Statements of Support (2003-2013) / Rt Hon Baroness Williams, Shirley

“I know Mr Khodorkovsky to some extent. I have come across him when I have spoken or been lecturing at various higher education institutions in Moscow and in other parts of Russia. What I can say about him is that he is an extremely direct man. He is not very good at the more gracious elements of the language, but he cannot stop himself from speaking out honestly about the things that concern him, the things that he thinks are wrong. He is also a man of that rather rare Russian characteristic, an almost crazy kind of courage. One can say to him and to other Russian dissidents that perhaps it is unwise to speak out, that it may be foolish to fall out with the authorities, but they are almost unable to be stopped, in many ways. They have the kind of almost crazy kind of courage that one associates with the work of Dostoevsky or Chekhov. It is still there.

It is important to speak about the long string of Russian crimes, sentences and misjudgments, and to say loud and clear that we need to exercise over a much wider range than we have so far sought to do, steps that will make it very difficult for Russians to continue to do what they are doing with Khodorkovsky”

Rt Hon Baroness Shirley Williams of Crosby, speaking during the UK’s House of Lords Debate  ‘Representations to Russia and other European countries about the Khodorkovsky case at the European Court of Human Rights’, July 23, 2013