Posts Tagged ‘sanctions’
Boris and Sergei Believed in a Brighter Future for Russia
Boris Nemtsov, the Russian politician, was assassinated near the Kremlin on 27 February 2015.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, uncovered the largest publicly-known corruption case in Russia involving the theft of $230 million, testified about it naming complicit officials. Sergei was arrested by some of the implicated officials, held for 358 days in pre-trial detention in torturous conditions, and killed in Russian police custody on 16 November 2009.
On the 6th anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s murder, 16 November 2015, the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Awards were launched. The first Sergei Magnitsky Award for Campaigning for Democracy was awarded posthumously to Boris Nemtsov.
Statement by Bill Browder on the Sergei Magnitsky 2015 Human Rights Award for Democracy to Boris Nemtsov (presented posthumously)
Bill Browder, author of ‘Red Notice’
Boris Nemtsov was a courageous man, and a true friend of the Magnitsky Justice campaign. He was a steadfast supporter of our initiative to impose targeted Western sanctions on Russian officials involved in human rights abuse and corruption.
Boris shamed weak Western diplomats who tried to appease the Russian leader, because he was convinced that the sanctions are the necessary, effective and morally right way to stand up to Russian official impunity.
Both Boris and Sergei were optimists and believed in a brighter future for Russia. They show us that Russia produces great people with humanity and integrity.
Their loss is a tragedy for Russia and the world.
The fact that both were killed in cold blood, and in both cases those responsible have not been brought to account, is the call for action.
We cannot bring Boris and Sergei back, but we owe it to them to carry on with our cause, to seek justice in the form of further Magnitsky sanctions on corrupt officials and human rights violators by countries around the world.
#magnitskyawards
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US considers sanctions on Russian banks
The Obama administration is considering placing Iran-style banking sanctions on selected Russian financial institutions if Moscow were to send troops into eastern Ukraine.
The banking sanctions are one of a series of measures that the administration has been discussing with Congress in recent days as it seeks to find ways to isolate Moscow diplomatically and economically, according to congressional aides and officials.
Banking sanctions are a powerful tool which take advantage of the US’s central role in the international financial system and which have helped place considerable pressure on the Iranian economy over the past two years. If a Russian bank were targeted, then any bank in the world that continues to do business with it can be cut off from the US financial system.
The banking sanctions are being examined as secondary series of measures, which are aimed more at deterring Russia from taking military action in eastern Ukraine. In response to the immediate crisis in Crimea, the administration is considering placing senior Russian officials on a visa ban and asset freeze list. The idea of broader trade and investment sanctions, which secretary of state John Kerry alluded to at the weekend, is only being analysed as a much more distant prospect.
The debate in Washington over what sort of economic tools to use against Russia comes amid some signs of friction between the US and Europe over how quickly – and how aggressively – to apply economic pressure.
European diplomats have expressed frustration that they are portrayed as dithering while the US is seen as decisive, when the stakes are far higher on their side.
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Russian Officials Implicated in Death of Sergei Magnitsky Could Face Sanctions
Russian officials implicated in the prosecution and death of corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky could soon face new European sanctions on their travel and financial assets.
U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the Magnitsky Act in December 2012, which placed visa and asset bans on 18 Russian officials either involved in Magnitsky’s case or accused of human rights abuses.
Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after uncovering a $230 million tax fraud by Kremlin authorities and was found guilty of tax evasion last year—a posthumous conviction that was widely condemned by human rights advocates.
European governments are now taking steps toward implementing similar sanctions in their own countries.
The Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution by a wide margin last week urging Russian officials to fully investigate Magnitsky’s death. It directed member governments to enact “targeted sanctions” if Russia fails to respond adequately.
Immigration authorities in the United Kingdom have also acknowledged those linked to the Magnitsky case in their visa approval instructions.
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We should get smart about how we use sanctions
Governments rarely want to be seen to be doing nothing in the face of a humanitarian challenge. This is the dilemma presented by the terrible pictures out of Homs – but such challenges evidently go far beyond Syria. Because going to war is rarely an option, this has led to an increasing reliance on the use of economic sanctions. Given London’s leading role as a world financial centre, when taken by the UK such measures can have a strong effect.
Yet how and when should we use such sanctions? Can we make greater use of them? In particular, there is a growing case for better use of “smart” sanctions – the subject of an important call today from my colleague Dominic Raab MP.
The UK’s current use of sanctions can be divided into three broad categories. First, economic sanctions used as an instrument of policy, helping us to achieve our overseas objectives. For instance, the UK has joined with other European countries and the US in prohibiting exports to Iran that might assist its nuclear programme.
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Lawmakers introduce Russian “reset”; Russian political prisoners’ appeal denied
Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned former oil tycoon, lost an appeal of his second conviction for fraud Tuesday, but his sentence was cut by a year and now will end in 2016.
Khodorkovsky and his business partner and fellow defendant, Platon Lebedev, had been convicted in December of embezzling nearly $30 billion from Yukos, the oil company they ran. Khodorkovsky had antagonized Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and the charges were widely considered not only politically motivated but also legally dubious.
Khodorkovsky, to the applause of the courtroom crowd, had this stem-winder statement on the court’s ruling:
In what dusty cellar did they dig up that poisonous Stalinist spider who wrote this drivel?
What kind of long-term investments can one talk about with such justice?
No modernization will succeed without a purging of these cellars.
The authors of the verdict have shown both themselves and the judicial system of Russia in an idiotic light, having declared in a high-profile, public trial that in Russia injured parties from a theft receive a profit, that the aspiration to increase it is a crime, that the “right” prices for oil in Siberia must be equal to the prices in Western Europe, transportation, customs duties and restrictedness of export notwithstanding.
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DIFFERENT ANGLE
Are you Banking any of the 60 Russians that the EU wants to Sanction?
Kenneth Rijock
Financial Crime Consultant, for World-Check
The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has recommended to the full European Parliament, in its Human Rights Report, that it adopt sanctions against sixty Russian officials, denying them visas for the Schengen area, and freeze their assets and bank accounts within the EU. These PEPs were reportedly implicated in the illegal detention, torture and death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky last year, and the $230m tax rebate fraud involving Hermitage Capital Management.
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