Canada calls on Russia to release Sentsov

09:44, 22.08.2018 1 min read

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is concerned about the state of health of Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, who is on a 100th day hunger strike in the colony in Labytnangi (Russia), and calls on Russia to release him.

"Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov has been on a hunger strike for 100 days now, calling on Russia to release Ukrainian political prisoners. Canada is very concerned about his condition. We call on Russia to free him. #FreeSentsov," she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

The North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don ruled in August 2015 to sentence Sentsov, who was detained in Crimea in 2014, to 20 years in a high-security penitentiary for plotting a terrorist attack there.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike on May 14, 2018 to demand that all Ukrainians held in Russia "on political motives" be freed. Sentsov's relatives said that his condition had seriously deteriorated.