Ombudsman failed to persuade Vitishko to stop hunger strike

The administration of the colony-settlement in the Tambov Region ignores the official notification of the Krasnodar environmental activist Evgeny Vitishko about his hunger strike and sends him to hard work, said Elena Shmakova, his civil wife. The Regional Ombudsman has assessed Vitishko's condition as satisfactory and said that the ecologists had no complaints about his conditions in the colony.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 20 it became known that the prosecutor's office had challenged the court judgement on Vitishko's leniency. The consideration of the prosecutor's appeal presentation may take more than two weeks, said the advocate of the ecologist. In protest, on November 24, Vitishko went on his second hunger strike in the colony.

Vitishko continues his hunger strike, Elena Shmakova announced on November 30. Besides, as she said, Evgeny continues working hard along with other prisoners, and does not intend to stop his protest.

Vladimir Repin, the Ombudsman for the Tambov Region, has visited Vitishko in the colony and asked him to stop the hunger strike, because "the appeal presentation of the Prosecutor's Office of the Tambov Region, because of which the ecologist was not released on November 21, is a formal necessity." Repin believes that the above appeal presentation has no political overtones.

Sergey Loktev, a Vitishko's advocate, says that prosecutors found a reason to leave Vitishko in colony, because his speech had been announced at the Civil Forum in Moscow on November 21-22.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.