Photo: Photo: vk.com/e.vitishko
Did they feed voters soup?
Evgeniy Vitishko is a man of irrepressible energy who cannot imagine life without social activity. Immediately after the verdict in the “fence case”, in the fall of 2012, he ran as a candidate for deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Territory and at the same time tried to register as a candidate for the post of mayor of the city of Krymsk , in which, several months earlier, he worked as a volunteer to help local residents affected by a catastrophic flood.
He did not get into the Legislative Assembly - one of the main points of official propaganda was that the first three party candidates included two criminals - Yevgeny Vitishko and Suren Ghazaryan. Vitishko was not allowed to participate in the elections for the head of Krymsk on the absurd charge of “bribing voters” - allegedly someone fed soup to local residents on his behalf.
Under the supervision of "stompers"
After unsuccessful election campaigns, the authorities made it clear: the “greens”, by getting involved in politics, crossed the “red line”, which would be followed by inevitable reprisals. And already on the day of elections to the Legislative Assembly, the Criminal Executive Inspectorate did not like the fact that Vitishko was in the territorial election commission for too long, and not at home. Evgeniy received a similar reprimand during his attempts to register as a candidate for the post of mayor of Krymsk.
Result: The Tuapse District Court satisfies the demands of the Federal Penitentiary Service, extending the environmentalist’s suspended sentence and obliging him not to travel outside the Tuapse District without prior notification to the executive inspectorate. The activist's apartment was under surveillance - with "stompers" at the entrance, "preventative" visits by police, and regular interviews with neighbors.
Scam on the construction of the Formula 1 track
However, even these restrictions did not help to “neutralize” the ecologist’s activity. Quite the opposite: all last year, Evgeniy was actively involved in the environmental problems of the Olympic Sochi and his Tuapse region, launching a campaign to save the Black Sea rivers from sand and gravel thieves - once he even took part in a special operation of the OBEP, whose employees caught “black” gravel workers red-handed on the river Pshish.
Thanks to Vitishko, for example, a scam involving the construction of a Formula 1 race track on the territory of the Olympic Park in the Adler district of Sochi was uncovered: Evgeniy was brought in as an expert in the investigation of a criminal case involving filling the track with illegally mined gravel from the Psou River bordering Abkhazia. Vitishko brought his own drilling rig to the route, drilled holes and found out that the pebbles under the asphalt corresponded in their characteristics to those extracted from Psou.
However, the most resounding success of Vitishko’s “gravel” campaign was the liquidation of quarries on the Shakhe River in the Lazarevsky district of Sochi, where sand and gravel mixtures were mined for Olympic construction projects. Large-scale extraction of inert materials from the riverbed led to a drop in the water level in the river and groundwater in populated areas densely populated by the Shapsugs, a small indigenous ethnic group on the Black Sea coast.
Evgeny Vitishko supported the Shapsugs as best he could: he spoke at gatherings, wrote statements to law enforcement agencies, and conducted public inspections of illegal quarries. In January 2014, the Central District Court of Sochi banned the extraction of inert materials in the Shakhe riverbed, putting an end to the protracted story.
In Sochi, Evgeniy also dealt with the problems of Olympic soil dumps and construction waste, analyzed the geological consequences of the construction of the Adler-Krasnaya Polyana highway and railway, and advocated for Cape Vidny, where relict vegetation was damaged by the construction of a railway line.
As a particularly dangerous criminal
On the eve of the Olympics, someone, through the hands of the criminal-executive inspection, decided to finally “neutralize” the environmentalist. On that last day of freedom - February 3, 2014 - Vitishko, as a conditionally convicted person, came to check in at the Tuapse branch of the criminal-executive inspection of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Krasnodar Territory, and at the same time submit a notice of departure to Sochi, where foreign journalists were waiting for him.
As is known, he did not reach the Olympic capital. The police were waiting for him right at the exit from the inspection. Vitishko was detained on suspicion of “obscene language” at a public transport stop. On the same day, the magistrate court sentenced the environmentalist to 15 days of arrest under the article “petty hooliganism.”
While lawyer Alexander Popkov was running wild in search of the very stop where Evgeny Vitishko allegedly committed “hooliganism,” the Krasnodar Regional Court held a hearing on the environmentalist’s complaint against the decision of the Tuapse District Court regarding changing the penalty. The environmentalist participated in the court hearing via video link from a police detention center. The expected result is refusal to satisfy the complaint.
