Everyone is asking for comments and more details about the project announced today by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
It’s all quite simple and obvious: political repression will only intensify, affecting not just—and not even primarily—various “opposition leaders,” but also ordinary activists in the regions whom local authorities want to devour under cover of a nationwide campaign.
You know the kind of good people working locally: some are fighting police lawlessness, some are locked in battles with the courts, some are taking on crooked developers, others are up against the city administration. And then the authorities sic all sorts of “Center E” units (Russia’s anti-extremism police) on them, with all the usual delights—arrests, searches, and so on.
People like that need support.
So 50 awards are being established for people like that—100,000 rubles each (about $1,100; “award” is a stupid word here, but what else do you call it).
The funding will come from MBK’s resources and donations. Our role is to help with the infrastructure. That way, there’s no need to waste time reinventing what ACF has long been using—fundraising practices and so on.
In addition, Khodorkovsky and I agree on this point: there needs to be a simple and transparent system for deciding how the funds are distributed, one that is not connected to the founders.
Most likely—though this has not yet been decided—it will be a group of reputable human rights advocates (I would also add journalists who write on human rights issues) who will decide whom to support through a vote open to everyone. Neither I nor MBK will have anything to do with that process.
Things like this—when money is being handed out—always end up surrounded by conflicts and scandals, so we’ll try to set it up in a way that leaves no room for questions.
All in all, Khodorkovsky is doing a great thing by launching a project like this, and we’re all very glad to be working together.