Dear Mikhail Borisovich, it is difficult to celebrate special occasions behind bars. When the foreseeable future for years ahead shows nothing but the prison fence, even the traditional "Happy New Year!" begins to smack of a hidden meaning. We understand all this only too well and it is still fresh in our memory.

But you must go ahead with celebrations, no matter what. The outgoing year deserves to be rung out by you. By you personally. Ring it out till it's dead and gone. God only knows what the New Year will bring you, but we hope that it will be no harder than 2005.

The shady dealings of your trial were present in all the reviews of the outgoing year and it has been a long time since Russia's body politic saw such dire writing on the wall. Historians will remember the year 2005, not least for the justice dealt out by the Meshchansky Court and your imprisonment at the Krasnokamensk uranium mine, though in your case one did not have to be a generation removed to get an unbiased picture; it is enough to follow developments closely as they are covered in the daily papers.

The authorities have made quite a show of meting out justice to you but, in spite of all the limelight, the show lacks even a shred of legitimacy. Anyone, who even glanced at the documents in your case understands that the conviction of Khodorkovsky was illegal, unfounded and political.

Being in Krasnokamensk, you will ring in the New Year 6 hours ahead of Moscow. And that is not a bad thing, to be 6 hours ahead of the Kremlin and the Office of the Prosecutor General. Because you will become free 6 hours earlier, too. And this will be the leading story in Moscow's morning newspapers. If only this "6 hours earlier" could come sooner.

Happy New Year, dear Mikhail Borisovich! We wish you, and all those close to you, health and no end of patience.

Vladimir Bukovsky (UK)
Sergei Kovalyov
Grigory Pasko
Aleksandr Nikitin
Father Gleb Yakunin
Yuly Rybakov
Boris Pustyntsev
Arseny Roginsky
Aleksandr Lavut
Malva Landa
Pavel Bashkirov
Irina Grivnina (the Netherlands)
Levan Berdzenishvili
Edward Kuznetsov (Israel)
Yelena Bonner (USA)
Natalia Gorbanevskaya (France)
Yuliya Vinevskaya
Yuri Fyodorov
Pavel Litvinov
Zinovy Antonyuk (Ukraine)
Vyacheslav Igrunov
Boris Weil (USA)