U.S. House Panel Approves ‘Magnitsky’ Bill
A U.S. House of Representatives panel has approved a bill that seeks to deny visas to more than 60 Russian officials implicated in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The draft legislation also aims to freeze the officials’ U.S. assets.
The House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved on a voice vote the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act” despite opposition by the Obama administration and Russian warnings that the legislation could threaten bilateral relations.
Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 after implicating top officials in a scheme to defraud the Russian government.
He died after nearly a year in pretrial detention where he was reportedly tortured.
Many in the U.S. Congress favor the bill as a trade-off for lifting trade restrictions on Russia.
The legislation still faces a battle before it can become law, however, as the Senate has delayed considering its version of the bill. займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно срочный займ female wrestling zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php unshaven girl
Magnitsky bill moves forward in the House
The House Foreign Affairs Committee marked up a bill today to punish Russian human rights violators, moving that bill closer to passage in conjunction with another bill to grant Russia privileged trade with the United States.
Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) convened her committee on Thursday morning to approve the House version of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, legislation meant to promote human rights in Russia that is named for the anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Russian prison, after allegedly being tortured, two years ago. She and her committee counterpart Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) said during the markup they both support joining the Magnitsky bill with a coming bill to grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status, which would include a repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, established to punish Russia for not allowing Jews to emigrate during the Soviet period.
“The entire world knows that the state of democracy and human rights in Russia, already bad, is getting worse,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the markup. “Moscow devotes enormous resources and attention to persecuting political opponents and human rights activists, including forcibly breaking up rallies and jailing and beating those who dare to defy it. Instead of the rule of law, Russia is ruled by the lawless.”
The Obama administration is publicly opposed to the Magnitsky bill, especially the effort to connect it to Jackson-Vanik repeal, and has been working behind the scenes with bill sponsors such as Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) to alter the legislation. “From our point of view this legislation is redundant to what we’re already doing,” U.S. Ambassador Russia Mike McFaul said in March.
One of the administration ideas is to expand the Magnitsky bill to deal with human rights violators from all countries, but doing so wouldn’t eliminate strong Russian objections to the bill. A short amendment added to the House version today by Ros-Lehtinen makes clear that the bill is directed only at Russia.Cardin even came up with a new draft version of the legislation in April. The Cable obtained an internal document showing exactly what changed in the bill. For example, the new version makes it more difficult to add names to the list of human rights violators that the bill would create, potentially softening the bill’s impact on Russian officials.
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Hermitage Capital hopes U.S. Magnitsky bill will fuel similar moves in other countries
A spokesman for British investment fund Hermitage Capital expressed confidence that Thursday’s preliminary approval in the U.S. Congress of a planned law to slap visa and financial sanctions on Russian officials blamed for Sergei Magnitsky’s death would be an impulse to similar legislative measures in other countries.
The Justice for Sergei Magnitsky bill was endorsed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The serious support for the Magnitsky draft law by the American lawmakers will undoubtedly give a new impulse to similar legislative initiatives that are under consideration today in other countries, including European Union countries,” the Hermitage spokesman told Interfax.
“The passage of the Magnitsky bill will be a catalyst in Russia’s further movement toward democracy and will seriously curb lawlessness on the part of officials and corruption,” he said.
“Officials will no longer be able to keep abroad what they have stolen, they will be unable to get their children enrolled in prestigious foreign universities,” the spokesman said. The Justice for Magnitsky Act “will also support those who today take to the streets to protest lawlessness on the part of law enforcement and judicial bodies.” hairy girl займы на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php buy viagra online
U.S. Won’t Oppose Russia Sanctions That Risk Putin Reprisal
The U.S. administration will no longer seek to prevent Congress from passing a bill targeting human-rights offenders in Russia, a step that President Vladimir Putin has warned would spark retaliation and damage ties.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will today consider legislation that would impose U.S. travel and financial curbs on any official abusing human rights in Russia, including 60 people suspected of involvement in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail in 2009. This will be followed at a later date by a vote in Congress on the measure.
“You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would bet against Congress expressing their concerns on the Magnitsky matter in some way,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said today in Moscow. “It’s important to work with Congress on an appropriate mandatory response to that.”
President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to repeal trade restrictions with Russia to prevent U.S. companies from being penalized once Russian membership of the World Trade Organization takes effect later this year. A bipartisan group of senators has made a repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment conditional on imposing sanctions on Russian officials for human-rights violations.
Such a law would be “a gross interference in Russian internal affairs and, of course, it won’t have any positive effect on U.S.-Russian ties, to put it mildly,” Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry’s human-rights representative, told reporters in Moscow on May 15. Russia in April warned it would retaliate with unspecified measures against the law.
