On February 2, 2020 the League of Ukrainian Canadians hosted an evening with the former prisoner of conscience Oleg Sentsov. The director, writer and activist was born in Crimea in an ethnic Russian family. Like most Crimeans, he grew up speaking Russian, but, like an apparent minority of them, he identified strongly as a Ukrainian citizen, and opposed the Russian occupation. In February of 2014 he took part in the Maidan that brought down the Ukrainian President.
When Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, Sentsov was convicted of terrorism ostensibly for setting fires to the doors of the offices of the ruling Russian party, United Russia, in Crimea, and plotting to blow up a monument to Lenin. The prosecution provided no evidence of Sentsov’s participation in either the fires (an established part of radical protests in Russia, usually regarded as crimes against property) or a plot to destroy the monument. The court offered no explanation for why an alleged plot to blow up an inanimate object was viewed as terrorism. As a result, Sentsov was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in a gulag-style prison in Siberia on trumped-up charges.
In May of 2018, Sentsov declared a hunger strike, in the hopes of drawing enough attention—and enough international pressure—to make the Russian government act before the World Cup, which was held in Russia that year. Sentsov was demanding the release of all Ukrainian prisoners. He became the face of Ukrainian struggle against Russia.
International filmmakers, human rights organizations and activists from across the world all fought for his release. On September 7 of 2019, he was set free as part of a prisoner exchange. Sentsov cannot return to Crimea.
The Ukrainian community in Toronto gathered at the Old Mill to hear Oleg Sentsov speak about his imprisonment, systemic injustice, the state of free expression in Russia and Ukraine and his filmmaking during the confinement.
Following the discussion, members of the audience participated in a lively Q&A with Sentsov. When asked what people could do to best support prisoners, Sentsov answered: continue spreading awareness of the political prisoners in Russia. The Ukrainian diaspora in Canada is united and therefore it can send a strong message to its government, to Ukrainians in Ukraine and the imprisoned in Russia.
