RF to take tit-for-tat action to US new anti-Russia law
If the United States adopts a new anti-Russian law, Moscow would be forced to take retaliatory measures, warned RF presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.
“If the new anti-Russian law (Magnitsky Act) is passed, certainly, this law should be met with our tit-for-tat response,” the Kremlin official told reporters.
At the same time Ushakov stressed: “We would like to avoid it. We would like to hope very much that the anti-Soviet amendment (Jackson-Vanik) will not be changed to an anti-Russian law.”
The Russian presidential aide believes that the Jackson-Vanik amendment that is still in effect in America’s current legislation “would be more disadvantageous for the Americans, as their companies may find themselves in a losing situation on the Russian market, compared with the competitors from Europe and Asia.” “We have become accustomed to the Jackson-Vanik amendment, we know how to deal with it,” Ushakov said.
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Russia to Retaliate if U.S. Passes Magnitsky Bill
Russia will take retaliatory measures if the United States replaces the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik amendment hampering Russian-U.S. trade with new “anti-Russian laws” related to the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian presidential aide said on Tuesday.
“If the new anti-Russian Magnitsky bill is passed, it would require some response measure from us,” Yury Ushakov said, adding that Moscow hoped it would not happen.
A group of influential U.S. senators, including former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, proposed in mid-March introducing a blacklist of Russian officials allegedly linked to the Hermitage Capital lawyer, Magnitsky’s death in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in November 2009, in exchange for the cancellation of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
The Jackson-Vanik amendment, passed in 1974, barred favorable trade relations with the Soviet Union because it wouldn’t let Jewish citizens emigrate. It has been defunct for the past two decades, and both Moscow and Washington have warned that, if not repealed, it would be an obstacle to productive U.S.-Russian trade relations when Russia enters the World Trade Organization (WTO).
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The legacy of Sergei Magnitsky
(This is a translation of a blog written in Spanish).
The story of Sergei
It is said that in Russia the authorities can complicate your life (and even put at risk) if you are a human rights defender, oligarch or Chechen. However, Sergei Magnistky was none of these three things and, despite this, the Russian authorities made his life an ordeal.
Sergei Magnitsky died in November 2009 in a Moscow prison for lack of medical care. His body showed further signs of having been tortured. A year earlier, had made a fatal mistake: report tax fraud scheme splashed several government officials.
However, you may Sergei’s suffering not be in vain. His death has created an ambitious bill that aims to prevent people involved in his death to travel to the United States, Canada or the European Union. Here is the story of Sergei and the bill that bears his name.
230 million stolen from the Russian tax authorities …
Sergei Magnitsky was a lawyer who worked for 37 years Hermitage Fund Management , a financial company specializing in emerging markets operating in Russia. The president of this company, the American William Browder, had supported Vladimir Putin after coming to power in 2000, but still had publicly denounced cases of corruption involving the government . In 2006, he was denied entry into the country after returning from a trip. He was accused of being a “threat to national security.” Some time later, police entered the company headquarters in Moscow, taking large amounts of documents.
Sergei began an inquiry into what had happened. After months of research, discovered that the company was no longer the name of William Browder but belonged to a convicted murderer . Soon after, Sergei uncovered a huge Russian tax fraud : the new owner of the company, in collusion with senior Russian Interior Ministry had used the name of Hermitage to the Russian state to request reimbursement of $ 230 million that the company had previously paid as taxes.
The arrest and imprisonment of Sergei
Shortly after reporting to the responsible and express their intention to bring to trial, Sergei was arrested and imprisoned on charges of tax evasion . According to Amnesty International, during the 11 months he was imprisoned without trial, Sergei was subjected to degrading treatment and several different human rights violations . In particular, repeatedly denied access to medical care sought for the treatment of pancreatitis and suffering it caused him intense pain. Finally, died after months of agony and with clear signs of having been tortured.
His death triggered a wave of national indignation. As a result, a week after his death, President Dmitri Medvedev promised that it would conduct an inquiry into what happened. However, so far corrupt government officials involved in the death of Sergei have not been brought to justice. By contrast, many of them have been promoted and hold important positions in the administration.
Justice for Sergei: The Movie
“Justice for Sergei” is a documentary that tells the story of Sergei Magnitsky. In this documentary, interview several Magnitsky involved in the case, including several prison officials confirming the responsibility of the Russian authorities in the death of Sergei. So far, he has been viewing in different countries and has toured several film festivals around the world, which has won several awards. The film was screened at the Film Festival and Human Rights in Barcelona and can be viewed online.
International campaign for a law “Magnistsky”
Unable to those responsible for the death of Sergei were tried in their country, are trying to attack them where it hurts: in their pockets. To do this, William Browder began a campaign in the U.S. to get Congress to pass a law that prevents those responsible for the death of Sergei have accounts or spend their money in the U.S., the so-called “Law Magnistsky”.
