Kremlin Retaliates for Magnitsky Bill—against Russians
When top Kremlin officials promised “retaliatory measures” in response to the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a US congressional initiative that proposes to sanction corrupt Russian bureaucrats and human rights violators, it was clear they were not talking about banning US senators from keeping retirement savings in Russian banks. As many expected, retaliation was directed against Vladimir Putin’s critics inside Russia. Last month, police conducted early-morning raids and searches at the homes of leading opposition figures, including Boris Nemtsov, a vocal supporter of the Magnitsky Act. A new law on public rallies hastily passed by the Duma set fines for “violations” at 300,000 rubles ($9,000; ten times Russia’s average monthly salary). Another measure introduced by Vladimir Putin’s party—and personally backed by him—would force Russian NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register and publicly tag themselves as “foreign agents.”
Not suffering from megalomania, I did not expect high-level retaliation against my own humble person. Perhaps, as my colleagues have suggested, as someone who was actively involved with the Magnitsky Act from the very beginning, I should have known better. As a (very) senior media executive told me this week, “It is one thing when you say or write something against them; it is completely different when you work against what they perceive as their own personal financial interests. You are no longer their opponent, you are now their enemy.”
Be as it may, I was extremely surprised to learn at what level it was decided to dismiss me from the (privately owned) television network where I have worked for the past eight years. Presumably, the order to blacklist my name from Russian media outlets came from similar quarters: several editors with whom I spoke, including those who previously invited to me to work with them, responded with polite refusals. (Only one vaguely mentioned “baggage” associated with my name.) Finally, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergei I. Kislyak, has banned me (a Russian citizen) from entering the embassy building and grounds, and has officially revoked my Russian media credentials.
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A chance to stand up to Putin
In November 2009, the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by guards after 358 days in “preventive custody” in Moscow. His offence had been to uncover a massive tax fraud scheme stretching high into the Russian government. The case became a cause célèbre, Exhibit A of the lawlessness and corruption that plagues the country’s business life.
Now, almost three years later, in a rare display of bipartisanship, the US Congress is moving to pass the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, denying visas to Russians implicated in human rights abuses and freezing their financial assets. Congress is absolutely right to pursue such legislation. But it is essential it does so in the right way. What would be wrong would be – as some on Capitol Hill demand – to link the passage of the Magnitsky Bill directly to the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
The latter is an obsolete vestige of the Cold War, dating from 1974 and imposing trade restrictions designed to force Moscow to accelerate the emigration of Soviet Jews. That problem no longer exists, and since 1990 Jackson-Vanik has been waived annually. It is time for it to go for good. Russia is about to join the World Trade Organisation. Not only will membership bind it further into a global system of rules and laws. If the US persists with Jackson-Vanik, it will itself be in violation of WTO rules. But to insist that Jackson-Vanik be replaced by the Magnitsky bill is the wrong course, playing into President Putin’s argument that Washington and the West are viscerally and irredeemably anti-Russian.
The Magnitsky Bill stands on its own merits. Yes, objections can be made. It is, by any standard, interference in the internal affairs of another country. Understandably, the Obama administration, anxious not to jeopardise Russian co-operation over international problems from Iran to Syria, is extremely wary of it. And who will decide which individuals are targeted – the State Department, or Congress? The measure could even prove counter-productive, further poisoning business practices in Russia as feuding factions and oligarchs seek to have each other placed on Washington’s blacklist.
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Senator denies Russian report on Magnitskiy case based on official inquiry
Interfax
There has been no parliamentary investigation of the Magnitskiy [Magnitsky] case in Russia, head of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov has told Interfax.
“Although there has been no special parliamentary investigation of the Magnitskiy case, this does not mean that any Russian senator cannot have his point of view based on the study of documents,” Margelov said, commenting on information in the media about a report which was presented to the US side by a group of members of the Federation Council in Washington.
According to Margelov, the delegation members had requested the necessary documents in the relevant departments and held series of meetings with their leaders and experts.
“This is a common practice of preparing such meetings, so the note which was passed to the US side reflects the Russian theory of the case. To avoid broad interpretation, the document is called ‘The results of a preliminary parliamentary investigation’, not a parliamentary investigation in the usual sense,” Margelov told the agency.
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Words of wisdom for a captive audience?
Barack Obama’s Captive Nations Week speech will likely favour blandness over stirring rhetoric.
As regular readers of this column may know, since 1959 the United States has marked the third week in July as Captive Nations Week. It arrived on the political calendar thanks to a joint resolution of Congress and it has remained there ever since. It decries the enslavement by communist imperialism of “Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, White Ruthenia, Rumania, East Germany, Bulgaria, mainland China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, North Korea, Albania, Idel-Ural, Tibet, Cossackia, Turkestan, North Viet-Nam, and others”.
It was a rum list even then: it ignored Yugoslavia (captive to communism but not the Soviet empire), and nations such as the Circassians whose history gives them every cause to complain. It includes some obscure candidates (Cossackia) but ignores Russia itself, which has a good claim to be the first inmate of the communist prison and its greatest victim. Eleven of the nations mentioned, or the countries that they now form, are safely in NATO or the EU or both.
Yet the job is only half-done. Most of the countries that were unfree before 1989 are unfree now. So the main message should still be clear. That the US, “the citadel of human freedom” (in the words of the original law), cares about their plight is a powerful, encouraging message for, say, Tibetans – a truly captive nation in the old sense of the phrase – and for those in the slave labour camps of communist China, or in the still more barbarous conditions of North Korea.
