Statement by AFET and DROI Chairs following the sentencing of Oyub Titiev

Condemning Oyub Titiev"s sentence to four years in penal colony, the Chairs of the Foreign Affairs Committee, David McAllister, and the Human Rights Subcommittee, Antonio Panzeri, stated:

"We strongly condemn the conviction of Oyub Titiev, a prominent human rights defender and Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in the Chechen Republic. We call on the Russian authorities to immediately ensure his release. The sentencing of Oyub Titiev signals that the authorities are cracking down on those working to protect and promote human rights instead of on those committing human rights violations in Chechnya.

We want to highlight the significance of civil society and organisations such as Memorial Human Rights Centre and convey the message that civil society activists everywhere must be free to exercise their most basic rights of freedom of thought and freedom of expression."

Background

The Russian rights group Memorial won the European Parliament's annual Sakharov Prize, in memory of murdered activist Natalya Estemirova, in 2009. Mr Oyub Titiev, her successor as Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in the Chechen Republic, was sentenced to a four year penal colony sentence on Monday 18 March, after first having been arrested and detained since 9 January 2018. The Sakharov Prize has been awarded by the European Parliament every year since 1988 to individuals or organisations who have made an important contribution to the fight for human rights or democracy.