There was little hope that after the administrative arrest, Evgeniy would be allowed to go home for a short time to pack his things and say goodbye to his family. However, the prisoner was not released even for a minute: he was secretly taken from the special detention center to the pre-trial detention center in Krasnodar, without informing his family and friends. For about a week, nothing was known about Evgeniy’s fate, until lawyers finally found out his whereabouts. It turned out that he, as a particularly dangerous criminal, was being kept in a high-security unit, where, for example, during the investigation, thugs from Sergei Tsapok’s gang were imprisoned.
On February 18, Vitishko disappeared again - again they “forgot” to notify his relatives and lawyers about his movements. For five days nothing was known about him at all, until lawyer Marina Dubrovina found out that for some reason the convict was transferred to the Tambov region. It took another two weeks to find out that the prisoner was in quarantine at correctional colony No. 1 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Tambov Region, from where he was transferred to penal colony No. 2 in the village of Sadovyi, Kirsanovsky district, Tambov region.
The environmentalist has already been visited by his common-law wife and human rights activists, including the well-known defender of the rights of convicts Olga Romanova, leader of the Sitting Rus' movement. “Zhenya asked me to tell you that he is in a good mood and in good health. He is employed as a farm worker for 3,329 rubles. per month. He educates prisoners, helps them write complaints and all sorts of killer whales, found contact with the deputy head of the command post and now they are jointly fighting a landfill nearby,” she writes on the Sitting Rus' website.
Who is taking revenge on the environmentalist?
Helping others when you yourself are on guard, fighting environmental violations even from prison dungeons - this is all really in the character of Evgeniy Vitishko. But the main thing remains unclear: who and why needed to organize a demonstrative special operation to isolate an activist in the midst of the Olympics?
One should not think that this was done at the behest of the Kremlin, which did not at all benefit from the extra hype during the Olympics. It is unlikely that the initiator of the massacre was the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, Alexander Tkachev, the owner of the illegal fence, because of which Evgeniy Vitishko was convicted. It is beneficial for Tkachev that the “fence matter” be forgotten as soon as possible.
Who then? There is a version: big business and criminals, whom the ecologist has crossed in recent years, are settling personal scores with Zhenya. These are the “gravel” cases in Sochi and Tuapse, and a high-profile campaign against Rosneft with its Tuapse oil refinery, and the problem of a landfill in the Tuapse region, where oily waste was illegally buried for a long time - not without the participation, again, of Rosneft... More likely In total, some kind of criminal party, taking advantage of its extensive connections in the judicial system, law enforcement agencies and the opportunity, closed the “issue with Vitishko” under the Olympic “humor.”
How long it will be “closed” is still unknown. Lawyers and human rights activists place their main hopes on parole or pardon. Noting at the same time that the first option is more likely than the second. But be that as it may, the Russian “green” community needs to prepare for a long positional struggle for the release of Yevgeny Vitishko. And the phrase “all for one” in this case should be taken not as a beautiful euphemism, but as a principle of survival. After all, tomorrow any eco-activist who crosses the path of dirty business, crime, or local presumptuous officials could find themselves in the same situation.
Member of the YABLOKO party, environmentalist.
After graduating from high school, he entered the Ukhta Industrial Institute (Komi Republic), from which he graduated in 1996 with a degree in mining engineer-geologist of oil and gas. He began his work history by working as a training foreman at the Ukhta Industrial Institute. Later he worked as a technical editor at the republican newspaper “Slovo i Delo” (Syktyvkar).
In 1997 he returned to his historical homeland - the city of Slavyansk-on-Kuban. He worked in the editorial offices of the regional newspapers "Sunny House" and "The Cossack's Word", also as a technical editor.
In 1999 he moved to the city of Tuapse. He worked as the head of the group for organizing active recreation at the boarding house "Geologist of Yamala".
In 2001-2005 worked in the municipal unitary enterprise "Black Sea Resorts" - first as the head of the tourism and excursions sector, then as deputy director and acting. director.
In 2005, he worked as director of the travel company "Krost".
From 2006 to 2007 worked in the Office for Urban Planning Activities in the Tuapse District of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Administration of the Krasnodar Territory. After the publication in the regional opposition newspaper "Alternativa" of an article about the negative consequences of the unification of the city of Tuapse and the Tuapse region and the change in the status of the city of Tuapse to an urban settlement, Evgeniy Vitishko was asked to vacate his position.
