Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN Office in Geneva slammed the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for "double standards" following its statement on the situation concerning Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who is serving time in a Russian prison term for plotting terrorist attacks.
GENEVA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2018) Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN Office in Geneva slammed the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for "double standards" following its statement on the situation concerning Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who is serving time in a Russian prison term for plotting terrorist attacks.
Earlier in the day, the OHCHR sad in a statement that UN experts called on Russian authorities to "immediately and unconditionally" release Sentsov and also expressed "grave concern for his physical and mental integrity."
"It is ... worth noting that the activities of UN experts may well suggest double standards and selectivity. Persistent information about assassinations, politically motivated arrest and detention, violence and intimidation of human rights defenders and opposition activists in Ukraine for some reason does not draw their attention," the mission said in a statement.
The mission said that the UN experts' allegations that Sentsov's life was "in imminent danger" were not "true to the facts."
"We are compelled to point out its [the OHCHR's statement's] evident faultiness and inconsistency," the statement read.
Sentsov, who was convicted by a Russian court in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for setting up a terrorist cell and plotting a terrorist attack in Crimea, denied his guilt and has been on hunger strike for three months already.
On August 9, the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service said that his health condition was not critical.
