SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Amnesty International Denied Access to Oleg Sentsov, on Hunger Strike for 81 days
Reacting to the Russian authorities' refusal to grant Amnesty International access to Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, currently 81 days into a hunger strike in a penal colony in the Russian Artic, Oksana Pokalchuk, Amnesty International's Ukraine Director, said:
WASHINGTON
Reacting to the Russian authorities' refusal to grant Amnesty International access to Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, currently 81 days into a hunger strike in a penal colony in the Russian Artic, Oksana Pokalchuk, Amnesty International's Ukraine Director, said:
"Denying us the right to visit Oleg Sentsov is indefensible. After almost 3 months on hunger strike, there are grave concerns for his health. We were planning to visit Oleg accompanied by an independent medical expert who would be able to evaluate his health. In order to dispel all doubts about Oleg's health condition and the adequacy of medical assistance provided to him, such a visit is imperative.
"Amnesty International calls for Sentsov's immediate release and demands that, while detained, he has access to qualified health professionals, providing healthcare in line with medical ethics, including the principles of confidentiality, autonomy, and informed consent. In addition the Russian authorities must grant access to Sentsov for Ukrainian consular staff."
On July 30, 2018, Amnesty International's representative office in Moscow received a letter from Valery Balan, Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, denying Amnesty's request to visit Sentsov in Labytnangi penal colony but providing no explanation. The letter stated that Sentsov's health had been assessed as stable with no "negative dynamic".
Background
Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov began a hunger strike on May 14, 2018 in protest against the politically motivated jailing of dozens of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation.
In 2015, Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison following an unfair trial where he faced "terrorism" charges stemming from his opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea.
This statement is available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/amnesty-international-denied-access-to-oleg-sentsov-on-hunger-strike-for-81-days/
Follow Amnesty International USA on Twitter.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
(212) 807-8400LATEST NEWS
Mike Johnson Defends Murder of Shipwrecked Sailors as 'Entirely Appropriate'
"There can be no war crime if there is no war," said one human rights scholar this week. "But there can still be murder, which these attacks were."
Dec 12, 2025
What human rights experts and scholars of international law have described as nothing short of calculated and cold-blooded "murder," Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday claimed was "entirely appropriate"—the extrajudicial killing of two shipwrecked sailors clinging to the side of their exploded boat after it was bombed in the middle of the Caribbean Sea by the US military.
The murder of the two men on Sept 2., which followed approximately 45 minutes after all the others on the boat were already killed in an initial strike that shattered the boat in a ball of fire, has become the center of controversy in terms of the legality of such attacks on nearly two dozen boats that have left at least 87 people dead over recent months.
Following a Thursday briefing, Johnson emerged to say that we was convinced the killings were justified despite the chorus of expert voices who have said—even if you accept the Trump administration's dubious claims about the justifications and authority to eviscerate alleged drug boats and everyone on board them with no due process—that killing people so clearly defenseless and unable to harm anyone, let alone the United States, would be a textbook war crime in the context of war and a murder on the high seas in the context of international maritime law.
In his remarks, Johnson said the killings of the two men was "entirely appropriate," though he has not yet called for the full video of the killing to be released, unlike others among the small handful of lawmakers who have seen it.
"They were able-bodied, they were not injured," Johnson said of the two victims, "and they were attempting to recover the contents of the boat, which was full of narcotics."
"The individuals on that vessel were not helpless castaways," he added. "They were drug runners on a capsized drug boat, and by all indications, attempting to recover it so they could continue pushing drugs to kill Americans."
According to experts, however, the claim—which numerous Republicans and high-ranking Trump officials have now made—that two men who have just survived a massive missile strike on their boat, clinging to life on bits of debris in the middle of the ocean were in the act of "pushing drugs to kill Americans," defies belief.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and now a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, argued this week in The Guardian that such claims must be resolutely countered and these 87 killings at sea—ordered by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—condemned for what they are: murder.
"The Pentagon has also fallen back on the claim that the two were trying to right the remains of the boat that might have still contained cocaine," wrote Roth. "But the stricken boat was clearly going nowhere and could easily have been intercepted. There was no need to kill the two men clinging to its wreckage."
"In an armed conflict, it is a war crime to attack people who have been shipwrecked at sea, as some in Congress have alleged happened. They are considered hors de combat—outside the fight—and hence no longer combatants who can be shot on sight. They are akin to wounded or surrendering combatants. Opposing forces have a duty to receive and care for them, not kill them."
Going beyond the "war crime" narrative, Roth echoes in his column what many other rights experts have said, that there can be no "war crimes," in fact, when there is no declared armed conflict that constitutes a war.
"There can be no war crime if there is no war," argues Roth. "But there can still be murder, which these attacks were. So were every one of the other killings at sea that Trump and Hegseth have ordered."
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which earlier this week filed a lawsuit demanding release of the internal Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo justifying the killings, accused the administration of warping the law beyond recognition in defense of what people should recognize as a murder spree, not legal military operations.
“The Trump administration is displacing the fundamental mandates of international law with the phony wartime rhetoric of a basic autocrat,” Azmy said. “If the OLC opinion seeks to dress up legalese in order to provide cover for the obvious illegality of these serial homicides, the public needs to see this analysis and ultimately hold accountable all those who facilitate murder in the United States’ name.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Federal Judge Issues Restraining Order Forbidding Agents From Re-Detaining Abrego Garcia
Judge Paula Xinis argued that Ábrego García was likely to suffer "irreparable harm" absent a court order barring ICE from imprisoning him.
