The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled [judgment; press release] Tuesday that the 2007 detention of political activist and chess champion Garry Kasparov [personal website] by Russian authorities was illegal. Kasparov was detained in Moscow for five hours while trying to board a flight. Kasparov was traveling to Samara to attend an opposition rally at the EU-Russia summit. The court held that Kasparov was deprived of his liberty after his passport had been confiscated and an armed guard had been posted at the door of his holding room. Further, the court ruled that because Kasparov was traveling to a political demonstration, his right to freedom of assembly had been effectively infringed as his arrest prevented his attendance in Samara. Russian authorities maintained that Kasparov was being investigated for forgery of his airline ticket.

Kasparov has faced numerous criminal charges from the Russian government for his involvement in political opposition over the years. In 2013 the ECHR ordered [JURIST report] Russia to compensate Kasparov, for his unjustified 2007 arrest. In December 2008 Kasparov was arrested [JURIST report] at an organizational meeting to form Solidarnost, a group with the stated intent of “dismantling” the regime of current Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was also arrested in November 2007 at an anti-Putin demonstration two weeks before parliamentary elections and has accused Putin of forming a puppet judiciary [JURIST reports] to persecute opposition leaders. Formerly the undisputed world chess grandmaster, Kasparov retired from professional chess in 2005 to focus on political activism. He is the founder and chairman of the United Civil Front, a political movement working “to preserve electoral democracy in Russia.”