Crimean citizen journalist Iryna Danilovich, who was sentenced to seven years in jail last year for the illegal possession of explosives, has lost all hearing in her left ear while behind bars, her father told Ukrainian Human Rights Centre ZMINA on Tuesday.
Bronislav Danilovich said that his daughter had been transferred to a prison in Russia’s Stavropol region where she was told by a prison medicthat the pain she was experiencing would pass once she went “completely deaf”.
Danilovich was detained last year as she was returning from work at a medical centre to her home village of Vladislavivka. Her lawyer claimed that she had been held in a cellar in the Crimean city of Simferopol for a week and tortured to extract a confession.
Last December, Danilovich was sentenced to seven years in prison for the illegal possession of explosives. Both she and her lawyer insist that the FSB planted evidence to frame her in the case.
In late March, Danilovich went on hunger strike demanding access to healthcare. On 6 April, she ended her strike after being promised medical attention. Her lawyer reported at the time that Iryna had been complaining about headaches, dizziness, and pain in her ear.