Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 11th, 2012

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

First, these are my views. I have been in opposition to Mr. Putin since the first day he came to power in 2000. I am with the liberal democratic camp in Russia. So the views that I am sharing with you are my own and I have never changed them.

As for Mr. Khodorkovsky, he is a political prisoner 100%. He was recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. His crime was to fund opposition parties before the 2003 elections. He also set up a lot of philanthropic projects. For example, he funded a project to provide schools in Russia with the Internet. Freedom of access to the Internet is not a very pleasant thing for an authoritarian regime. Those were Mr. Khodorkovsky's crimes. His main crime was that he did not support Mr. Putin and did not want to follow the approach that all executives of large corporations were supposed to follow.

Now, as you know, not a single large company executive dares to finance an opposition party or a project that does not make the Kremlin happy. The rules are very strict, and it all started in 2003 after Mikhail Khodorkovsky was imprisoned.

Now he is in his second round of legal proceedings. The first time, he was sentenced because he apparently had not paid taxes on the oil he sold. The second time, he was convicted for stealing the oil that he had sold and on which he had not paid taxes, according to the first trial. It is completely absurd. I think that even the people who had doubts in 2003 and in 2004 no longer have them after the last trial, which was Kafkaesque, as The Economist described.

In short, I feel that Mr. Khodorkovsky is a symbol of the Vladimir Putin regime. That means a loss of independence for companies and the justice system because the courts are simply the political instruments of the Kremlin. That means a loss of independence in the life of political parties because opposition parties receive no funding right now. It is forbidden and no one will give them money because people are afraid they will have the same fate as Mr. Khodorkovsky and end up in prison.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

In terms of the opposition groups in Russia, could you explain the nature of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition, which includes various political factions? Could you also explain if that is a preliminary stage for the next parliamentary election that will take place in Russia in 2016?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

They are scheduled for 2016. However, the people from the strategic research centre, which is a think tank created by people close to Mr. Putin, so rather loyal supporters who are not with the opposition at all, said that, at the moment when there is a financial crisis, in two or three years, the provinces will join the large cities to protest. There will be a political crisis and the regime will call an early election, before 2016.

So the parliamentary election is just planned for 2016. As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said, a week is a long time in politics. So there is no way to tell what will happen in four years. I think—and that is also the opinion of many of my colleagues—that everything will change very quickly in Russia and it will be before 2016.

To answer your question, the people from the coordinating council were elected in the primaries. Some tens of thousands of people, including opposition supporters, participated in that election. The council is made up of 45 members from the whole political spectrum, be it the left or right. So the council has socialists, nationalists, liberals, conservatives, independents and non-partisan members. So everyone is represented.

For the time being, that has nothing to do with the official elections, because the way the elections are organized is neither free nor democratic. So we cannot really challenge the elections organized by Putin's regime. However, given the pressure from the huge demonstrations that have taken place over the past few years, pressure from around the world—which is what we are talking about today—and action on a personal level, the situation may change. For the first time in a few years, there are legal opposition parties in Russia. Actually, as part of the concessions that I mentioned earlier, the regime introduced a small reform one year ago. There are now opposition parties that can register and participate in the elections.

For example, I am a member of the Party of Popular Freedom, led by Boris Nemtsov, Mikhaïl Kassianov and Vladimir Ryjkov. The party is officially registered and has the right to participate in the elections. We intend to participate in the local and municipal elections that take place every year in September.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kara-Murza.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Jacob.

That completes the questioning. That should run a fair bit over our allotted time.

For the benefit of members to make it back tout de suite to the House of Commons, there is one of our little green buses waiting up top for you. If you leave right now, you should just barely make it back in time for question period to begin. I'll encourage you to move towards the exits.

To our witnesses, thank you very much. I know you've gone to considerable inconvenience to be here. We are very grateful indeed that you were able to attend today. Thank you very much.

We are adjourned.