An Open Letter to President Medvedev of The Russian Federation

110 Waterloo Warehouse
Liverpool
L3 0BQ

2 June 2011

President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev
The Greater Russian Peoples
Via His Excellency
The Ambassador
Embassy of the Russian Federation
6/7 Kensington Palace Gardens,
London,
W8 4QP

Dear Mr President,

I write to introduce myself and to draw most urgent attention to the plight of my people in your Country, and which has been reported in the media during the past week.

A petition has been raised and signed by many and sent to you by one of the UK’s important social institutions, “All Out”.

In light of the subject I am taking the unprecedented step of writing to you personally, Sir.

I remember watching live the BBC News 24 coverage of your investiture and inauguration as President of Russia in 2008. I watched it in full because here was history in the making, and something that even in 1991 when I stood talking with East German and Russian guards at the Berlin Brandenburg Gate ‘checkpoint charlie’, I could not have comprehended.

I remember our journey across East Germany in the British Military Train; our own armed guards patrolling the carriages and the East German guards standing to, fully armed, at every siding and junction whenever the train stopped, to ensure that none of us alighted the train.

I recalled the sacrifices of your people in one of the most horrendous wars in history and the brute savagery of Nazism on the Greater Russian Peoples.

But your people prevailed. Somehow you withstood the dreaded Einsatsgruppen; and whilst military victory became the stalemate of the Cold War, nevertheless, justice and commonsense prevailed. The cause of the people became paramount and the voice of the people was heard and in time revolutionised Russia and thus eventually led to your own appointment as this Great Nation’s head of state.

A few days ago I was reading afresh President Nelson Mandela’s speeches; one in particular registered and is his address from the dock of the South African Supreme Court in Pretoria on 20 April 1964 as the First Accused.

He quotes the then South African Prime Minister Mr Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd during an earlier debate on the Bantu Education Bill 1953, about which Mr Verwoerd had declared:

When I have control of Native education I will reform it so that Natives will be taught from childhood to realise that equality with Europeans is not for them. . . . People who believe in equality are not desirable teachers for Natives. When my Department controls Native education it will know for what class of higher education a Native is fitted, and whether he will have a chance in life to use his knowledge.

I confess, Sir, that that pulled me up short! It was difficult to comprehend the mindset. But I recall also being taught about the War of 1939-1945 by my parents. Mum and Dad both lost brothers over Germany. But it was Mum’s comment one day that really stayed with me. “We suffered but nothing like the Russian People. They went through hell, and you must never forget that!”

For me it made your victory even more important.

Every nation, every people, every community on earth gets it wrong occasionally. But we also have the ability to stop injustice, and none more so than now Mr President.

My people have as much right to breathe the air and drink the water of life, to give to the greater good of our nation states and for the benefit of humankind, as the next man or woman.

I cannot accept that the Greater Russian People are acting as one as did the Nazis. That just doesn’t add up Sir.

I am a lawyer, and served as a police officer and in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. And I learned that when bigots (and believe me, the UK has its fair share of bigots) start trouble, it is the duty of the nation state from central government down to the local police station, to step in and protect those who are being victimised and bullied. It is the duty of every police officer to protect all people and to bring the bigots to justice where they have committed criminal offences.

There are some who argue that to even ‘think’ a hate crime, should be a criminal offence. That is a dangerous precedent for obvious reasons. A crime is a crime, regardless.

But I ask you to use your executive powers to give guidance and leadership to those communities who might still be a long way back in entering our 21st Century.

May I ask that you step forth, Sir, and protect my people in the same measured way that you stepped forth as you walked with determination and confidence through the Palace to your inauguration and to one of the most important global roles and international offices of state that anyone can ever hold.

I have the greatest admiration for the Russian People. I recall the amazing conversations with the Russian Guards at the Brandenburg Gate in 1991 and the pride I felt in actually meeting your people in the embassy gardens later that day in East Berlin.

Let us all move forward and be determined to bring freedom to all, and the sword of justice to those who seek to impose upon a section of its people the same twisted logic that President Nelson Mandela identified on the basis of race, and which we now see repeated in the current situation – one’s sexuality.

I have the honour to be,
Mr President,
Your obedient servant



Ian Bradley Marshall


Cc: His Excellency, the British Ambassador, Moscow