Breakfast with oppositionists

The leader of the United Civil Front (UCF), Garry Kasparov, was invited to a breakfast given by US President George W. Bush in New York in honor of “government critics” from different countries. Kasparov was the only Russian representative at this breakfast.

The meeting was also attended by a monk from Myanmar Wu Kovid, Cuban journalist Omar Pernet Hernandez, journalist from Venezuela Marcel Granier, founder of the banned Democratic Party of China Xu Wenli, leader of the Fighters for a Free North Korea Sang Hak Park, representative of the Movement for Justice and Development in Syria" Osama Monajed, the wife of prominent Egyptian oppositionist Ayman Nur Gamil Ismail, as well as Belarusian oppositionist Alexander Kazulin and for some reason former Soviet political prisoner, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, representative of the European Parliament from Lithuania Vytautas Landsbergis and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Sierra Leone Zeinab Hawa Bangura .

Bush noted that his guests are "democratic leaders, human rights activists, courageous men and women who have stood strong for freedom" and are "on the forefront of securing freedom."

As the executive director of the UCF, Denis Bilunov, told the Daily Journal, attendance at the breakfast with the American president was not included in the preliminary plan for Kasparov’s trip to the United States. He suggested that initially there were no guarantees that this meeting would take place.

Kasparov, as reported by Ekho Moskvy, said that the very fact of this meeting should become a clear signal to the Kremlin that Washington no longer harbors illusions about the democracy of the current ruling elite in Russia.