Human rights advocates call for immediate hospitalization of Iryna Danilovych
Multiple human rights organizations are calling for the immediate hospitalization of the citizen journalist Iryna Danilovych, who is imprisoned in the occupied Crimea and has received no medical care in the pre-trial detention center in five months. This is said in the statement issued by the human rights organizations, which was signed by the IMI among others.
"All this time she has been going through suffering and physical pain. Without urgent and comprehensive treatment, Danilovych's disease may lead to her death, as was the fate of Crimean political prisoners Kostyantyn Shyring and Cemil Gafarov.
"We demand that illegally convicted journalist Iryna Danilovych be released and the politically motivated persecution of her caused by her public and journalistic activities cease," the statement reads.
We remind you that on March 21, Iryna Danilovych wrote a letter announcing she was going on a dry hunger strike until "the treatment begins or until biological death." In the letter, she reported on the deterioration of her health: hearing issues and a possible microstroke.
Here is the full statement:
On March 22, 2023, Iryna Danilovych, citizen journalist living in Russian-occupied Crimea, went on a hunger strike due to being denied medical assistance. The day before, the journalist had fainted while being transported to the Feodosia City Court for reviewing of the case material. On December 28, 2022, the occupation authorities sentenced Iryna Danilovych to seven years in prison and fined her 50,000 rubles under falsified charges of "storing explosives."
Iryna Danilovych is a nurse and civil activist from Feodosia who has worked with "INjir Media" publication and the human rights project "Crimean Process", defended the rights of healthcare workers on the peninsula: she joined an independent trade union, wrote a lot about the violation of their rights, such as being underpayed for working with COVID-19 patients.
After being kidnapped on April 29, 2022, imprisoned and prosecuted as part of a falsified case, Iryna Danilovych almost lost her hearing, is experiencing constant headaches, movement coordination issues, and suspects that she has suffered at least one microstroke in prison. This is making her unable to finish reviewing the material of the court hearings, wherein she had previously discovered several forgeries and falsifications.
Danilovych said that she equates the court's intent to complete the review of the material urgently, without taking the state of her health into account, to torture. The journalist demands an end to the abuse, refused to review the case material until she recovers, and formally announced she was going on a dry hunger strike.
According to the father of the imprisoned journalist, Bronyslav Danilovych, the administration of the pre-trial detention center issued documents stating that his daughter had been examined by a specialist and that the state of her health did not prevent her from participating in the reviewing of the case material.
On March 21, 2023, Iryna Danilovych fainted while being transported to the Feodosia "City Court", but no ambulance was called to assist her. Also, in December 2022, during a debate in the "court", she felt ill, but the emergency medic who came upon being called falsified his verdict, noting that Danilovych voluntarily refused to be hospitalized.
We call for the immediate hospitalization of citizen journalist Iryna Danilovych, who has received no medical care in the pre-trial detention center in five months. All this time she has been going through suffering and physical pain. Without urgent and comprehensive treatment, Danilovych's disease may lead to her death, as was the fate of Crimean political prisoners Kostyantyn Shyring and Cemil Gafarov.
"We demand that illegally convicted journalist Iryna Danilovych be released and the politically motivated persecution of her caused by her public and journalistic activities cease.
The address was signed by: ZMINA Center for Human Rights; Crimean Process; Diya Human Rights Center; KrymSOS; the Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights; Association of Kremlin Political Prisoners' Families; the Crimean Human Rights Group; Platform for the Release of Political Prisoners; the Regional Human Rights Center, the Kharkiv Social Research Institute; the Ivano-Frankivsk Progress Group; the Institute of Mass Information; the Institute of Peace and Understanding, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine; the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group; PEN Ukraine; Human Rights House "Crimea"; the Kharkiv Human Rights Group.
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