Posts Tagged ‘Open Democracy’

25
July 2012

Turning the tables on Russia’s power elite — the story behind the Magnitsky Act

Open Democracy

The murder of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 looks likely to trigger legislation in the United States which strikes at the heart of Russia’s corrupt power elite. Bill Browder, founder of the Hermitage Fund, moving spirit behind the impending Magnitsky Act, tells the story.

I have my family history to blame for the fact that I ended up working in Moscow. My grandmother was from Russia and my grandfather was the head of the American Communist Party between 1932 and 1945 (he was subsequently persecuted in the 1950’s). So when I was growing up as a teenager and going through my teenage rebellion, I thought the best way of rebelling against a family of communists was to become a capitalist.

I ended up studying economics at the University of Chicago, probably the most right-wing institution in America, and then I enrolled at the Stanford Business School. I graduated business school the year the Berlin Wall came down and as I started contemplating the next stage of my life, I had a personal epiphany: ‘if my grandfather was the biggest communist in America, I should become the biggest capitalist in Eastern Europe’. So I set off to do just that.

After a spell working on the Russian privatisation programme at Salomon Brothers in London, I moved to Moscow in late 1995 to set up the Hermitage Fund, which focused on investing in the newly privatised shares of Russian companies. Over the next few years, the business grew to become the largest investment firm in the country with $4.5 billion. Success was exciting. But this turned to frustration when I realised that the companies I was investing in were essentially ‘non-profit’ entities. They were ‘non-profit’ not because they were giving money to charity, but because the senior managers were stealing the profits.

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14
June 2012

Optimism in diversity? Moscow’s March of Millions

Open Democracy

Despite a heavy riot police presence, a spirit of optimism and unity was tangible at Moscow’s ‘March of Millions’ yesterday, says Susanne Sternthal. The self-proclaimed ‘leaders’ of the opposition, on the other hand, were reduced to playing a secondary role.

I had not made it to the previous four large-scale Moscow demonstrations for one reason or another. But despite the tightening of the screws on opposition leaders and protestors by President Vladimir Putin’s government in advance of the planned ‘March of Millions,’ I was set on going.

Just days before the protest, Putin rushed to pass a bill sponsored by ruling party United Russia. This new law hikes the maximum fines for organizers of protests deemed illegal or unruly up to $32,000, and up to $9,000 or 200 hours of mandatory labor for participants. On the night before the protest, opposition leaders Aleksei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov, Ksenia Sobchak and Ili Yashin had their apartments searched and had all their electronic devices confiscated. On the day of the demonstration, all four were called in for questioning regarding the May 6 demonstration, in which protestors allegedly started a brawl with security forces. Udaltsov nonetheless led his Left Front party at the demonstration, explaining that this was his primary responsibility. The others did not make it. These primitive intimidation tactics by the government, aimed at dissuading supporters from gathering, did not have the desired effect.

Riding up the escalator from the Pushkinskaya Metro station to the designated meeting place near Pushkin Square, I saw in front of me a young couple with a bohemian look and various piercings and knew I needed to follow them. But I soon learned that I could just as well have followed the four fashionably-dressed middle-aged women who stood behind me: ‘….Well, I just explained that I was going to the demonstration and could not make it to the dacha,’ I overheard one explaining. June 12 is a national holiday marking Russia’s independence from the Soviet Union and is attached to a long weekend.

‘The absence of a compelling, realistic and specific plan for change is something all the opposition groups have in common. This lack of common purpose and plan plays into the hands of the Russian government.’

Coming out onto the square before noon, I saw that a large crowd had already formed and were beginning to pass one by one through metal detectors, with purses and bags being inspected by police. Special police units, known by their acronym as OMON, towered nearby in riot gear, resembling extras from Star Wars. I was propelled toward the front, where everyone had stopped, and we were told to wait for everyone else to gather before the march could begin as officially sanctioned at 1:00PM.

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31
January 2012

A Partial Declaration of Human Rights

Transitions Online

For years, Russia has tolerated the State Department’s annual criticism of its human rights situation, but not anymore.

It was in April that Moscow finally lost patience. If America would not stop poking it with the human rights stick, it said (though not in precisely those words), Russia would pick up the stick, too. It appointed a human rights commissioner and promised to publish probes of its own.

