Thomas Kent, president of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty urged the Russian authorities to rescind the charges against a Crimean journalist Mykola Semena and allow him to travel to mainland Ukraine, because he needs urgent treatment. This is stated in a Radio Liberty’s statement, released in Washington on September 6.
Before that, a joint statement of the International and European journalists’ federations was published on September 2, warning that Mykola Semena suffered from a heart disease and there was a risk for him to remain incapacitated for good without immediate treatment.
The freelance columnist of Radio Liberty, who for a long time had been working as The Day’s correspondent before the occupation, has been accused by the FSB of making a public call for action to disrupt the territorial integrity of Russia. Semena is currently under house arrest.
In an interview with Den (“Shady deals favor silence,” No. 154 of August 31, 2016), lawyer Oleksandr Popkov explained: “In fact, Mykola is accused of calling for the liberation of Crimea back to Ukraine. We believe that as a citizen of Ukraine he had the right for it. According to not only international, but also Russian legislation, the territorial integrity of Russia as a subject that governs Crimea is at least a controversial issue. In the criminal law everything has to be clear, so we want to put a number of questions about it before the investigation.” He also said that in October or November the journalist’s case is to be handed over to the Russian court.
Emine Dzheppar, First Deputy Minister of Information Policy; Volodymyr Prytula, leader of the “Crimea.Realities” project; and Oleksandr Popkov, lawyer, ask to spread as widely as possible the information about the journalist Mykola Semena, persecuted by Russian Federal Security Service in the occupied Crimea, and about the need to support him.
