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Alexander Daniel'

ALEXANDER DANIEL’: Although I am from “Memorial,” mine is not at all a “Memorial” point of view. I ask the moderator to add 60 seconds for a reply to one point in Cherkasov's speech. It’s about the explosions in the metro. OLEG ORLOV: Please begin from this addition. ALEXANDER DANIEL’: I was the

ALEXANDER DANIEL’: Although I am from “Memorial,” mine is not at all a “Memorial” point of view. I ask the moderator to add 60 seconds for a reply to one point in Cherkasov's speech. It’s about the explosions in the metro.

OLEG ORLOV: Please begin from this addition.

ALEXANDER DANIEL’: I was the very person who prepared information about this trial for the Chronicle of Current Events. I prepared it together with my colleague Leonid Davidovich Vul’. It is wrong to think that the restraint seen in the descriptions and lack of findings may be explained by the fact that there were strong arguments on the basis of the case’s materials, confirming the validity of the charges. In fact, it was the opposite. We had no reasonable grounds for supporting the invalidity of the conviction. We had some doubts and objections, but they were only circumstantial.

Thus, in the divergence which Oleg Petrovich [Orlov] marked between the opinions of [Sergey] Davidis and [Alexander] Cherkasov, the Chronicle's position is in all likelihood that which Cherkasov expressed. Allow me to subscribe to the opinion of my colleague.

And now to the main theme.

I will immediately set forth my main thesis: the idea of a “political prisoner” bears no relation to law. It is a political understanding, and therefore closely tied to the political outlook of the person which uses this term. It is also a historical idea, strongly inscribed in a historical context. Now I will prove it.

The main problem with the definition of this idea is its emotional connotation. In the collective consciousness, the word “political prisoner” is associated with something good. This is a man who suffers from the fact that he is fighting for justice. He is a warrior of Good and war prisoner of Evil. If we used the term “bad political prisoner,” it would hurt our ears. It is perceived as an oxymoron. Therefore, most of the efforts to give a definition to this term are based on a desire to sever the bad ones and leave the good ones. And that is visible both in Davidis' (rather complicated) definition and in Amnesty's definition, Friederike Behr's. In Davidis' efforts, more so, in Friederike's, less. Because Davidis above all has in mind the slogan “Freedom for political prisoners.” While in Behr's case, less so, because Amnesty only demands a fair trial in difficult cases. Two of the three basic approaches have been stated here.

First of all, there are the political motives for a person's actions which have led him to prison. If the motives of the individual included in the list are noble from the point of view of the person composing the list, that person is defined as a political prisoner. If the motives of the individual are wretched, he is by no means a political prisoner. And in any case, these acts are regarded as worthier than the crimes for instance committed for selfish motives. The question “has this man really broken the law” is somehow relegated. Assertions, such as those by Zoya Svetova that Tikhonov and Khasis are by no means political prisoners, arise from the same desire, as it seems to me: bad and unpleasant individuals cannot be called political prisoners.

The second approach. This is the traditional dissident approach formulated for the first, if I am not mistaken, by Vladimir Nikolaevich Chalidze in the magazine Social Problems. A political prisoner is a person imprisoned because of the authorities' political motives. This was heard here. This motive is often difficult to prove, as Davidis mentioned. The authorities will always swear that in each and every case it proceeds from the requirements of the law. And again the question of whether a person has committed a crime, whilst the political motives of the authorities of his persecution are obvious, becomes secondary. Because it may transpire that he did actually commit a crime, but was not convicted for it; instead he was convicted because of the authorities' political motives. It's hard to prove that.

Finally the third approach, which was not heard at all, or at least little of it was. A political prisoner is a person who is charged with a certain action, but the object of this action is the state and its institutions, the socio-political system, constitutional order and similar abstract structures. There are two approaches to this case in criminal law. The first is when such actions are allocated to a specific category of crimes. For instance, in the first chapter “Especially Dangerous State Crimes,” just like in the Soviet code, and also partially the chapter “Crimes against Administrative Procedures.” The second approach is when the very actions are not considered as violations of the law. Only criminal offences against a person, and in connection with these actions, are considered. For example, a person may be convicted for terror if he killed a policeman or president; but can he be judged for the murder of a living person. Really?

Article 282, to which Natalia Leonidovna Kholmogorova so “warmly” responded, loses any of its meaning under the second approach. One can actually speak here of incitement of a crime. If there really were an incitement to commit a crime, it would be possible to judge it. In any case, if there were such a selection the following question would arise: what if the object of the crimes were the political institutions, and purely for selfish reasons? For example, do we want to see our spies and Western ones described as political prisoners? Question! We do not want that.

Which goes to say that none of the approaches are lawful, and the third one will give us nothing in value terms.

The question of “whether it is worth considering the actions against the existing state system and similar abstractions as violations of the law” is not a legal question, but a political one. Moreover, I will repeat that this idea is also a historical one. It does not work well outside of the historical context. For instance, when we are talking about a member of the “Nardonaya Volya” (“People's Freedom”), we are tempted to call them political prisoners, while when we're talking about the Irish Republican Army, we are less tempted to do so. However, before they started blowing up pubs, they did the same things as “Narodnaya Volya”...

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