FREEDOM FOR BORIS KAGARLITSKY!

Join our fight to free a prominent journalist and left-wing intellectual imprisoned for exercising his right to free speech. Solidarity is stronger than repression!

BORIS KAGARLITSKY IMPRISONED IN RUSSIA

We are shocked and appalled to learn that on July 25, prominent Russian socialist thinker Boris Kagarlitsky (64) was arrested in Moscow on fabricated charges of "justifying terrorism".

Boris Kagarlitsky is an academic scholar whose sociological and philosophical work is well known the world over. His articles, books, and interviews are published in many languages. He is a leading Russian intellectual whose work has built a reputation for his country in global academia. For several decades, Kagarlitsky has remained an influential figure both in Russia and worldwide, contributing significantly to understanding global challenges and fighting for the progress of humanity. A whole generation of scholars, activists, and politicians has come to understand Russia and its place in the global community through his books.

The real reason for the repressions against Kagarlitsky is that, since February 2022, he has consistently denounced the aggression against Ukraine, underscoring that this barbaric war causes unspeakable harm not only to the Ukrainian people but also to ordinary Russians. Though many of us have disagreed with Kagarlitsky in the past, we recognize and applaud how bravely he has spoken out against the woeful decisions of the Russian government and remained one of the rare public voices inside Russia opposing the war. He has stayed in the country, running the YouTube channel "Rabkor", where he has continued resisting militarization and demanding profound change in Russia.

Boris Kagarlitsky is now among the tens of thousands of Russians subjected to state repression, with many sentenced to long prison terms, others paying massive fines, and still others tortured to death by the police apparatus. His arrest is yet another chain in a wide-ranging crackdown on Russian citizens who dare to oppose a regime that has "turned out to be incompatible not only with human rights and democratic freedoms but simply with the elementary preservation of the rules of modern civilized existence for the majority of the population," as Kagarlitsky himself put it recently. We are furious that matters have now reached the point where a senior academic scholar is jailed for calling things for what they are.

This is a case of an intellectual being persecuted for free speech. We call for the release of Kagarlitsky and express solidarity with all political prisoners in Russia arrested for their antiwar views.
Sign to demand the release of Boris Kagarlitsky
SIGNATORIES
  • Jean-Luc Mélenchon
    Co-director of La Boétie Institute, French Presidential candidate of The Popular Union in 2022
  • Stefania Prezioso Batou
    Swiss historian, university professor and politician, member of Solidarity and later Résistons, member for the canton of Geneva in the Swiss National Council since December 2019.
  • Slavoj Žižek
    Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual
  • Nadya Tolokonnikova
    Russian member of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, co-founder of the online publication Mediazona and the prisoner rights organization Zona Prava, former member of the Voina art group.
  • Jeremy Corbyn
    British politician, Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020, member of Parliament
  • Enzo Traverso
    Italian and French Marxist historian, professor of political science at the University of Picardy in Amiens.
  • Donatella Della Porta
    Professor of political science, dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Director of the PD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence.
  • Miguel Urbán Crespo
    Spanish activist and politician, member of the European Parliament since 2015.
  • Kavita Krishnan
    Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association
  • Grigory Yudin
    Russian sociologist, expert on public opinion and polls in Russia.
  • Christof Mauch
    Director of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany,[1] and since 2007 professor of American Cultural History and Transatlantic Relations at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
  • Mario Pianta
    President of the 'Istituto di studi avanzati Carlo Azeglio Ciampi' of the Scuola Normale Superiore, President of the Società Italiana di Economia (SIE) and co-chief editor of the journal Structural Change and Economic Dynamics (Elsevier).
  • Ed Broadbent
    Canadian politician, political scientist, leader of the New Democratic Party (1975-1989), member of Parliament of Canada (1968-1990, 2004-2006)
  • Jon Wiener
    American historian and journalist, professor emeritus of United States history at the University of California
  • Bohdan Krawchenko
    Former director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the University of Alberta in Canada and former vice-rector of the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine.
  • Bill Fletcher Jr
    American journalist and broadcaster
  • Étienne Balibar
    French philosopher, professor of political philosophy at the University of Paris X-Nanterre (as well as the University of California at Irvine), teacher of French and English and contemporary literature.
  • Alex Callinicos
    British political theorist and activist
  • Dmitry Spirin
    Formerly leader of Russia punk rock band «Tarakany!»
  • J. Arch Getty
    American historian and professor at the University of California
  • Kevin B. Anderson
    American sociologist, professor at University of California
  • Martin Bana
    Historian, professor at the University of Buenos Aires
  • Ken Loach
    British film director and screenwriter, two-time winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival
  • Tariq Ali
    Pakistani-British political activist, writer, journalist, historian, and public intellectual
  • Farooq Tariq
    Politician Pakistan, General Secretary of the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committe
  • Bettina Müller
    German politician of the Social Democratic Party, member of the Bundestag
  • Laurent Thévenot
    French sociologist Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
  • Kerstin Kaiser
    Leiterin Büro der Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Moskau 2016-2022, Partei DIE LINKE
  • Audun Lysbakken
    Member of the Norwegian Parliament, former leader of the Socialist Left Party of Norway
  • Naomi Klein
    Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, leftism and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism and capitalism.
  • Anthony Barnett
    Co-founder, openDemocracy, modern English writer and campaigner
  • Walden Bello
    Filipino academic who served as a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. He is an international adjunct professor at Binghamton University, professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and executive director of regional policy think-tank Focus on the Global South. Bello is also the founder and chairperson of the left-wing alliance Laban ng Masa.
  • Jayati Ghosh
    Indian development economist. She is the Chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
  • Ilya Budraitskis
    historian, social theorist and art critic, member of the editorial board of "Art Magazine" and LeftEast

map of solidarity
with Boris Kagarlitsky
Made on
Tilda