[This week at the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum I finally had the opportunity to personally meet with the youth movement leader Oleg Kozlovsky, a young man of admirable courage and intelligence – the kind of person who means so much for the future of the country. We’ve accepted numerous contributions from Kozlovsky to this blog, and Grigory Pasko has interviewed him a number of times. His latest dispatch follows below. The state’s dogged persecution of Oleg’s activities – which has reached such extremes as repeated arrests and involuntary (and illegal) conscription to the Army – has turned him from an unknown entity into a celebrity dissident (he’s even written for the Washington Post). It was a great pleasure to meet Oleg, and he has my full support in his peaceful resistance to authoritarianism and his demands for greater political inclusion and participation. – Robert Amsterdam] Wish We Had Your Problems! By Oleg Kozlovsky There seems to be a tradition that whenever a foreign human rights organization publishes a report on Russia, Kremlin-backed politicians call it groundless and based on double standards. So, unsurprisingly, the Amnesty International World Report 2008 got cool welcome. For example, a member of Putin’s Civil Chamber, Anatoly Kucherena, immediately condemned the “wholesale criticism” and “ideological implications” of the report. However, if the “official” human rights activist had taken the time to read the report or, even better, to attend its presentation in Moscow, he wouldn’t be so upset.