Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov Has Been Added To Russia’s List Of “Terrorists And Extremists”

New Delhi: According to sources, Russian chess champion and political activist Garry Kasparov was added to the list of “terrorists and extremists” on Wednesday. The 60-year-old, a longstanding rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was placed on the list by the Russian watchdog Rosfinmonitoring, which is in charge of preventing the funding of terrorism and money laundering.

Kasparov has publicly denounced Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine on several occasions. According to AFP, Rosfinmonitoring provided no justification for including Kasparov, a Soviet native, in its database. It is also acknowledged that bank account seizures may occur for individuals the watchdog designates as “terrorists and extremists.”

Kasparov, a former world champion and widely considered one of the best chess players of all time, has spent more than ten years living in the US. In 2014, he left Russia out of fear of persecution. Kasparov was added to the Russian justice ministry’s list of “foreign agents” earlier in 2022, making him subject to onerous bureaucracy, including financial reporting.

Kasparov held the unchallenged title of world champion chess player for a record 255 months, from 1984 until his retirement in 2005. In addition, he has the record for the most career wins—15 professional tournament triumphs and 11 Chess Oscars.

In 1985, at the age of 22, Kasparov defeated then-champion Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest-ever world champion. Kasparov went on to defend his world championship three more times, in 1986, 1987, and 1990. In 1997, he also made history by becoming the first world champion to lose a match against a computer using conventional time constraints. Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer, beat Kasparov.

In 2009–2010, he served as a tutor to Magnus Carlsen, the current world No. 1 player. During this period, Carlsen became the top player in the FIDE Rankings. In 2013 and 2014, he ran for the FIDE presidency as well but was unsuccessful.

Kasparov responded to the news on social media in the meantime. “It’s an honor that says more about Putin’s fascist regime than it does about me,” he said. According to Goldwater, moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue, and extremism in the defense of liberty is not a fault! However, the dictatorship must label any dissent or ordinary decency as radical.