Moscow’s court extended the detention of Panov and Zakhtiy

On December 5, the Lefortovo court of Moscow extended to March the detention of citizens of Ukraine Andriy Zakhtiy and Evgen Panov, who are accused by Russia of preparing terrorist attacks in the annexed Crimea. 

According to the Crimean lawyer Oleksander Popkov, the trial took place behind closed doors. 

“Previously, all hearings in Zakhtiy and Panov cases were open, but now they decided to hide from journalists. Apparently, there are much more serious causes than search for accomplices. It would be the pity if all this will result in another example of poor judgment. Here, for example, are fake court decisions on Zakhtey’s hooliganism. They state that two days after they were detained by special services, both were offensive towards the citizens at the bus station in the center of Simferopol, and as a result, they supposedly were detained by courageous police received 15 days” – Popkov said. 

In August, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Evgen Panov and Andriy Zakhtiy were accused of preparing terrorist acts in the occupied Crimea. 

According to the human rights activists, Panov had been tortured for several days. Then, he slandered himself on video, recorded by the secret services. 

Olga Skrypnyk, a coordinator of the Crimean human rights group informed that such methods of torture were used against Genadiy Afanasiev, Oleg Sentsov, Andriy Kolomiets and Oleksandr Kostenko. 

On August 15, it was reported that the number of detainees in allegedly preparing terrorist acts increased to nine people. 

According to the Ukrainian human rights defenders, after the release of Nadiya Savchenko, Genadiy Afanasiev, and Yury Soloshenko, there are at least 29 Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia, 15 of them are Crimean Tatars.

The processes at the checkpoints in Donbas will accelerate in the presence of international missions

According to the human rights monitors, the main concern regarding the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies that provide access to the checkpoints is an artificial delay in the procedures by the staff. 

A representative of the monitoring mission of the Kharkiv Human Rights group Yana Smilianska told the Human Rights Information Center. 

According to her, monitorings have proved that the procedures become faster when the checkpoints are visited by the international missions like OSCE. 

“After two years, checkpoints are still the most problematic issue for the civilians”, Smilianska said. 

She says that the procedures, established two years ago, have completely exhausted and they do not correspond with the real situation. Procedures have to be simplified and should take less amount of time. 

Also, she said, there is a need in restoring regular passenger communications. This will significantly reduce the negative perception of the general concept of the behavior of state institutions to citizens who have to cross the demarcation line. 

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights group, notwithstanding big queues, the documents are verified only at one checkpoint and, as a result can take from 2 to 5 hours.