Visa ban?

The Moscow News

Russian human rights activists and political opposition members have sent a new version of the controversial “Magnitsky list” to the U.S. Senate, proposing to include the names of 305 Russian officials connected to the Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Yukos case – but whether or not anything will come of this proposal remains to be seen.

According to Gazeta, ru, Russia’s Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin, and Moscow city court chairman Olga Yegorova are on the list together with prosecutors and judges. The original “Magnitsky list” included names of 60 Russian officials who, along with their families, would be denied American visas for their alleged involvement in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Proposed by senator Ben Cardin, the visa restrictions went into effect in July.

“What’s most important [in the Khodorkovsky list proposal], which I have signed, is to make the so-called ‘Magnitsky list’ an open list,” Lev Ponomarev, leader of the For Human Rights movement told The Moscow News. “So other officials who have violated the law dealing with Khodorkovsky and [Khodorkovsky associate Platon] Lebedev case could be added to it.”

“For all cases when we don’t have the opportunity to finish the investigation of crimes and human rights violations committed by state officials in Russia, or when we exhaust all possibilities, including judicial – we could extend the ‘Magnitsky list’.”

The Khodorkovsky list doesn’t include the names of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin who are often associated with the case in the media. “The presence of the politicians, especially leading figures, in the list would significantly complicate the approval of the document by the U.S. State Department,” St. Petersburg human rights activist and writer Nina Katerli told Kommersant.

In his interview to Reuters news agency, Khodorkovsky said that if Putin remains in power “many will lose all hope for the reform of the existing system of power from within. The emigration of socially and intellectually active Russians will accelerate sharply.” Khodorkovsky, who is associated with the Russian opposition, also stated that he had no intention to become president of Russia and that the main reason for his prosecution was the seizing of Yukos assets and not his civic activities.

Whether or not the new “Khodorkovsky bill” stands a chance of being adopted by U.S. senators remains unclear so far, but its supporters are optimistic.

“The number of U.S. senators supporting this idea is growing,” Ponomarev told The Moscow News. buy over the counter medicines займ онлайн zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com микрозаймы онлайн