OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger received a letter, containing an urgent call for the release of RIA Novosti Ukraine news portal head Kirill Vyshinsky who has been kept in custody in Ukraine on suspicion of treason and support of the eastern breakaway republics of Donbas, from his mother.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2018) OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger received a letter, containing an urgent call for the release of RIA Novosti Ukraine news portal head Kirill Vyshinsky who has been kept in custody in Ukraine on suspicion of treason and support of the eastern breakaway republics of Donbas, from his mother.
The letter was handed over to Greminger by Rossiya Segodnya journalists during his joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Friday.
"Kirill Vyshinsky's mother asked me to give you this letter containing a request for help in securing her son's release," a journalist, who was handing over the letter, said.
"For nearly six months, my son Kirill Vyshinsky, a journalist and the head of RIA Novosti Ukraine news portal, has been kept in custody in Kherson, on groundless treason charges brought against him by the authorities of [Ukraine] ... I ask you to do everything in your power to free my son, who was thrown behind bars only for his honest attitude to his profession � the profession of a journalist," the letter by Larisa Bogdanova, Vyshinsky's mother, said.
She expressed words of gratitude to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for its efforts to help her son, noting that the organization had repeatedly voiced concerns over several extensions of his custody by a Ukrainian court.
"I am very grateful to the OSCE for this position and its concerns [over Vyshinsky's fate], and I hope that its efforts, the pressure of other authoritative international organizations will force the Ukrainian authorities to stop unlawful actions against my son," Bogdanova said.
She finished her letter by expressing belief that "everything will end well, and Kirill will go free with his head held high."
Vyshinsky was arrested in Kiev in May and then transferred to the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, where he was taken into custody by court order. On November 1, a Kherson court further extended the arrest until December 28.
The detention of Vyshinsky has prompted widespread criticism by journalists and rights groups, which said that such moves were unacceptable in a democratic society. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Vyshinsky's arrest was politically motivated, adding that the incident demonstrated an unprecedented and unacceptable policy of Ukrainian authorities targeting journalists who were just doing their jobs.
