In Russia, imprisoned journalist Iryna Danylovych barred from medicine

Imprisoned Crimean citizen journalist Iryna Danylovych was denied necessary medications by the Russian occupying authorities, according to her father Bronislav Danylovych, a correspondent for the Crimea’s realities project of Radio Free Europe. 

Iryna Danylovych was illegally detained by the Russian occupation city court of Feodosia and suffers from severe headaches and ear infections that threaten her hearing.

Her father explains that the prison distributes medication for only 90 minutes twice a week. Several hundred prisoners line up during these periods, but only 20-30 prisoners ever receive their medication.

“The sick prisoners fight to be among those at the front of the line — the ones who get their medicines. Iryna does not participate in these fights, and for several months she has not had access to the medicines prescribed by doctors, which we regularly send to prison authorities in parcels. It’s just sadism of some kind,” the prisoner’s father noted.

Bronyslav Danylovych also said that there is no hot water in the prison, so a thousand prisoners cannot wash properly. Additionally, dishes are not properly washed, which leads to intestinal diseases among the prisoners.

The “authorities” of the temporarily occupied Crimea first began to persecute Danylovych in the midst of the Covid pandemic due to her reports for the “Crimean Medicine Without a Cover” project. The project detailed problems in the Crimean health care system, and Danylovych published her reports on a public Facebook page. The journalist also cooperated with media and human rights initiatives “InZhir-media,” “Crimean Process,” and others.

In December 2021, a series of publications discrediting Danylovych appeared on the “Forest and Crow” Telegram channel, branding Danylovych as a “foreign agent.” 

Danylovych was returning home from work on April 29, 2022, in the temporarily occupied Crimea when she disappeared. 

She was eventually charged with “illegal manufacture, transportation or storage of explosives,” according to Part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Without evidence, the occupation city court of Feodosia sentenced Danylovych to seven years in a penal colony, where reports suggest she was tortured.

Ukrainian human rights defenders and foreign journalists are demanding  Danylovych’s urgent release.

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Translation: Yuliia Fediuchka

Editing: Lea Ann Douglas