Freedom House, which is indeed a friend of freedom, everywhere, has organized a letter to President Biden. It begins,
We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration. As we all mourn the loss of Russian democratic opposition leader Alexey Navalny . . . we request that you accelerate your efforts to release imprisoned Russian pro-democracy advocate Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza is an extremely vulnerable prisoner, and we fear that he may be the Kremlin’s next victim if the United States does not act swiftly.
The signers are a distinguished roster of advocates: advocates of freedom, democracy, and human rights. (Their number appears to be getting smaller in the United States.)
Their two requests are as follows: that Kara-Murza “be immediately designated ‘wrongfully detained’ under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act”; and that he “be included in any ongoing negotiations with Russia.”
I would like to suggest something else: that President Biden award Vladimir Kara-Murza the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He certainly deserves it, as one of the great freedom champions in all the world.
In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded the Medal of Freedom to Óscar Elías Biscet, in absentia. Dr. Biscet was a political prisoner in Cuba. Bush did this — it was his way — to highlight Biscet’s case. To help keep him alive.
Senator John McCain was a great admirer of Vladimir Kara-Murza (as many of us are). When McCain fell gravely ill, he asked Kara-Murza to serve as a pallbearer at his funeral. He did this for a couple of reasons. He wanted to honor dissidents generally. And he wanted to provide an additional spotlight to Kara-Murza — to make it harder, maybe, for the Kremlin to kill him. (FSB agents had already tried to kill Vladimir twice, by poison.)
Eventually, Dr. Biscet got out of prison. And George W. Bush was able to award him his medal in person, in 2016.
For every reason thinkable, Vladimir Kara-Murza ought to have the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
(By the way, I also think that President Biden should award the Medal of Freedom to Jimmy Lai, the most prominent of the political prisoners in Hong Kong, and, like Kara-Murza, a great man.)