I am grateful to our Russian correspondent Grigory Pasko, who has done his best to spread the world among the Russian human rights community about the plight of my client Dr. Chee Soon Juan, one of Singapore’s greatest defenders of democracy.  The response in Russia has been good, and below I attach a translation of a statement of support signed by Lev Ponomarev, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalev, and several other human rights luminaries.

Ponomarev and company draw parallels between the predatory governments of both Singapore and Russia, remarking that “in our country people are persecuted who are unwanted by the powers, innocent people are subjected to criminal punishments. (…) We understand those feelings that are experienced by free-thinking people in Singapore, who, like us, want to see their country as a democratic state, free from persecutions in it of citizens for their convictions.“