Natalia Kaplan, cousin of the 2018 Sakharov Prize Laureate Oleg Sentsov, shares her views about the situation of Sentsov, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Strasbourg

interview

Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought 2018 (T)

SENTSOV, Oleg (UA)

Award of the Sakharov Prize 2018 to Oleg SENTSOV, Ukrainian Film Director and Political prisoner: interview of Natalia KAPLAN, Oleg Sentsov's cousin

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia Kaplan, Cousin of Oleg Sentsov, The speech of Oleg will be read out by me at the ceremony of the award. But as far as Oleg himself is concerned he wants to be freed. But also he wants the other political prisoners to be freed and that was the purpose of his hunger strike. Unfortunately during the hunger strike nobody was released. But this doesn't mean that he lost his fight. He, he's done a lot. He's drawn the attention to the theme of political prisoners in Russia in general and the fight has continued. This is a new phase of the fight so it involves now new people, new organizations. He organized this fight. He made it more powerful.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia Kaplan, Cousin of Oleg Sentsov, Well he is recovering slowly after the hunger strike. But we need to understand that there will be consequences for him. He is still having kidney trouble and liver trouble and heart trouble and we still don't know whether he will be able to fully recover, considering that he is still in the colony. That this facility in and near the North Pole beyond the Arctic Circle. So we still don't know how serious the damage to his health has been.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia Kaplan, Cousin of Oleg Sentsov, Well look who could review this case? We lost all of their trials in Russia. We now have the European Court for Human Rights ahead of us. And that's it for us. But to be honest I don't believe that the European Court on Human Rights can really get Oleg released. There needs to be other mechanisms. Political mechanisms first of all because he's a political prisoner. If this could be resolved legally he would not be spending a day in jail. But unfortunately as we can see Ukrainian political prisoners are more and more in number and these are the captured sailors. And there are prosecutions in Crimea that have been unfolding since 2014 and has been increasing. So unfortunately for now we have nothing to be overjoyed about. But I can say that the prize and the situation around it, I hope it will help to change the situation and people will start to come out from prisons.

SOUNDBITE (Russian), Natalia Kaplan, Cousin of Oleg Sentsov, Yes. The people in Ukraine know about the Sakharov Prize because this is at international level. Everyone is interested in this. And of course they are thankful for the support with regard to the political circles, well of course Ukraine is taking lot of effort to ensure the release of its citizens. But as we can see Ukraine cannot handle it alone because the aggressor is very serious. They are armed. And Ukraine needs help including the release of its political prisoners.