Ukrainian filmmaker Sentsov drops hunger strike
October 5, 2018
Imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who has gone without food for more than four months in protest over Russia's human rights record, has ended his hunger strike, according to Russian news agency reports on Friday.
"Yes, he has halted his hunger strike," Valery Maksimenko, a deputy head of Russia's prison service, told the Interfax news agency.
Maksimenko said that "Moscow's best nutritionists" had come up with a special diet to help Sentsov return to a normal eating pattern.
Read more: Oleg Sentsov, imprisoned filmmaker
Outspoken Kremlin critic
Sentsov, 42, is serving a 20-year jail sentence in a prison in the far north of the country. He was convicted on terrorism charges connected with an alleged arson attack on two offices in Crimea, including one belonging to Russia's ruling political party.
He started his hunger strike on May 14 in protest at Russia's detention of Ukrainian political prisoners.
Both the European Union and the US State Department have called Sentsov's trial a violation of human rights.
Sentsov was born in the city of Simferopol, the administrative capital of what Russia has called the Republic of Crimea since annexing the peninsula in 2014. Best-known for his 2011 film Gamer, he has been a fierce critic of Russia's involvement in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea, which followed a controversial referendum.
tj/ng (AFP, Reuters)