Award of the Sakharov Prize 20018 to Oleg SENTSOV, Ukrainian Film Director and Political prisoner: - award ceremony in the presence of Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov's cousin and Dmitri DINZE, Sentsov's lawyer.  The following transcription is the result of an automatic process. Check Against delivery.

TAJANI, Antonio (EPP, IT)

Strasbourg

plenary session

ceremony

Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought 2018 (T)

SENTSOV, Oleg (UA)

Award of the Sakharov Prize 20018 to Oleg SENTSOV, Ukrainian Film Director and Political prisoner. Statement by Natalia KAPLAN, cousin of Oleg Sentsov (12:20 - 12:34)

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN,  Sentsov&apos;s cousin, Ladies and gentlemen, I am Natalia Kaplan and I'm a cousin of the Ukrainian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov. First of all here is a film director and a man with a capital M. He was an economist but he never did any business as a young man. He was enthusiastic about cyber sports and all the time was reproached that computer games is not very serious and he should start thinking about something else. But he started making his living playing games. Bought a computer club and organized a team of cyber sportsmen

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , But slowly he started retreating from this sport and watching more and more films and then he understood that he had a lot to say and should start making movies. We became friends when Oleg was an adult. We both were adults his first short film "The Perfect Day for banana fish" he filmed with his daughter Lena playing one of the characters. Oleg called this film educational and I just wanted to learn the process of making films and showed it only to his inner circle. He was a very goal oriented person with an acute sense of justice.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , He made his first film without any education experience any connections of budgets and his first film game he financed himself and finance funding was insufficient. But he succeeded to organize the whole process based on the enthusiast and many of his professional colleagues looked at him like yet another gruff a maniac and nobody believed that he would make a good movie. As a result he traveled, he made the tour of the world and cinematographists perceived him as a full fledged colleague.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , In 2013 he started to work on his second film Rhinoceros and the casting was done and he was planning to start filming. But the work was halted as a result of the events on Maiden practically from the first days of Maiden, he joined the autumn Maidan the activists who were bringing food, medical supplies and done necessary supplies to Maiden by car and blocked the roads. Oleg was an office manager. He was in charge of logistics in Maiden.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , He coordinated people, directed to everybody and he was perceived as a very good organizer by the people united by a common idea. At that time we started communicating with Oleg much more often. He had no doubts in the victory of the activists. Then he went back to his native Crimea but he couldn't relax there. Little green men appeared on the peninsula and he once again joined the resistance and Oleg started bringing food, medical supplies and water to the Ukrainian resistance. hen the little green man allowed Ukrainian military leave Crimea, he organized their leave

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN,  Sentsov&apos;s cousin , In March 2014 Russia applauded Putin praising him for the annexation of Crimea and Ukraine was counting its deads and disappeared other time and their oppressive machines started operating in Crimea too as well orchestrating and it works well on all occupied territories inside Russia and especially in Chechnya

