Subscribe to #LetMyPeopleGo newsletter and help Kremlin’s Ukrainian hostages
Euromaidan Press has launched a weekly newsletter to raise the global awareness of the systemic human rights violations the Kremlin regime commits against the citizens of Ukraine. It aims to mobilize the efforts of activists, diplomats, opinion makers, media, and all the non-indifferent people around the world to speed up the liberation of dozens Ukrainian political prisoners held in Russia and occupied Crimea.
We ask you to sign up now (the form is in the right column of this page) to receive all the major updates regarding the fates of Ukrainian hostages of the Kremlin, as well as the options of helping them and their families.
The first newsletter (12 September 2017) is available here. The next issues will be also published on our website.
Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine is entering its fourth year. One of its consequences, apart from >10,000 people killed, is a plethora of political prisoners. To date, at least 44 (perhaps nearly 50) Ukrainians are illegally imprisoned by Russia on political motives, and this number keeps rising. Some of them are well-known, like the filmmaker Oleg Sentsov (and now-released pilot Nadiya Savchenko), others are less so. Many were brutally tortured to extort “confessions.” All of them are instruments of Russia’s war against Ukraine. All were jailed for no reason and are victims of injustice.
Euromaidan Press has followed their fates since 2015 within the #LetMyPeopleGo human rights advocacy campaign. Now, we are launching a newsletter to further engage and connect people interested in their release.
With over 10,000 people killed, and over a million displaced as a result of Russia’s war, why should we care about a few dozen people in Russian jails, even if wrongfully imprisoned?
That is a legitimate question to ask. One reason is that these prisoners are instruments of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine – they are victims fed into Russia’s propaganda machine which needs living “proof” of Ukraine’s supposed treacherous acts against Russia. State-controlled TV feeds churns out these stories to the Russian populace, which in its turn generates inter-ethnic hatred, fuels the Russian war against Ukraine in Donbas, and cements Putin’s ratings as a strong leader. Another is that Russia uses show trials against Crimean Tatars, the indigenous population of the Crimean peninsula who resisted its occupation by Russia in 2014, to terrorize and intimidate the people who dare stand up to those who oppose it.
Read and watch the video: Why is the Kremlin taking Ukrainian political hostages?
Also, if aggressors are unopposed, their lawlessness will grow – we see this in the ever-rising list of Ukrainian hostages, which is now hard to keep track of. Ukraine is not the only “enemy” Russians are being shown on TV. Citizens of any country could be captured in Russia – or even Belarus – next, and shown on TV “confessing” to devious “plots” against Russia and being sentenced to decades in prison.
Finally, being sentenced to decades in prison for no crime is terrible, and international pressure is the only thing which can release the innocent. As Robert Wendling, a former political prisoner of the East German communist regime, who organizes a vigil for #LetMyPeopleGo prisoners, told us:
“It is hard to be in prison especially when you are not guilty. Persons who are captured for political reasons need support. As long as people outside show that the prisoner is not forgotten, the hope stays alive.”
As long as there are people who stand up for justice, humanity has a chance. There must be a strong international signal to Russia that it must stop imprisoning Ukrainians now.
Subscribe to the newsletter now and demand Russia: Let Ukrainian hostages go home!
