Colleagues fear for anti-war academic in Russia
Our colleagues in Europe have alerted us to the detention of Russian academic Boris Kagarlitsky by police. Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow, Walden Bellow, Medea Benjamin, Phyllis Bennis have signed this appeal, and are asking us to add our names as well.
We condemn the arrest of Russian intellectual Boris Kagarlitsky
Publication date: 27 July 2023 https://www.tni.org/en/article/we-condemn-the-arrest-of-russian-intellectual-boris-kagarlitsky
We, at the Transnational Institute and our allies around the world, condemn the arrest and detention of Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky, a prolific author and a prominent Russian left-wing intellectual.
On July 26, a court in the North-Western city of Syktyvkar decided to detain Dr Kagarlitsky, a longstanding fellow of our institute, for two months ahead of a trial in September.
He faces charges of ‘justifying terrorism’, related to a social media post about the 2022 attack on the bridge linking Crimea to Russia.
Dr Kagarlitsky has been outspoken in his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2022 Russian authorities declared him to be a “foreign agent”. He faces up to seven years in prison if he is declared guilty. This would not be the first time he was been targeted. He was previously jailed for his writing and activism under Brezhnev, Yeltsin and on earlier occasions under Putin.
We stand in solidarity with Dr Kagarlitsky, as well as all others being oppressed for advocating peace and defending democratic rights in Russia.
We call for his immediate release.
Rabkor, a media outlet he founded, has started an appeal for funding for his legal defence fund. More information in this Twitter thread.
Signatories so far include:
- Naomi Klein
- Yanis Varoufakis
- Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Medea Benjamin, CodePink
- David Adler, Progressive International
- Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South
- Pablo Solon
- Edgardo Lander, Universidad de Venezuela, Caracas
- Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
- John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies
- Anthony Barnett, Co-founder, openDemocracy
- Achin, Samar and Anish Vanaik and Pamela Philipose
- Howard M. Wachtel, American University, Washington, DC
- Mariano Aguirre
- Maude Barlow, co-founder of Council of Canadians
My thanks to the International Peace Bureau’s Tord Björk from Sweden for his work to free Boris Kagarlitsky. Contact: Tord Björk <tord.bjork@gmail.com>
(Cover: Boris Kagarlitsky. Via Transnational Institute)
