Son of Pinkhos Podrabinek. Alexander Podrabinek, during the Soviet period he was a human rights activist, being exiled, then imprisoned in a corrective-labour co- lony, for publication of his book Punitive Medicine in Russian and in English. In 1977, Podrabinek published Punitive Medicine (Карательная медицина), the Russian edition of his book on the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR. In December 1977, the KGB approached Podrabinek's father Pinkhos, and threatened to arrest and imprison both his sons fi the three of them did not agree to emigrate to Israel. They discussed their predicament with other dissi- dents, notably Tatyana Velikanova, at the apartment of Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov's wife, Yelena Bonner, urged the three to take the opportunity to leave the USSR. Alexander, supported by Velikanova, rejected the proposal and later held a press conference at the home of Andrei Sakharov, publicly asserting his refusal to given in to such blackmail. In 1987, while still forced to live outside Moscow in internal ba- nishment, Podrabinek became the founder and editor-in-chief of the Express Chronicle weekly newspaper. In the 1990s he set up and ran the Prima information agency. Over the past ten years he has worked, variously, for the Novaya gazeta news- paper, the Yezhednevny Zhurnal website and the Russian Services of Radio France Internationale and Radio Liberty.