KIEV, July 16 – A Ukrainian journalist and blogger, who disappeared in Donetsk six weeks ago, was detained by pro-Russian separatist authorities and is held in custody for alleged ‘espionage,’ a Ukrainian activist reported Sunday citing the separatist ‘ministry of state security.’

“We managed to learn some news about Stanyslav Aseyev,” Yehor Firsov, an activist with Alternatyva, said Sunday. “The ‘ministry of state security’ has officially confirmed that he had been detained.”

Aseyev, who was known by his penname Stanyslav Vasin, has remained in Donetsk and was able to send his blogs and news stories about life in the separatist-controlled zone. He is one of the few Ukrainian journalists that stayed in the separatist controlled zone after the war had broken out.

Firsov said Aseyev, as many other journalists before him, is accused of espionage, a charge that may lead to a jail sentence of 12 to 14 years, under the laws of the self-proclaimed Donetsk authorities.

“His mom was given a chance to see him,” Firsov said. Stas (Stanyslav) keeps well, understands that it is not worth hoping for a fair trial. His only hope is the exchange of prisoners.”

The news that Aseyev is alive comes as a relief as his friends and colleagues in the mainland Ukraine had feared he may have been killed. Aseyev suddenly stopped answering phone calls and email on June 2. Yet, Aseyev’s Facebook account kept updating with unrelated posts, raising suspicions that the device may have been under control of the separatists.

An underground reporter in an area controlled by the separatists and a regular contributor to RFE/RL, Aseyev wrote about daily life in the region, from shooting and shelling to cultural events.

His blog was a unique window into life on the other side of the “line of contact,” an area that can be difficult for many Ukrainians to access due to travel restrictions and security concerns.

“It seemed clear early on that Stanyslav Aseyev was targeted because he wrote things the DNR didn’t like,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “He is the victim of an enforced disappearance–a very serious crime under international law that cannot be justified under any circumstances, in times of peace or war.”

On June 20, at a conference of the Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on freedom of the media in Vienna, Russia’s Union of Journalists and Ukraine’s Union of Journalists issued a joint statement expressing concern about Aseyev’s enforced disappearance, asserting that it was possibly connected with his journalism work, and urging “the international community to do its utmost to establish… [Aseyev’s] fate [and whereabouts] and secure his release.”

During the six weeks numerous international and intergovernmental organizations asked DNR authorities for information regarding Aseyev, and the authorities repeatedly denied having any information about him, including at a July 5 meeting in Minsk of the trilateral contact group for peace negotiations on Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous cases in which DNR’s security ministry forcibly disappeared civilians, holding them in custody for weeks without any contact with the outside world and subjecting them to ill-treatment. A special DNR cabinet decree enables the ministry to hold people for up to 30 days, and sometimes longer, without charging them or even acknowledging their detention.

Such a decree blatantly violates international legal protections against arbitrary detention, applicable both during conflict and peacetime. Numerous interlocutors in the DNR told Human Rights Watch that the State Security Ministry is the most powerful and feared agency in the self-proclaimed republic, as it operates without checks and balances, arbitrarily detaining and disappearing people and inflicting other abuses with full impunity. (nr/ez)