In 2007-2009 worked at FSUE "Tuapseberegozaschita" as chief geologist.
In 2009, he became a co-founder and general director of the Black Sea Department of Coastal Protection and Anti-Landslide Works LLC.
Since 2008, he has been the chairman of the Tuapse public organization of scientists "Tuapse Public University", conducting scientific and educational work in the city of Tuapse. "Tuapse Public University" is the organizer of regular international scientific conferences "Volcanism, biosphere and environmental problems."
Since 2006, Evgeny Vitishko has been the chairman of the Tuapse public organization "Tuapse Public Environmental Council".
He led the Tuapse local branch of the YABLOKO party. Member of the board of the public organization "Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus".
Social activities
With the direct participation of Vitishko, in 2005, the program “Wick” was filmed on the Rossiya TV channel, telling about the pollution of the Tuapse River by Rosneft. This story took existing environmental problems in the region to a new level. As a result, Rosneft was forced to take measures to reduce the negative environmental impact of its activities in Tuapse, allocate significant funds for the cleanup and reclamation of oil-contaminated soils and the elimination of the so-called “Tuapse oil lens.”
He is one of the leaders of the public campaign against the operation of the Tuapse Bulk Terminal (TBT), and was the organizer of several mass environmental rallies held in Tuapse to protest against the TBT.
He was repeatedly subjected to repression by the authorities for his environmental activities.
For participation in February 2011 in a picnic at the dacha of Kuban Governor Alexander Tkachev in Blue Bay, Evgeny was illegally detained and arrested for 10 days on charges of disobedience to police officers.
At the XVI Congress of the YABLOKO party in September 2011. was nominated as a candidate for deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from this party.
On November 13, 2011, Evgeny Vitishko and activist of the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus, member of the YABLOKO party Suren Ghazaryan conducted a public inspection of the forest fund adjacent to the land plot owned by Alexander Tkachev on a leasehold basis. For writing inscriptions on the fence around the "Tkachev's dacha" of environmentalists, he received a suspended sentence of 3 years in prison.
On December 20, 2013, the suspended sentence was replaced by three years in prison. On February 12, 2014, the Krasnodar Regional Court upheld this decision. From March 2014 to December 2015, he served a sentence in colony-settlement No. 2 in the Tambov region.
International human rights and environmental organizations (Amnesty International, International Federation for Human Rights, Bellona) have repeatedly appealed to the Russian authorities demanding the release of Yevgeny Vitishko. Amnesty International recognized him as a "prisoner of conscience". The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed concern about Vitishko’s conviction and imprisonment in a colony. It noted that there was a suspicion that the persecution of Vitishko was connected with his environmental activities, in particular with his preparation of a report on the damage caused to the natural environment of the North Caucasus by violations during the construction of sports facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
On May 14, 2015, about 150 Russian and foreign non-profit environmental and human rights organizations sent an official appeal to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation and the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation demanding that measures be taken to immediately release Evgeniy Vitishko and stop the pressure exerted on him by prison workers.
The famous ecologist Evgeniy Vitishko is being “pressured” in the colony. For “Governor Tkachev’s dacha” or for disobedience?
A group of politicians and public figures appealed to the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, demanding an end to the persecution of Evgeniy Vitishko in the colony. Over the course of several months of imprisonment, the environmentalist was given a number of penalties and reprimands, and now he has been put in a punishment cell. Now from the colony-settlement he can be sent to a real zone. “We believe that the reason for the persecution of E. Vitishko is his human rights activities,” the appeal says. “We ask you to use your powers as director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation to restore the rights of E. Vitishko and prevent their violation in the future.” The document was signed by the chairman of the Yabloko party Sergei Mitrokhin, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council Andrei Babushkin, a member of the Scientific Advisory Council under the Prosecutor General's Office Valery Borshchev and a number of other well-known human rights activists. However, the court must reconsider his case.
Colony-settlement No. 2 is located in the Kirsanovsky district of the Tambov region. In the two-story barracks, along with Vitishko, there are another 140 prisoners. A legally literate person is worth his weight in gold here, and as soon as Evgeniy appeared, the prisoners flocked to him for consultations. The colony's leadership knows everything.
Now, after many months of conflict with the management, Evgeniy Vitishko ended up in a punishment cell - a punishment cell - a punishment cell. And it’s not just about the conditions of detention. If the prisoner has no penalties, after some time he can apply for parole. But if he ended up in a punishment cell, he will never see an early sentence. The most important thing is that after the punishment cell, the administration has the right to ask the court to transfer the prisoner from the penal colony to a general regime colony, where the conditions are more stringent. They warned Vitishko, but he didn’t listen.
