On June 11, Pavel Khodorkovsky was interviewed by Elena Servettaz of Radio France International (RFI); the audio version of the interview is available on the RFI website in Russian. A transcript of the interview can be read below.

RFI: How productive are meetings with MEPs in the framework of seminars on political prisoners in Russia?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: I’m happy that the ALDE group organised the hearings concerning political prisoners in Russia. Over the past several years, especially since Vladimir Putin started his third term as president, these issues have become worse, and the number of political prisoners in Russia exceeds all imaginable levels and is approaching the level that existed in the USSR.

RFI: It’s an interesting coincidence that the “Bolotnaya case” trial is about to start, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is turning 50, having spent ten of those years in jail. Maria Alyokhina [of Pussy Riot] celebrated her 25th birthday in the penal colony. In Brussels, everybody is talking about this.

Pavel Khodorkovsky: I regard events like today’s hearing first and foremost as an opportunity to convey the information, both factual and emotional, to people who make decisions or affect the decision-making process. I’m talking about MEPs and those who work with them here in Brussels.

I believe that an opportunity to get information straight from the horse’s mouth will increase the likelihood that knowledge about what’s going on in many countries, unfortunately not only in Russia, will affect the priority attached to those issues when decisions are made.

Why do I think that such briefings may affect the adoption of specific decisions or laws? Because as of today, at least 47 MEPs have already said officially that they would veto the visa regime simplification process unless this process is done simultaneously with the adoption of a law similar to the US Magnitsky Act.

This is a very good sign of movement in the right direction. This is a good way not to adopt sanctions against a country as a whole, but to take specific measures that would demonstrate to all the bureaucrats in Russia that the violation of human rights and participation in corrupt deals will not go unpunished, even if there is no rule of law in Russia itself.

RFI: How will you congratulate your father on his 50th birthday?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: Our family got lucky: we have a visit scheduled for the day after my father’s birthday [which falls on June 26 – Ed]. My brothers, sister and my father’s wife will have an opportunity to wish him a happy birthday right after the 26th. My wife, my daughter and I are going to send him a hand-made birthday card, and as we have already done before, we invite all his friends in Russia and abroad to pack several cards in one parcel. It takes a while, but the cards do get there.

[Supporters can also send a 50^th birthday card to Mikhail Khodorkovsky by clicking here]

RFI: How do you communicate? By mail?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: Yes, we correspond, and we are also able to talk on the phone for 5-10 minutes once every 2-3 weeks.

RFI: How realistic is it for prisoners’ families to get reliable information; to what extent can prisoners communicate it? I understand, of course, that Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s case is a special one, but maybe you know something about the situation as a whole, about other cases?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: Pressure always existed: in the Chita prison, and before that in the Moscow prisons. Of course there is always a danger that any more or less valuable information will be used against the person who is in jail. But I can say that after ten years, my father and I talk on the phone about pretty much everything. Simply because ten years is such a long period that during that time it’s hard to do something else to the person, take something else from him, somehow use those tiny bits of information that we communicate to each other to make his situation in jail even worse.

Too much has been done to prevent him from seeing his younger children grow, from engaging in the charitable and public activities that he started prior to his arrest. Those activities would undoubtedly have done much more good for our country than his ten-year incarceration, during which he makes plastic folders later sold in office supplies stores in Moscow. It’s quite hard to do something else.

RFI: Your father has become a symbol of the fight for dignity both in Russia and in the EU. This is constantly discussed by politicians as well as journalists. But none of them dare to guess when Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be released…

Pavel Khodorkovsky: Our family is waiting for October next year, October 2014. But life has fallen short of our expectations on many occasions already. I realise that a third case is possible, and that pressure may be exerted onto the court system to keep my father in jail even after October 2014.

What do I hope for? First and foremost that our country has come a long way over the past few years, especially in terms of the development of the civil society since 2011. What we’ve seen over the past year and a half to two years would have seemed completely unrealistic in 2009 or 2010. I think that there are fewer and fewer opportunities to intimidate opposition members and ordinary citizens.

The social contract is not quite working any more. Everyone is sick and tired of Putin as a sole leader, and the society is no longer willing to tolerate continuing violations of human rights in mid-term. Whatever the Investigative Committee, Moscow courts and others are doing, they won’t be able to stop the process of Russia returning to normality, to a country developing normally.

Of course, I’d like to believe that in October 2014 we will see my father free. As you know, the Supreme Court recently announced that on August 6 it would review the decision concerning application of the new law about the maximum term of detention. This may lead to a slight reduction of the sentence as already happened this past December.

RFI: Is what happened to Sergei Guriev an indicator that Mikhail Khodorkovsky may not see “October 2014” for several more years?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: The pressure being exerted in Russia on the expert community in general and on Sergei Guriev in particular may be an indicator of a third case against my father being in the pipeline. Suggestions that my father tried to influence the experts in some way are absurd. Those people are professionals well known not only in Russia but also outside it.

They gave their expert opinion at the request of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council. In my view, the key issue here is that those opinions became the basis of many public and political discussions, in which the opinions of those of experts were used to show the extent of the degradation of the legal system in Russia.

In other words, the authorities didn’t like the conclusions of that report. So, in keeping with a Russian tradition, the authorities are trying to prove that someone influenced the experts in order to pressure them into recanting their opinions. I hope this won’t happen.

RFI: The last question. There has been a lot of speculation about what your father is going to be doing when he has been released. Have you discussed this?

Pavel Khodorkovsky: We don’t talk about it often. We prefer not to try and guess the future until it’s become the present. Nevertheless, I think that my father, having spent ten years in jail without agreeing to any deals with the authorities, does not see himself as a political émigré. He has told me this many times, and I think that he will do everything he can in order to stay in Russia and be useful for his country. For my part, I think that this may create a danger for his safety. I’d like him not to endanger himself by staying in Russia, at least under the current Russian authorities. But our opinions on this subject are drastically different.