Axis : The West Has Betrayed Khodorkovsky. (How the Western Politicians Build Russia's New Gulag)

According to the information coming from Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky arrived at prison number 10 located in the city of Harp of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous region, that in the Arctic zone. At the same time, Platon Lebedev was sent to the colony 10 kilometres far from the city of Chita. Until recently Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were contained in investigatory isolator "Matrosskaya Tishina" in Moscow. They are both sentenced by the Russian authorities to 8 years of imprisonment. Relatives of both political prisoners have not received yet any information on their exact location. Even the information that is incoming presently is extremely inconsistent and it is quite possible that actually Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have been sent to other jails.
In this connection it is necessary to note that there is no exact information concerning the colony of strict regime number 10 in the Chita area. But the colonies of strict regime YAG-14/1 and YAG-14/5 are very well-known, or better to say ill-known for the reigning despotism of their heads and the extremely bad conditions of keeping the prisoners. Practically all the penitentiary facilities of the Chita area are overcrowded at least by 20 %. Every fifth condemned or arrested person suffers from tuberculosis. The facilities are in bad sanitary conditions: beds are built in three tiers, the meals are awful. Besides, the climatic conditions of Chita area, and Yamal-Nenets autonomous region are very harsh for the temperatures in winter fall down minus 40 C.
Khodorkovsky's lawyer, Yuri Shmidt, already declared that under the law his client should be sent to a colony in the Moscow region, or nearby. "Khodorkovsky and Lebedev should be transferred to colony located in Moscow or the Moscow area, and if there is no such colony of the common regime then they should be placed in the nearest region where there is a colony of such a regime", Schmidt declared.
Thus, abundantly clear, that we are talking about a real banishment on political grounds. Russia is used to this. The imperial regime resorted to this method before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and subsequently it was widely used by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. And today Vladimir Putin is using it again.

Khodorkovsky is being transferred to another jail.
This return of Putin's regime to the old methods of political banishments is not surprising. It is a logical continuation of the process of curtailing the democratic achievements of the President Boris Yeltsin's epoch. And, the worrisome part is, that this process has been taking place in Russia the last five years, before the eyes of the civilized world. It is much more important to note another fact - the return to the practice of political banishments occurs with full connivance of the West and with its tacit consent. After adjudgment to the former heads of Yukos at the end of May, 2005, Putin and his coterie awaited to see the reaction of the West. Just as over half a century ago Hitler awaited the reaction of the Western society on construction of the first concentration camps and the first Jewish pogroms. However, as well as then, the West could not find enough inner strength to resist resolutely to the dictatorship, which is getting stronger. The results of the last visit of Vladimir Putin to London have convinced him that the West is not only unready to clash with the Kremlin because of Khodorkovsky and infringement of human rights as a whole, but, on the contrary, tries to cajole the Kremlin clique in every possible way to provide itself with stable deliveries of oil and gas. In this context the recent statement of the leadership of Latvia that staying in the Latvian territory of the active opponent of a present Russian regime Boris Berezovsky is undesirable, became rather indicative. Having summarized the information, which arrived from London, Riga, and other European capitals, Putin came to a conclusion that now his hands are completely untied and he can do anything to Khodorkovsky and Lebedev without being criticized by the West.
Nevertheless, the West should understand that banishment of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will not suffice Putin. The former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and many other real and imaginary opponents of Putin's regime are on the waiting list.
It is possible that the following step may quite become the revival of the ill-known Gulag, the system of camps in which, at the times of Stalin, besides criminals, were contained and died millions of not only political opponents of the Soviet rule, but simply innocent people. And the West, which decided to go through the transaction with the Russian regime for the sake of momentary economical and political benefits of its ruling elites will be the one to blame.

Axis Globe, 10.21.2005

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There is an error in the text. Actually Lebedev is in a camp near Harp and Khodorkovsky near Chita.