Pavel Khodorkovsky, son of the Russian political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, published this personal op/ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Scanning the Father’s Day aisle at the local card store, I see quickly how hard it will be to pick out something fitting. My father isn’t a golfer, and he isn’t known for his prowess on the football field or interest in home-improvement projects.

There is no card that says “Happy Father’s Day … from the Outside.” Since October 2003, my father, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been living on the “inside,” trapped in a Russian jail. Russia’s most well-known political prisoner and formerly one of its most successful businessmen, he has been sent to jails and prison camps from Siberia to Moscow to northern Russia near the Finnish border, locked up for denouncing public corruption and funding democratic institutions in Russia.

As I reflect on his imprisonment, it’s important for me, as someone who believes that the future of Russia will be written by democrats and not autocrats, to trust that his time in prison has not been spent in vain. But it’s important for anyone here in the United States who supports human rights, democracy, and free enterprise to understand that as well.

Just as one’s father may be a sportsman, a family man, or a businessman depending on the day, for me it’s interesting to see how the name Khodorkovsky has come to symbolize different things to different people — each persona reflecting the need for change in Russia.

Read the full version of Pavel’s article on the Philadelphia Inquirer website.