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Magnitsky bill opens door to wider targets
When the Magnitsky bill first started making its way through the US Congress a couple of years ago, its authors had one target in mind: to punish Russian officials behind the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who blew the whistle on a government corruption case and died in jail.
With human rights causes, however, one powerful example can sometimes open the door to much broader action. This could well happen with the Magnitsky bill. As the legislation gets closer to passage – potentially this month – the human rights lobby is on the verge of winning an important tool to influence US foreign policy.
While Russian corruption was the initial target, some in Congress are already thinking about other causes it can be used to pursue. And they have some big fish in mind. “If the bill stays as it is at the moment,” says one Senate staff member involved with the legislation, “this will be as much about China as it is about Russia.”When Magnitsky was doing some legal work for the Hermitage investment group, he discovered evidence that a group of Russian officials had effectively stolen $230m in tax payments made by Hermitage. When he detailed his allegations, he was arrested in late 2008 and accused of fraud.
Nearly a year later, he died in jail after being denied medical treatment.
Two years ago, a couple of Democrats in Congress started to push a bill that named the 60 Russian officials and police officers they said were behind Magnitsky’s death.
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Russian delegation hits Washington to lobby against “Magnitsky” sanctions
The Russians are coming to Washington; in fact, they are already here. But they aren’t happy.
A Russian parliamentary delegation is in the U.S. capital to lobby American lawmakers against a bill sanctioning Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses — a move Moscow considers offensive outside interference in its affairs.
After some meetings on Capitol Hill, the four-man Russian delegation on Wednesday did not have a lot of progress to report from their lobbying against the “Magnitsky bill,” named after Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption Russian lawyer who died in 2009 after a year in Russian jails.
But they had a warning.
“We really don’t want that the U.S. Congress adopts this bill that has the potential to deteriorate U.S.-Russia relations for years or even for decades to come. It will become a real irritant in U.S.-Russia relations,” delegation member Vitaly Malkin told reporters, speaking through a translator at the Russian embassy.
A Russian parliamentary investigation into the Magnitsky case is underway, the group said, displaying a dossier with what they said were the preliminary findings.
The Magnitsky bill pending in Congress would require the United States to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russians linked to Magnitsky’s death, as well as those of other human rights abusers in Russia. The Senate version, sponsored by Democrat Ben Cardin, would extend the sanctions to human rights abusers anywhere in the world.
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US Sentate Approves Magnitsky Bill
Evgenia Chirikova recently testified before the European Parliament on Vinci’s role in the St. Petersburg-Moscow toll motorway project which threatens to destroy the Khimki forest. Vinci is a French company that Chirikova claims is wrought with corruption and special interests.
Chirikova’s team supported their testimony with a graphic photo exhibition documenting the arrest and use of violence against protestors. Captions on the photos read “approved by Vinci.”
According to Chirikova’s org Save Khimki Forest, the hearing represents an unprecedented step in EU/Russia relations, a step which activist see as one in the right direction.
Chirikova’s team also celebrated a victory last month as the US Senate passed the Magnitsky Bill, formally known as the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. The bipartisan bill is named after Sergei Magnitsky , a Russian attorney who implicated Russian officials of tax fraud. Magnitsky was arrested and tortured while in police custody, where he eventually died.
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OSCE Calls for Sanctions Against Suspects in Magnitsky Case
Lawmakers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have called for sanctions against Russians implicated in the jail death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, even as one of the key suspects witnessed the vote in person.
“The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly calls on national parliaments to take action to impose visa sanctions and freezes on persons responsible for the false arrest, torture, denial of medical care and death of Sergei Magnitsky,” says the resolution approved Sunday.
Magnitsky was jailed in late 2008 after accusing tax and police officials of embezzling a $230 million tax refund owed to Hermitage Capital. He died in jail in November 2009 shortly after being badly beaten by prison guards, according to an independent Kremlin human rights council investigation.
Last month, Hermitage Capital released a video accusing Interior Ministry investigators Pavel Karpov and Artyom Kuznetsov, who arrested Magnitsky, of having ties to an organized crime syndicate supposedly led by Dmitry Klyuyev, former owner of the Universal Savings Bank.
Klyuyev and an associate attended the session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s annual meeting, held in Monaco on Sunday.
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Magnitsky Case ‘Not to Affect’ Russia-EU Visa Talks – Diplomat
Controversy around the high-profile death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 will not affect talks between Russia and the European Union on scrapping visa restrictions, a senior official said on Monday.
“The talks are going ahead according to schedule,” Russia’s envoy to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told RIA Novosti.
Chizhov called against “politicizing this situation” and said there would be a meeting of “high-ranking officials” at an unspecified date which would “clear up all the remaining questions.”
The Netherlands imposed travel bans on some 60 Russian officials over the Magnitsky case in July 2011, and a number of EU parliaments have vowed to follow suit.
Magnitsky, who worked for a British investment fund, was detained in November 2008 after accusing officials of a $230 million tax fraud. He died a year later in his cell after deliberate neglect and beatings, the Kremlin’s human rights body said in a report in 2011.
Last month, a U.S. Senate panel unanimously passed the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act,” a bill that would penalize Russian officials linked with Magnitsky’s jailing and death, as well as other human rights abusers in Russia.
Russia has called the bill an attempt to interfere in its domestic affairs and threatened to respond.
In January, a senior EU official said an agreement to ease visa procedures for short-term stays may be signed within the next six months. hairy girl займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php займ на карту
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To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky