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , In April 2014 an anti-terrorist department was created in Crimea. As there is a department there should be terrorists. And Russian law enforcement bodies started catching so-called terrorists in order to earn a new star on their epaulets and on the 10th of May, FSB people entered Oleg's apartment, only his 11 year old daughter Lena was there. Then they search his apartment, they confiscated train tickets Simferopol - Kiev and back, also a list with a poem in Ukrainian as well as DVD discs on usual fascism and the history of the Third Reich and color and thus they were trying to prove that he is a fascist and maybe has Nazi opinions.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , The FSB alleged that Oleg had been involved with Ukraine an organization the Right Sector. It was this organization that Russian propaganda used as a horror story of Ukrainians telling how they would destroy the Russians. The irony is that all it himself is a Russians began and considers himself to be a Russian. In the same case three more people were detained: Historian Aleksey Cherny, a photographer and lawyer Nadia Savchenko, a left wing activist member of the environmental movement in the Crimea antifascist Alexander Kolchenko.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin, They testified against all. They were tortured beaten threatened with violence. Oleg Sentsov was also tortured. The official documents indicated that he was detained on May 11th. Actually it happened on May 10th for a whole day. The FSB officers tried to beat the testimony out of him against the Ukrainian authorities against other people when Sentsov refused, he was told then they would make him the organizer of a terrorist cell and that he would go to a prison camp for 20 years.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , Oleg refused and that was the sentence he was give. A trial for Nazi recanted his testimony stating that he had given them under torture. But the court did not investigate the statement in fact ignoring the crime. It was also the case with some soft testimony. He repeatedly claimed that he had been tortured and told what they had done to him he'd been beaten choked with a package threatened with rape with the police baton. But the torture case was never open. The answer came that the Sentsov's traces of beatings was a result of sado masochistic inclinations.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , After his arrest they couldn't find him anywhere for two weeks. The hired lawyer is trying to gain access to him but they were hiding him saying that he was in transit or in another pretrial prison and all the time while he's been in custody Ukrainian consuls could not be allowed to visit him because he was a Russian citizen allegedly after the occupation. He did not renounce his Russian citizenship under the official procedure and automatically became a Russian citizen.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , Sentsov himself says I am not a slave. I can not be transferred with the earth. I was and remain a citizen of Ukraine. There is no Russian passport in the criminal case although Oleg was repeatedly forced to get it only before being sent to the colony in your court to the north of Russia the Ukrainian consuls were admitted to elect it will happen just once in your year which is nine thousand kilometers away from his native Crimea. He was kept for a year. He was killed hidden away from his relatives from any possibility of visiting him. Actually Oleg didn't want his relatives to visit him either because it would have been really difficult for him morally.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , After the Pussy Riot action which they held in Yakudia, Oleg was promptly transferred to the Arctic Circle to the city of Lubbock . And at the moment Oleg is one of the most northern prisons in the world. This is a strict regime colony on the small peninsula to send a Southerner to the Arctic is a separate torture. Very soon all Oleg began to lose hair. His tears began to crumble but Oleg is a person who cannot give up and just sit quietly.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , He is a fighter by nature and the only method for the fight that he saw was a hunger strike. On May 14 2018 he declared a hunger strike. He agreed to stop it only when all the Ukrainian political prisoners would be released from Russian prisons and prisons in the occupied Crimea. And by the most conservative estimates that amounted to 79 people.  During his hunger strike, Oleg already undermined health began to deteriorate rapidly.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , If his relatives feared for his life and knowing who Oleg is, they understood that it was impossible to convince him he would go to the very end to the deadly end all his internal organs suffered the liver had enlarged the kidneys almost refused and there is a problem with intestines and the stomach the internal organs did not receive enough oxygen. Hypoxia began and the effects reached the brain. In order to avoid forced feeding, Oleg agreed to medical maintenance but his condition was still worsening every day.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin , On October 5 after 145 days of his hunger strike, Sentsov announced its termination. The reason was the statement of the scene officers about the use of force feeding to him. Oleg understood that the hunger strike would stop anyway. But he had a choice to be tortured again, to lie fetid with a tube stuck in his nose or to stop his own in order to avoid additional suffering. He chose the second option .

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin, During all the four one hundred forty five days not a single Ukrainian political prisoner had been released. But this doesn't mean that Oleg lost thanks to his act repressions from Russia, the whole world spoke about repressions from Russia and Oleg drew great attention to the topic of Ukrainian political prisoners and that's his victory. Especially for this occasion He wrote an appeal an address to everyone here. Now I will read it for you.

SOUNDBITE (Russian),  Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin On behalf of Oleg SENTSOV, Ladies and gentlemen I can not be present in this room right now but you can hear my words. Even if someone else is saying them the word is the main tool of a person and often his only tool especially when everything else has been taken from him. In a word you can exert pure you can make you can save and you can kill by commanding fire. There are people whose words mean a lot. There are people vested with power and opportunities but they use the power of their words in different ways. 

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN,  Sentsov&apos;s cousin On behalf of Oleg SENTSOV, You can call to acceptance surrender but on the contrary you can also call for resistance and fight even when there is no chance to survive. But there is only a chance to die. But it is not so important how long you lived but how. No matter when you die. More important is how and for what you can be a simple farmer. Up to 18 years old and then in your own words raise up a whole country to resist accept humiliation and martyrdom and then stay forever in history under the name of John.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN, Sentsov&apos;s cousin On behalf of Oleg SENTSOV, And you can live a bloody ruler to a ripe old age. Tirelessly uttering a flood of false words that your people would supposedly admire and the world leaders would even shake hands with you not wanting to quarrel with you but after your death your name will be damned right there and the word Bokassa will become a household word and not one. My identity is often not fair. History is always fair. Over time everything falls into place and is echoed by its proper names.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia KAPLAN,  Sentsov&apos;s cousin On behalf of Oleg SENTSOV, And someone Russia down to the garbage heap under the curse of the liberated people along with the monuments to himself and someone who was persecuted and almost despised by us. On the contrary after death takes a worthy place in the world history and his name is given to streets ships and awards. For example Andrei Sakharov whose view we can take because for me it is a real undeserved honor to even to be compared with him. He raised the bar so high for education and talent intelligence a group education dignity and humanism and I hope that I can still I will have time to do something in order to feel that I have deserve this award. Thank you