Paul Goble
Staunton, July 11 – A Russian court announced
yesterday that it would decide on July 31 about the possible release of Yevgeny
Vitishko from prison camp, an announcement that has given rise to cautious
optimism among his colleagues at the Ecological Watch on the North Caucasus.
The Kirsanov district court in
Tambov made its decision after lawyers for Vitishko applied with letters of
support from the Ecological Watch, the World Wildlife Foundation of Russia, the
Bellona Environmental Defense Center, and Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov (bellona.ru/articles_ru/articles_2015/1436536633.6).
The same court on April 15 had
rejected an application by Vitishko’s attorneys for his release, but now, a
provision of the criminal code which allows the release of those in prison
after a third of their sentences on the basis of a pledge not to change their place
of residence without permission and to be at home at night could apply.
One of the reasons the court may
have taken a more lenient position yesterday was that the head of the prison
camp where Vitishko is confined told the court that the violations of camp
discipline the ecologist is charged with may have been the result of “inattention”
and were in any case “not all that serious.”
Vitishko, it will be recalled, was
given a suspended sentence of three years for his exposure of official
malfeasance in the run-up to the Sochi Olympiad. That did not deter him from continuing his
activities, and on the eve of the Games, his conditional sentence was replaed
with a real one.
Since that time, he has been active
in defending the rights of prisoners, but in May, he told visitors that he was
not sure he could stand another year in the camps. His colleague, Suren
Gazaryan, was forced to flee when new charges were brought against him. In
2013, the EWNC activist was given political asylum in Estonia.
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