Its first publication, a “Report on the situation concerning human Rights in certain states” came out last month [link in Russian]. It is extremely revealing, though not perhaps for the reasons its author, Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s new commissioner for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, intended.

“The idea is to show that problems in the sphere of human rights and democracy are present in all states. No one is ideal,” Dolgov explained to Kommersant Vlast after the report was published on the Foreign Ministry website.

“We do not accept attempts to persistently and intrusively teach us democracy. Sadly, some of our partners have used such tactics. It is of course important for them to carefully read the Russian report.”

If they do read the report, carefully or otherwise, they will find that many of its general concerns – domestic violence in Finland, detainee abuse in Britain, anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe – are identical to those in its American rival. Many of the sources are the same, too. Dolgov’s document is studded with references to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House.

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24
January 2012

Poking with the human rights stick

Open Democracy

Critical human rights reports from Western agencies have long been the source of consternation among Russian officials. At the end of last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry launched a counterattack, publishing a report highlighting supposed violations in the West. Oliver Bullough was surprised at how readily the document conflated issues of rights and common diplomacy.

Moscow loses patience

For years, Russia has tolerated the State Department’s annual criticism of its human rights situation, but not any more.

It was in April that Moscow finally lost patience. If America would not stop poking it with the human rights stick, it said (though not in precisely those words), Russia would pick up the stick too. It appointed a human rights commissioner and promised to publish probes of its own.

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07
December 2011

The Magnitsky affair: let theatre judge

Open Democracy

A British theatre company has brought a play about final hours of Sergei Magnitsky’s life to the London stage. Irina Shumovich reviews “One hour eighteen minutes”.

Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who uncovered the biggest tax fraud in Russian history – the theft of $230 million – died on 16 November 2009 in the Moscow prison ‘Matrosskaya Tishina’ (Sailor’s Silence). He was kept in pre-trial detention for 11 months in squalid conditions, developed pancreatitis, was denied medical treatment and left to die in dreadful suffering. Thanks to the relentless efforts of his employers and associates, Magnitsky’s death has brought corporate and government misconduct and corruption in Russia to the attention of the international media, foreign governments and the general public.

In June 2010, One hour eighteen, a play by Elena Gremina describing the last 78 minutes of Magnitsky’s life, was premiered in Moscow. Noah Birksted-Breen, founder of the Sputnik theatre company dedicated to promoting Russian drama in Britain, translated the play into English.

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17
August 2011

Sergei Magnitsky: sanctions in the name of justice, Zoya Svetova

Open Democracy – Russia

It is nearly two years since Sergei Magnitsky died a shocking death in Moscow’s Matrosskaya tishina prison. Since then, an imaginative campaign by friends and colleagues has kept his case in international spotlight. For Zoya Svetova, the recent decision by US authorities to impose visa sanctions against sixty Russian officials may prove the campaign’s most crucial success yet.

On 6 August, President Barack Obama signed an order imposing travel restrictions on some sixty Russian officials associated with the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky, who had been working for the Hermitage Capital investment fund, died in controversial circumstances in the Matrosskaya tishina detention centre on 16 November 2009. Compiled by US Democratic senator Benjamin Cardin approximately one year ago, the “Magnitsky list” includes prosecutors, judges, a Moscow police chief, tax inspectors, employees and doctors who were working in the Moscow detention centres where Magnitsky spent his final hours, and where he was condemned to an agonizing death without a corresponding sentence.

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12
December 2010

Optimism of the will: defending human rights in Russia

Open Democracy

The second week of December promises to be highly symbolic for all those interested in human rights in Russia. [10 December] is Human Rights Day, and in five days time the verdict in the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be handed down. Simon Cosgrove looks forward, reflects back and salutes the courage of Russia’s human rights activists.

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14
May 2010

Prison as a death sentence

Author: Zoya Svetova

The death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky in November shocked the world and mobilised President Medvedev into a promise of reform. Yet, as a second death tragically illustrates, the system has remained essentially unchanged: brutal, dependent and secretive.
The system of Russian justice is well organized and punitive in its nature. It consists of three elements, bound together by conspiracy: the investigation process, court and prison. People who fall into this mill rarely escape unscathed.

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