Publications / Open Letter to Medvedev from U.S. Human Rights Groups
In October 2010, several of the leading human rights groups in the United States, including Freedom House and Human Rights Watch, signed an open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev calling for the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev. The authors writes, “the suspicious circumstances surrounding the initiation of the case and the accumulation of serious allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, including serious, enduring flaws in the charges on which the men are being tried; allegations that serious procedural errors committed by prosecutors were consistently tolerated by the court; and evidence suggesting that investigators engaged in intimidation, harassment, beating, and denial of necessary medical treatment to witnesses and defense attorneys, have given rise to a widespread impression that the prosecution of Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Lebedev is being undertaken for political purposes, contrary to human rights guarantees that Russia has pledged to uphold.”