that she had passed information on positioning of the Russian Federation Black Sea Fleet ships to Ukrainian intelligence.

Oksana Senedzhuk, aged 58, is a philologist by education, she had worked in the Sevastopol City State Administration before the occupation of the peninsula. Before 2014, she had been awarded for her work and active civic position. She actively supported EUROMAIDAN and was its participant.

We are convinced that the real reason for the detention of Oksana Senedzhuk is her political views as she publicly expressed her condemnation of the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The aggressor country continues the practice of criminal persecution of Ukrainian men and women who remain living in the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula, on trumped-up charges of treason.

We, representatives of the human rights organizations, condemn a politically reasoned persecution of Oksana Senedzhuk in the temporarily occupied Crimea due to her civic position and demand the Russian authorities to:

–        immediately release Oksana Senedzhuk, a citizen of Ukraine, and all civilians incarcerated for political reasons who are detained in places of unfreedom in the territory of AR of Crimea and city of Sevastopol, in other occupied territories of Ukraine or in the territory of the Russian Federation;

–        stop persecuting Ukrainian citizens for expressing their views on disagreement with an armed aggression of the Russian Federation;

–        stop enforcement of the Russian criminal laws in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine that violates international law norms.

We urge the competent Ukrainian governmental bodies to:

–        investigate effectively the conditions of unlawful incarceration and deprival of the right to a fair and official trial of Ms. Oksana Senedzhuk, a Ukrainian citizen;

–        impose personal sanctions on Russian citizens involved in unlawful incarceration and deprival of the right to a fair and official trial of Ms. Oksana Senedzhuk.

We apply to the governments of foreign States and international organizations, including participating countries of the Ministerial Conference on the Peace Formula Human Dimension held on October 30-31, 2024, in Montreal, and the International Crimea Platform member countries to:

–        apply to the Russian Federation competent persons demanding an immediate release of Ms. Oksana Senedzhuk;

–        introduce personal sanctions against Russian citizens involved, unlawful incarceration and deprival of the right to a fair and official trial of Ms. Oksana Senedzhuk;

–        hold international consultations to find procedures for releasing unlawfully incarcerated persons and monitoring their state of health in the Russian Federation territory;

–        increase diplomatic, sanction and other types of pressure on the Russian Federation in order to prevent new gross violations of human rights against citizens of Ukraine who are in the territory of the Russian Federation and the Russia occupied territories;

–        support the government of Ukraine in investigating war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights in the occupied Crimea and other occupied territories;

–        use the International Platform for releasing civilians unlawfully detained by the Russian Federation, in terms of implementing the fourth point of Peace Formula, the International Crimea Platform, the mechanisms of the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and other international organizations to the maximum possible extent in order to speed up the release of Crimean political prisoners, civilian hostages in the occupied territories, to respond effectively to human rights violations in the occupied Crimea and to promote the de-occupation of all territories of Ukraine;

–        further expand comprehensive, including military, support for Ukraine with the purpose of de-occupying all territories of Ukraine, including the AR of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as a necessary condition for protecting human rights and ending politically motivated persecution of Ukrainian citizens.

Crimean Human Rights Group

Media Initiative for Human Rights

Human Rights House CRIMEA CA

ZMINA Center for Human Rights

CrimeaSOS CA

Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin

DIYA Human Rights Center

Charitable Foundation “Stabilization Support Services”

Crimean Process

PLATFORM FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union

Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG)

ALMENDA Center for Civil Education

Educational Human Rights House CHERNIHIV

Center for Civil Liberties

International Partnership for Human Rights

Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center

Truth Hounds

Blue Bird