Chess Grand Master Is Latest Russian to Flee
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Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images(MOSCOW) — Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has fled his country because he says he fears political persecution if he stays.
“I kept traveling back and forth until late February, where it became clear that I might be part of this ongoing investigation of the activities of the political protesters,” Kasparov said at a press conference at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday, where he was receiving an award.
“Right now I have serious doubts that if I return to Moscow I may be able to travel back. So for the time being I refrain from returning to Russia,” he said.
Kasparov’s departure is just the latest in a string of prominent Russians who have left the country because they fear prosecution. In a statement posted later on his website, Kasparov insisted he had not emigrated permanently from Russia.
“Russia is and will always be my country,” he wrote, adding that he would continue his democracy advocacy from abroad.
Kasparov was ranked the number one chess player in the world for a record 20 years, but retired from professional chess in 2005. In recent years Kasparov, who famously defeated IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in a series of chess matches in 1996, had become a strident opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. He co-founded a pro-democracy party and has been a prominent speaker at anti-Putin rallies that have been held over the past year and a half.
Since Putin returned to the Kremlin last year for a third term in office, authorities have begun what opposition leaders say is a calculated effort to squash dissent and intimidate opposition leaders. Russia’s legislature has followed the Kremlin’s lead in passing a series of new laws that make it harder for people to organize and severely increased penalties for those who hold what are deemed unsanctioned rallies. Some protest leaders had their homes searched. Last August, a trio of Russian punk feminists were sentenced to two years in prison for performing an anti-Putin stunt in a Moscow cathedral in a case that was widely seen as a message that dissent would not be tolerated.
Russian elites who have dared to fund opposition, or even independent efforts, have reportedly pulled back amid fears that they will be targeted.
According to a new poll conducted by the independent Levada Center, which itself is under pressure from authorities, over a fifth of Russians want to leave the country. The poll found that 22 percent said they wanted to leave, up from 13 percent in 2009. The poll found that students, entrepreneurs, and particularly young males were most likely to express a desire to leave the country.
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