MPs say Russian Activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Should be Given Honorary Citizenship

This excerpt from The Canadian Press describes a group of MPs and senators working to grant honorary Canadian citizenship to Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.

A cross-party group of MPs and senators is hoping to grant honorary Canadian citizenship to Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza in the coming weeks.

“He embodies the movement for a democratic Russia,” Ontario Sen. Ratna Omidvar said a Thursday press conference, joined by representatives from most parties and Senate groups.

Kara-Murza is a prominent Russian journalist and activist who has helped lead a political party in Russia.

In April 2022, Russian authorities detained Kara-Murza and charged him with “spreading deliberately false information” about the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow prohibits calling a war.

Former attorney general Irwin Cotler alleged that Kara-Murza was poisoned twice upon returning to Russia after testifying in Canada about changes to Ottawa’s sanctions regime that brought in a tougher stance against the Russian government.

Honorary citizenship, Cotler argued, would send support to all Russians detained for speaking out against the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the Russian human-rights group OVD-Info saying more than 20,000 people are in that category.

“He is the personification of justice, the embodiment of the struggle for democracy,” Cotler said.

“We will be honouring all those cases and causes for which he has stood so bravely, which reflect and represent Canadian values.”

Read the full article in The Canadian Press