Starting today, a joint project with MBK has gone live, which I wrote about.
The names of the first political prisoners who will receive financial support—100,000 rubles each (about $1,100)—have been announced. Their list can be found here.
Please note one very important principle of the project: neither I nor Khodorkovsky selects anyone or names any individuals. The recipients of the aid are chosen by an expert council of 24 people, only eight of whom were nominated by MBK and me.
This is important in order to avoid a conflict of interest, and there is most likely no other way to address the painful issue of the "different political prisoner lists": as you know well, there are competing versions of these lists, and human rights advocates are far from unanimous in their views on them.
In the news, this is being reported under the headline: "Khodorkovsky and Navalny Will Give Money to Political Prisoners." That sounds flattering to me, but in fairness I have to state the obvious: the money was provided by MBK, and without its funding this initiative would have been impossible.
So my thanks go both to Khodorkovsky personally and to Open Russia for launching such a useful project at this moment.
People