Dec 12, 2025
A federal judge issued a restraining order on Friday morning barring federal immigration enforcement agents from re-detaining Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Trump administration unlawfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year but who was released from custody on Thursday.
In the ruling, US District Judge Paula Xinis granted an emergency order sought by Ábrego García's attorneys to forbid the government from taking him back into custody when he appeared at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Baltimore Field Office for a scheduled appointment later in the day.
The emergency order was necessary because the ICE Order of Supervision on Thursday night obtained a court order authorizing Ábrego García's removal from the US mere hours after Xinis ordered his immediate release from ICE custody after granting his habeas corpus petition.
In her ruling, Xinis argued that Ábrego García was likely to suffer "irreparable harm" absent a court order barring ICE from imprisoning him.
"If, as Ábrego García suspects, respondents will take him into custody this morning, then his liberty will be restricted once again," Xinis wrote. "It is beyond dispute that unlawful detention visits irreparable harm."
The Trump administration this past June complied with a Supreme Court order to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to United States after it acknowledged months earlier that he had been improperly deported to El Salvador, where a US immigration judge had ruled years earlier he faced direct danger from gang threats against him and his family.
While imprisoned in El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), Ábrego García’s attorneys allege he was subjected to physical and psychological abuse “including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture.”
Upon his return, the US Department of Justice promptly hit him with human smuggling charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also accused Ábrego García of being a member of the gang MS-13, although they have produced no evidence to back up that assertion.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Gives Big Tech Friends an Early Christmas Gift With Order Against State AI Regulations
"This reward to Big Tech is a disgraceful invitation to reckless behavior by the world’s largest corporations," said one watchdog group.
Dec 12, 2025
US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at preventing state-level regulation of the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry, a gift to tech corporations that bankrolled his inauguration and are currently funding his White House ballroom project.
Trump's order instructs the US Justice Department to establish an AI Litigation Task Force with a single mandate: sue states that enact AI laws that the administration deems "onerous and excessive." The order also threatens to withhold federal funding from states that implement AI regulations.
Public Citizen, a watchdog group that has tracked increasingly aggressive AI influence-peddling in Congress and the administration, said Trump's order "grants his greedy Big Tech buddies’ Christmas wish."
"This reward to Big Tech is a disgraceful invitation to reckless behavior by the world’s largest corporations and a complete override of the federalist principles that Trump and MAGA claim to venerate," said Robert Weissman, Public Citizen's co-president. "Everyone should understand why this is happening: During and since the last election cycle, Big Tech has spent at least $1.1 billion on campaign contributions and lobby expenditures. Big Tech corporations poured money into Trump’s inaugural committee and to pay for his garish White House ballroom. A major Big Tech and AI investor is serving as Trump’s 'AI czar' and driving administration policy."
"While Trump has ensured the federal government is doing almost nothing to address the harms that AI is already causing, states are moving forward with sensible AI regulation," Weissman added. "These include efforts to address political deepfakes, nonconsensual intimate deepfakes, algorithmic pricing manipulation, consumer protection measures, excessive data center electricity and water demand, and much more. Big Tech is whining about these modest measures, but there is zero evidence that these rules are impeding innovation; in fact, they are directing innovation in more positive directions."
Jenna Sherman, a campaign director focused on tech and gender at Ultraviolet Action, said Trump's order "only has one group of winners: his wealthy donors in the tech sector."
"Every other person loses from this wildly unpopular move. And not just in theory, as stripping away state AI regulations puts many—namely, women and children—at risk of real harm," said Sherman. "These harms of AI—which the Trump and the tech sector are clearly happy to ignore—are already here: non-consensual deepfake porn sexualizing women and girls, children being led to suicidal ideation by AI chatbots, and AI-powered scams and crimes targeting older Americans, especially women, to name but a few."
The US Chamber of Commerce and other corporate lobbying organizations representing tech giants such as Microsoft and Google celebrated the order, predictably characterizing it as a win for "small businesses."
The leaders of California and other states that have proposed and finalized AI regulations were defiant in the face of Trump's threats of legal action and funding cuts."
"President Trump and Davis Sacks aren’t making policy—they’re running a con," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, referring to the scandal-plagued White House AI czar. "Every day, they push the limits to see how far they can take it. California is working on behalf of Americans by building the strongest innovation economy in the nation while implementing commonsense safeguards and leading the way forward."
Trump signed the order after the Republican-controlled Congress repeatedly rejected efforts to tuck a ban on state AI regulations into broader legislation.
"After months of failed lobbying and two defeats in Congress, Big Tech has finally received the return on its ample investment in Donald Trump," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement Thursday. "With this executive order, Trump is delivering exactly what his billionaire benefactors demanded—all at the expense of our kids, our communities, our workers, and our planet."
"A broad, bipartisan coalition in Congress has rejected the AI moratorium again and again," he added, "and I intend to keep that streak going. I will use every tool available to challenge this indefensible and irresponsible power grab. We will defeat it again."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular