Human Rights Advocates

“I think that any person becomes a political prisoner if the law is applied to him selectively, and this is an absolutely clear case to me. This is a glaringly lawless action.” Elena Bonner
The Andrei Sakharov Foundation

The arrest and conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Alexei Pichugin, Svetlana Bakhmina and other YUKOS executives and employees has caused an outcry both in Russia and around the world. Many Russian human rights groups have granted Khodorkovsky and others status as political prisoners and have urged other groups outside Russia to do the same.

2004

The 2004 "Freedom in the World" report by Freedom House observed that the Khodorkovsky case "centered on politics rather than alleged corruption. Khodorkovsky had actively supported pro-market opposition liberal parties. Indeed, many of the charges against him stemmed from the early period of Russia's economic transition from communism, when a maze of contradictory laws meant that many people engaged in business were not fully compliant with Russian law...The arrests and investigations in 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the YUKOS energy company, and the Menatep Group reinforced perceptions that the rule of law is subordinated to political considerations and the judiciary is not independent of the president and his inner circle."

2005

The following year, Freedom House again drew attention to Khodorkovsky's case, with Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor commenting: "What is obvious is that Mr. Khodorkovsky and his close associates were singled out by the Russian authorities as soon as they expressed concern with an increasingly authoritarian government...The crimes of which Khodorkovsky is accused could also be leveled against many other prominent Russian business leaders, who operated in a loosely-regulated legal environment in the early years of Russia's transition from communism to a market economy," she said. "It is telling that those who dare to challenge Russia's increasingly anti-democratic authorities are the ones targeted for prosecution." 

In November 2005, Vaclav Havel wrote a letter to then-President Putin, co-signed by Mary Robinson and other former world leaders, stating: "[The] cases of Mikhail Trepashkin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Svetlana Bakhmina are instances of attempts by the government to silence its critics and eliminate political opponents from political life and social dialogue in Russia. Time and again politically-motivated prosecutions are made to appear as prosecution of criminal offences." Havel was the inaugural Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience in 2003, and Robinson followed as Ambassador of Conscience in 2004.

2006

In a November 2006 report, the OECD criticized the Russian state's intrusions into the country's energy sector as a "disturbing" phenomenon that "bodes ill for Russia's growth prospects." In a 216-page assessment of the Russian economy, the OECD stated that pervasive corruption was a significant barrier to investment. In the report, the OECD traced the rise of the state's invasiveness in commercial spheres to the forced YUKOS auction of 2004. The report listed subsequent acquisitions by state-controlled energy companies to show that the interventionist trend had only intensified.

2007

In a 2007 open letter, leading Russian human rights activists called the YUKOS case "the first political show trial in the post-Stalin age, which introduced radical changes to the landscape of public politics and economics in this country." They demanded that Khodorkovsky and other political prisoners be released.

Western human rights groups have also expressed serious concern for the implications of Khodorkovsky's imprisonment on the state of democracy, human rights, and rule of law in Russia. Amnesty International has declared there to be a "clear political context" in the Khodorkovsky case.

2008

In 2008, Freedom House again discussed the treatment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky as an example of Russia's authorities increasing the state's power in their Country Report on Russia. They note that "Khodorkovsky had transformed his company into one of the most transparent in Russia" and that Russia's authorities had removed another possible threat in 2005, when a court sentenced Mikhail Khodorkovsky to eight years in prison.

2009

On April 22, 2009, leaders of eight Western human rights groups released an open letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressing their concern for the deterioration of respect for rule of law and human rights in Russia in connection with Khodorkovsky and Lebedev's second criminal trial in Moscow. Signatories of the letter include Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the International League for Human Rights, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, and the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.

In Amnesty International's 2009 Human Rights Report the Khodorkovsky case is raised as evidence of Russia's "lack of respect for the rule of law". Commenting on Khodorkovsky's trial, the report states that in 2008, he was denied parole, unlawfully punished and placed in a detention center with constrained access to his legal counsel and family. In 2005 after the first trial, Amnesty International said it believed there was a "significant political context to the arrest and prosecution" of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and other YUKOS staff.

2010

In June 2010, Elie Wiesel launched a global campaign to free Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom he calls a "political prisoner." Wiesel along with his wife, Marion, launched the campaign with a lunch, attended by leading diplomats and dignitaries, on the eve of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House to spotlight Khodorkovsky's case.

In July 2010, Kerkko Paananen of the Finrosforum, addressing Finnish President Tarja Halonen and President Dmitry Medvedev, at the 4th annual Finnish-Russian Civic Forum, noted concern with the politically motivated trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev.

Freedom House again noted the continued persecution of Khodorkovsky in their 2010 Country Report on Russia, noting that Russia's justice system has "been tarnished by the politically fraught case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who faced trial on new charges in 2009 as he neared the end of his prison sentence."