Vitishko’s relationship with the leadership of the colony is like a duel: he writes statements, and he is given penalties. First, about the statements. There is a women's detachment in the colony. Evgeniy wrote to the regional prosecutor’s office that the colony staff used obscene language with the women. And then he wrote that the colony employees smoke in the wrong places.
In May, Vitishko’s LiveJournal blog posted a recording of how, in front of his eyes, FSIN officers beat prisoners. In a statement to the Russian Ombudsman Ella Pamfilova and the regional prosecutor, Vitishko states: “Some of the employees<...>in the adjacent territory of the punishment cell, convicts were beaten using special means...”
Before this, Vitishko worked as a janitor in the colony, but after being enrolled, he was transferred to more difficult work, harvesting vegetables. I had to get up at 7 am, walk several kilometers, and then work until the evening without gloves or water. Evgeniy wrote a statement to the prosecutor's office, and now prisoners are taken to work, and they are given gloves and water.
And one more thing. Recently, the chairman of the Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrokhin, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Council under the Prosecutor General’s Office, Valery Borshchev, came to visit Vitishko in the colony. Evgeniy laid out a whole bunch of problems for them: prisoners are not allowed to communicate in their national language, there are two telephone booths for 600 prisoners. The violations, according to him, are that visits according to the law can be in any quantity, and even members of the Tambov POC are not always allowed to see Vitishko.
The colony's leadership is not asleep. The first penalty was issued on April 17: regarding the transfer of an item to another convict. On June 19, the environmentalist was reprimanded for “being in a sleeping place.” On July 3, he was banned from leaving the barracks for 10 days “for negligent attitude to work.” On July 9, Vitishko received a reprimand for “storing food in an unspecified place.” Recently, colony staff filed several reports against Vitishko about “violation of internal regulations.” After this, he was placed in a punishment cell.
In 2012, Evgeniy Vitishko was convicted under Article 167, “Damage of someone else’s property.” The Tuapse District Court found that the ecologist, together with his colleague Suren Gazaryan, damaged the fence around the dacha of the Kuban governor Tkachev. But the forest was illegally fenced off.
Vitishko and Gazaryan were sentenced to 3 years in prison with a two-year probationary period. But Vitishko did not calm down. Firstly, he continued to work on Tkachev’s dacha. Secondly, he was promoted to the regional Legislative Assembly, then to the mayor of Krymsk, and then to the head of Tuapse. At the end of 2012, he was prohibited from traveling outside Tuapse without notification. And soon the inspection announced: instead of appearing on February 27, Vitishko came to them on the 28th. This was counted as a first violation. The second violation was found in November of the same year. After which the criminal-executive inspection filed a petition to the court to replace the suspended sentence with a real one. The Tuapse court granted the petition. So Vitishko was imprisoned.
“From my point of view, this is intertwined: the personal revenge of the Kuban governor and the zeal of the special services to protect the Olympics from public criticism during its holding. Vitishko was going to actively give interviews to journalists from Western media,” says Andrei Rudomakha, coordinator of the public organization “Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus.”
The Kuban prosecutor's office filed a cassation appeal with the Krasnodar Regional Court: the decision to replace the real sentence with a suspended sentence is being appealed. But the meeting did not take place on time, July 16: Vitishko petitioned for personal participation in the meeting. That is, Vitishko had to be taken to court, where there is a video link. But the colony did not do this. The review was postponed indefinitely.
Every day Evgeniy receives letters of support from all over the world. There are political prisoners for environmentalists in Russia, and the whole world now knows about it.
Our defense history is network-based. It is unknown whose actions, whose letter, whose voice can have a decisive effect and help achieve freedom for Yevgeny Vitishko.
I took the liberty of preparing something like an information sheet on this matter. If there are any corrections to the invoice, I will be grateful for your comments. You can use this information to organize support for Evgeniy.
The photo in the text is mine, it can be freely used in the media, press releases, campaigns, websites and as you see fit to protect Vitishko.
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EVGENY VITISHKO - THE FIRST PRISONER OF THE SOCHI OLYMPICS
Evgeny Vitishko, (July 3, 1973) - Russian public figure, member of the Council of Environmental Watch for the North Caucasus.
Evgeniy is married and has two children.
