Russian President, Vladimir Putin, displayed embarrassing ignorance during a Question and Answer Session at the fifth annual  Russia Calling! Investment Forum this week when he appeared not to understand the definition of ‘political prisoner’ when asked about an amnesty for Russia’s prominent political prisoners.

A reporter from the Wall Street Journal asked him: “Mr President, don’t you think that in order to enhance investors’ confidence, it could be useful to offer an amnesty to many of the prominent prisoners, those who are considered to be political prisoners… and to end high-profile cases on corruption. Is it in your personal power to do that and to improve investors’ trust?”

Mr Putin answered:  “Regarding those who are considered to be politicians.  I’m not sure if you mean old cases, but figures among those old cases were never involved in politics. They have become politicians as soon as they found themselves imprisoned. I am not sure that they should be persecuted forever…”

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe offers a definition of the term ‘political prisoner’ making it clear that to be a ‘political prisoner’ one doesn’t need to have been a politician. Christoph Strässer, MEP, in his report The definition of political prisoners stated:

“A person deprived of his or her personal liberty is to be regarded as a “political prisoner” if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols (ECHR), in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association; if the detention has been imposed for purely political reasons without connection to any offence; if, for political motives, the length of the detention or its conditions are clearly out of proportion to the offence the person has been found guilty of or is suspected of; if, for political motives, he or she is detained in a discriminatory manner as compared to other persons; or, if the detention is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities.”

The second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev’s along with their December 2010 sentencing to 14 years in prison on trumped up charges is a clear example of this definition of political motivation – as the alleged crimes were nonsensical and the length of the sentences wholly disproportionate. Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003 for speaking out on the country’s flourishing corruption and on the need to create a more healthy civil society in Russia.