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A bill that cracks down on Russian corruption
The House Foreign Affairs Committee is scheduled today to take up the most consequential piece of legislation in years related to Russia: the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012. With strong bipartisan support, led by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), the Magnitsky bill is the most serious U.S. effort to address human rights and the rule of law in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The legislation is named after the 37-year-old lawyer who was jailed unjustly in 2008 after exposing a massive tax fraud by officials of Russia’s Interior Ministry. While in jail for almost a year, Magnitsky became ill but was denied medical treatment. In the end he was brutally beaten and left to die.
The proposed legislation is not about one man, however. It is about a Russian system choking on corruption, illegality and abuse. The new law would impose a visa ban and asset freeze against theofficials responsible not only for Magnitsky’s murder but also for other human rights abuses, including against individuals who “expose illegal activity” carried out by Russian officials or who seek to “defend or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms.” This includes journalists who have been murdered when they have dug too close to powerful officials or oligarchs. It includes human rights activists who have been beaten and crippled or killed for exposing the mistreatment of their fellow Russians.
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US official urges repeal of Russia trade law
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk says a top priority for his office this year is repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment that can be used to put trade restrictions on Russia.
The Cold War-era amendment allows denial of most-favored-nation status to non-market countries that restrict emigration. Although the United States has granted Russia annual waivers since 1994, the law remains an irritant to investors and Russian politicians.
Some U.S. lawmakers have indicated they would support repeal of Jackson-Vanik in exchange for passage of the so-called Magnitsky bill that would bar Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from the United States.
Kirk said the two measures should not be linked. срочный займ на карту онлайн hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://zp-pdl.com займы на карту срочно
Magnitsky Bill to Get Vote Thursday
U.S. lawmakers plan to vote on the “Magnitsky List” legislation this week, raising the specter of a harsh response from the Kremlin.
The bill, introduced by a group of influential U.S. senators that includes former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, would blacklist Russian officials linked to the 2009 jail death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other officials implicated in human rights violations.
Russia has accused the United States of meddling in its internal affairs with the legislation.
“If the new anti-Russian Magnitsky bill is passed, it would require a response from us,” presidential aide Yury Ushakov said last week, adding that Moscow hoped it would not happen, RIA-Novosti reported.
The U.S. House’s Foreign Affairs Committee will put the bill up for a vote Thursday, according to a committee schedule published over the weekend.
Magnitsky was arrested shortly after he accused tax and police officials of embezzling $230 million. A independent inquiry by the Kremlin’s human rights council found that he died after being beaten by prison guards. One prison doctor has been charged with negligence, but no one has been convicted in the death.
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US companies alarmed by Russia sanctions bill
The Hill
American companies are worried that human-rights legislation being linked to a must-pass Russian trade bill could wind up sanctioning them and their business interests.
On Tuesday, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) and sister group USA Engage publicly came out against the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which will be marked up in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday and is moving in the Senate.
The groups said that, in addition to hurting U.S.-Russian relations, the bill would expose American companies to the risk of having their assets frozen.
The bill was drafted in response to the death, in prison, of Russian whistleblower Magnitsky.
Congressional sponsors want the bill linked with or incorporated into another bill granting Russia permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, something the United States wants to do by August, when Russia is to join the World Trade Organization. Unless trade relations are normalized by then, U.S. exports to Russia would face higher tariffs than those from other nations.
The sanctions proposal has businesses balancing the possibility of heightened Russian trade barriers against the risk of being ensnared in a new U.S. sanctions regime.
As drafted, the sanctions bill goes beyond punishing the alleged killers of Magnitsky. It would set up a public list of persons responsible for “gross human-rights violations.” Persons, or “entities,” on the list would be denied visas to the United States or have their assets frozen.
The NFTC said the bill “would include subsidiaries of foreign companies incorporated in the United States whose parent’s conduct anywhere in the world would cause them to be sanctioned based on an opaque and unspecified process.”
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Pass The Magnitsky Bill
This week the House Foreign Affairs Committee will consider the so-called “Magnitsky Bill.” The Hill describes the bill this way:
The bill is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested on fraud charges and died in custody three years ago after accusing tax officials of a $230 million fraud. It would impose travel and financial sanctions on anyone “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture or other human-rights violations committed against individuals seeking to promote human rights or to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the government of the Russian Federation….
The bill’s purpose is to provide a way of keeping human rights pressure on Russia. Once Russia joins the World Trade Organization, the Jackson-Vanik amendment tying trade to emigration issues will be obsolete. The new bill is a replacement.
The arguments against the bill are weak at best. Here’s one, from the Discovery Institute’s Russia Blog:
Congress is overstepping its boundaries as the State Department and the U.S. embassies abroad have the full authority, which they often use, to deny entry visas to any individual with no explanation whatsoever….Besides, attaching Magnitsky’s name to such a bill is clear proof of selective justice – something that we frequently accuse Russia of – since, sadly enough, similar cases of deaths in prisons due to denial of proper medical service happen in many other countries, including the United States….
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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
