New Yorkers Protest for Khodorkovsky

Elena Khodorkovskaya (far left), first wife of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, joins dozens of protestors on Oct. 25 in New York’s Times Square calling on the Russian government to free Khodorkovsky after eight years in prison.

New Yorkers came together in Time Square at a protest calling for the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on October 25th.

On October 25th, 2003 a TU-134 plane with Mikhail Khodorkovsky on board stops in Irkutsk where he was scheduled to speak at the School of Public Politics. FSB Special Forces arrest Khodorkovsky at gunpoint on trumped-up charges of fraud and tax evasion. After two trials and as many convictions, Khodorkovsky remains in prison - one of Russia's few prisoners of conscience as defined by Amnesty International.

This year marks the 8th anniversary of Khodorkovsky's arrest, when the original sentence from Khodorkovsky's first trial should have expired were it not for the second bogus trial.