Leonid Roshal

File:Leonid Roshal 2019.jpg

Roshal in 2019

Template:Listen Leonid Mikhailovich Roshal (Template:Langx; born April 27, 1933) is a noted pediatrician from Moscow, Russia, expert for the World Health Organization, and chairman of International Charity Fund to Help Children in Disasters and Wars.<ref>Международный благотворительный Фонд помощи детям при катастрофах и войнах (in Russian)</ref>

Biography

Roshal was born in Livny, Oryol Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. His mother, Emma, came from a Jewish family in what is today Ukraine. His father, Mikhail Roshal, was a fighter jet pilot.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Roshal has been leading the Emergency Surgery & Children's Trauma Department of Moscow's Pediatric Scientific Research Institute since 1981. In 1988, he traveled to Armenia during the earthquake to provide relief to the population.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2003, he also took over the Moscow Institute of Emergency Children's Surgery & Traumatology, which is currently treating 60,000 children a year.

Roshal negotiated with Chechen terrorists during the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002. He also served as a negotiator in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, working for the release of children and trying to convince the hostage-takers to allow the hostages to have food and water. After the events in the Beslan crisis played out, he also served as the advisor to the medical teams that had to treat burn wounds on hundreds of children.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Since 2005 he is a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. He is also a member of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights.

Views

Roshal publicly spoke out against the war in Chechnya and the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In February 2006 he criticized the Mothers of Beslan for "judging the state rather than the terrorists" at a trial of one of the Beslan hostage takers.

Roshal is a supporter of Vladimir Putin and his policies.<ref name="RFERL">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Since 2013, he has been a member of the central headquarters of the All-Russia People's Front,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> a right-wing political coalition led by Putin. In 2020, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, characterized Roshal as "little more than a stooge"<ref name="RFERL"/> for Putin.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On February 25, 2023, the European Union imposed sanctions against Roshal due to his co-chairmanship of the All-Russia People's Front, which provides support for Russia's war against Ukraine, and his personal statements in support of the military action against Ukraine.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Roshal is outspoken anti-gay. In 2013, during press conference answering the question about his views on the Russian gay propaganda law discussed by the Russian parliament back then he said "I'll be short: I hate gays and everything about it".<ref>Template:Cite news (in Russian)</ref>

Awards

• 2003 - Honorary Doctor of the Armenian Academy of Sciences<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 2005 - European of the Year 2005 (Reader's Digest)
• 2018 - Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize for the year 2017

Filmography

• Leonid Roshal. Without Spare Words.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

References

<references/>

External links

• Businessweek "2005 Stars of Europe" Article
• The last witness. What doctor Roshal's insult was to Mothers of Beslan, Novye Izvestia, February 13, 2006. Machine-translated by www.online-translator.com. Last accessed August 5, 2006.