In 1996 he graduated from the Ukhta Industrial Institute (Komi Republic), specialty: mining engineer-geologist. Worked as a specialist in the field of bank protection and landslide prevention works.
Since 2005, he has been actively involved in public environmental activities.
Since 2006, he has been the chairman of the Tuapse public organization “Tuapse Public Environmental Council”. Since 2008, he has been the chairman of the Tuapse public organization of scientists "Tuapse Public University", conducting scientific and educational work in the city of Tuapse. Member of the Council of Environmental Watch for the North Caucasus.
Carries out active work to protect the Tuapse region and the Russian Black Sea coast in general from environmentally hazardous economic activities. Opposes the industrialization of the Tuapse region to the detriment of the resort industry, at the cost of further deterioration of the environment. He considers one of the main reasons for the critical environmental situation in Tuapse to be a complex of problems generated by the activities of enterprises of the Tuapse oil complex owned by the Rosneft company.
For many years, he has been opposing the placement, construction and operation of the Tuapse bulk terminal for transshipment of mineral fertilizers, owned by the Eurochem company. He was an organizer and participant in various protests against the activities of the Tuapse bulk terminal. A maritime protest against the launch of this terminal, which Evgeniy Vitishko held on October 30, 2011, together with the leader of the Movement in Defense of the Khimki Forest, Evgenia Chirikova, received wide publicity.
Evgeny Vitishko is one of the main initiators of the celebration of International Black Sea Day in Tuapse.
It is fighting against the illegal disposal of hazardous waste and oil sludge at the Tuapse city landfill located on Cape Kadosh.
He took part in a public investigation into the causes of the catastrophic flood in the Crimean region.
Criminal case about the fence of Tkachev’s dacha
The facts of arrests and prosecution in connection with the participation of Evgeniy Vitishko in a public campaign against the seizure of forest resources and the coastal strip for the dacha of Kuban Governor Alexander Tkachev in Golubaya Bay (near the village of Dzhubga) have become widely known. Trees listed in the Red Book grow there. For participating in a picnic at Tkachev’s dacha in February 2011, Evgeniy, along with three other activists of the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus, was detained and arrested for 10 days on charges of “disobeying the legal demands of police officers.” In 2011, together with a group of civil activists, he took part in an action near Tkachev’s dacha. Activists recorded that the fence exists - the fact is that previously the prosecutor’s office generally denied the existence of an illegal fence in the protected forest.
After this, together with the activist of the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus Suren Ghazaryan, he became one of the main defendants in the criminal case about the fence of Tkachev’s dacha. Allegedly, activists “damaged the fence with inscriptions.” There were signs on the fence stating that the forest is shared and it is illegal to steal it. The case was opened in December 2011, one of the accused “of causing ‘damage to the fence’ out of hooligan motives” was Evgeniy Vitishko. In May 2012, a trial began over Ghazaryan and Vitishko. As a result, they were sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment with a two-year probation period.
The Ecoprisoner organization recognized Evgeniy Vitishko and Suren Ghazaryan as persons “persecuted for protecting nature.” The Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners recognized him and Suren Ghazaryan as “persons persecuted for political reasons.” The Russian human rights society Memorial included Vitishko on the list of political prisoners.
In the summer of 2013, he was registered as a candidate from the YABLOKO party for the post of mayor of Tuapse. Was illegally removed from the elections.
Before the Olympics
Before the Olympics in Sochi, pressure from the FSB and other security agencies on environmental activists in the Krasnodar Territory increased. They began to be detained, surveillance was organized, telephones were tapped, and they were trying to initiate criminal cases. In early November alone, security forces carried out various types of provocations against four activists of the “Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus.”
Evgeniy Vitishko, as an important expert in research on the environmental situation in pre-Olympic Sochi, receives special attention from local authorities.
On December 20, 2013, the Tuapse court sentenced Vitishko to change his sentence (in the “fence case”) from a suspended sentence to a real sentence. The punishment was imposed despite the fact that Vitishko did not commit any criminal or administrative actions during the entire period of the suspended sentence. The initiators of the tougher punishment were local security forces.
The largest environmental and human rights organizations came out in defense of Evgeniy Vitishko: Bellona, Greenpeace, Memorial, Movement for the Defense of Himles and many others. Many support actions were carried out by local and all-Russian environmental movements and concerned citizens of the country.
Evgeny Vitishko is currently at large - he has only a few days before the final appeal in the Krasnodar court.
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