Robert Amsterdam

This afternoon I will be participating in a symposium held at the University of Pennslyvania's Law School entitled "Human Rights and Political Prisoners in Russia: A View from the Khodorkovsky Case."

The other participants include Michael Fitts, Penn Law Dean, William Burke-White, University of Pennsylvania law professor, Mary Holland, New York University Law School research scholar, Benjamin Nathans, University of Pennsylvania history professor, Roger Clark, Rutgers Law School professor, and other members of the Mikhail Khodorkovsky's legal team including John Pappalardo, Sanford Saunders, Pavel Ivlev, and Elena Levina.

WHAT:Human Rights and Political Prisoners in Russia: A View from the Khodorkovsky Case

WHEN:Dec. 7, 2006

4:30-6:30 p.m.

WHERE:University of Pennsylvania Law School

34th and Chestnut streets

The symposium will examine recent legal, political and human rights trends in Russia and discuss whether Russias courts and intelligence services are being used by the Russian government to silence opposition political forces.

Symposium participants will focus on the trial and conviction of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, Russian business leaders sentenced to eight years in Siberian labor camps, and also on the recent murders of former Russian KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Khodorkovsky's prosecution and conviction are considered by many international journalists, politicians and businessmen as politically motivated by Vladimir Putins government. Khodorkovsky is the former head of the Russian oil company Yukos.