Paul Goble on the Second Trial of Khodorkovsky

As part of an ongoing video interview series with Russia experts, Paul Goble of Window on Eurasia, a former State Department official and scholar, discusses how the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky should be viewed from a rule of law perspective. Goble describes the second trial as "much worse than the first," and is an example of "the use of state power to punish opponents of the regime," which if allowed to continue, "would be the functional equivalent of the Reichstag fire."

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[BernieMadoffCenter]

The persecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky has harrowing similarities to the brutal human rights violations of Bernie Madoff - a victim of a show trial and a scapegoat of a corrupt system. Mr. Madoff is a champion of human rights and democracy suffering as a political prisoner of the White House. Mr. Madoff's ordeal is a reminder of the darkest days of McCarthyist oppression of plurality and civil liberties.

[kazandemocrat]

So long as Russia continues to supply oil and natural gas for western consumption the NATO powers will continue to appease the Putin/medvedev dictatorship, and Khodorkovsky will remain in a frozen Siberian prison, I'm sorry to say.