The President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman said not everyone being called political prisoners had this status.
President Miloš Zeman has responded in a rather unusual way to the call of the son of civil rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya to voice his opinion on human rights issues in Russia. Today, he said in the Talks in Lany interview on Czech Radio that not everyone being called political prisoners had this status, referring to disgraced Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
President Zeman considers Khodorkovsky a swindler, and he called the Russian female punk band Pussy Riot a porno group.
Zeman said he proceeded from the Soviet-era definition of political prisoners, when those people were called prisoners of conscience.
He believes that such people end up in prison for their political views, but that Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot do not fit into this category.
“They say that in the 1990s, Mr. Khodorkovsky carried plastic bags filled with millions of rubles, and that he obtained some assets just like Mr. Kožený, Mr. Krejcir, Mr. Pir and others did,” Zeman noted.
The Czech president says he has no reason so far to consider Khodorkovsky a political prisoner, although this is a wonderful pretext for cleansing oneself. He instead believes that Khodorkovsky was a swindler. The only thing that Zeman does not like about the Putin regime is that Putin did not imprison other oligarchs together with Khodorkovsky.
The president also lashed out against the Pussy Riot band. As he sees it, this porno band has, at least, been convicted by a criminal court for committing outrages at an Orthodox Church cathedral, although one of its members was in the last stage of pregnancy.
Moreover, the president sarcastically called them ideal political prisoners and commented on the band’s name. The English word “pussy” is a vulgar term denoting a female organ, and the word “riot” means an uprising. The word “pussy” can be found in every one of their songs, he said.
He said that when he comes to Russia for negotiations, he would be ready to defend all real political prisoners.