The Law Magnistsky
Currently, the U.S. Congress is discussing the so-called Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act . This Act seeks to prohibit the issuance of visas and freezing assets of those involved in killing of Sergei and their families, until the Russian Federation has investigated to fund his death and is judged responsible.
Similarly, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in December 2011 to recommend to member countries to impose travel ban throughout the EU, and the freezing of assets of officials in the death of Sergei Magnitsky. Also, so far such laws have been discussed in Sweden, Holland, Canada and the United Kingdom.
So far, Russian officials have expressed strong opposition to these laws as collects the Russian news agency Ria Novosti. these bills accused of being “anti-Russian.” However, the explicit support they have shown opposition figures like Garry Kasparov, the news Web The Other Russia and Russian human rights activists show that more than against Russia, the proposal aims to certain very specific strata of Russian society . Thus, as stated in the video Sergei’s Law , the idea that people involved in serious cases of corruption or human rights violations can not maintain accounts or send their children to study in the West, causes severe psychological impact the Russian upper classes.
However, many countries are reluctant to implement such measures, since it could set dangerous precedent and would, at last, after all, deny access to people with money to spend on their economies. Therefore, the site change.org has set up a petition for citizens to lobby their countries and pass laws inspired Magnitsky Act. The proposal is in the air and the importance that the Russian government has demonstrated that its implementation would have a strong impact on the country. Also, give hope to the millions of Russians who watch every day the impunity with which the government acts. buy viagra online buy viagra online https://zp-pdl.com/get-quick-online-payday-loan-now.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php payday loan
Khodorkovsky supports the supplemented «Magnitsky list»
The imprisoned former CEO of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky has approved the list of Russian officials who are suggested being banned to enter Western countries by the opponent Garry Kasparov.
As reported earlier, Khodorkovsky suggested the British Prime Minister David Cameron banning many high Russian officials to enter United Kingdom. The list, which includes 308 people, was originally initiated by the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, Sunday Telegraph reported.
Khodorkovsky’s lawyars said he had not discussed such suggestions with them and had not made a list of officials who, in his opinion, are blamable for violations of human rights. However, later the press secretary of Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev published a full answer of the imprisoned oligarch.
“The British government with the Olympic games can do something to raise importance of human rights. In June 2011 one of the Russian opposition leaders Garry Kasparov presented a list of persons who are involved in violations of human rights to the US House of Representatives. I would like the United Kingdom to read carefully this list and compare it to the list of the Russian delegation planning to arrive in London in 2012,” the answer said.
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Why Russia’s Mafia State Is So Inefficient
In “The Godfather,” author Mario Puzo describes criminal boss Don Corleone’s organization as a highly centralized money-making machine. The Godfather is the CEO of an underground business empire, a kind of shadowy Henry Ford who collects all the money and makes all the decisions.
In reality, large criminal enterprises are divided into semi-autonomous crews who have their own territory or specialty and are grouped around a middle-level boss. There are constant rivalries and struggles for influence in which thugs make alliances and seek support from higher-level mafiosi.
As business entities, criminal enterprises are hugely inefficient. The global drug trade, estimated at $300 billion annually, has produced no lasting fortunes. Everything is squandered or lost. Efficiency is achieved by establishing and following rules, but criminals are lawless by nature. The notion that mafia thugs live by a special “thieves’ law” is a legend. For example, Godfather Vyacheslav Ivankov, murdered in Moscow in 2009, was himself the worst offender against the law’s most-sacred precepts.
Over the past 12 years, Russia has become a full-fledged mafia state. One day, historians will chart its exact structure, but it seems clear that it consists of several large families headed by President Vladimir Putin’s close associates and loyal oligarchs. Alongside them, countless crews of siloviki, bureaucrats, gangsters and affiliated businessmen work on their own, their networks varying from local to nationwide.
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Getting the New Kremlin Cabinet Wrong: No, These Are Not Liberals
Tom Balmforth’s article on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about the new cabinet puzzled me, as his pieces often do in taking a more liberal view of Russia’s intentions than I think are merited. Where does this come from? Does it come from interviews with actual Russian officials? I don’t see such interviews referenced in the piece.
No, I think it comes from simply Balmforth’s own worldview, the evidently “progressive” view which he frames the entire Russian story in the first place, such as to make what he sees as reasoned estimates of Russia’s behaviour.
But they all strike me as being quite wrong.
First, there’s the notion that Vladislav Surkov was “demoted” and “in disgrace”. “Last December, he was relegated to an obscure deputy prime minister’s portfolio,” says Balmforth. But there was never any evidence for any punishment — and the evidence that it was NEVER the case is in fact now before us, as Surkov is back with just as much power (or more) than ever! It was just a maneuver.
Surkov was moved out of the limelight strategically at a time when demonstrators were seeing him as the heart of darkness, and Golos, the nonprofit election monitors were blasting NTV as “Surkovskaya propaganda.” Surkov has always been the grey cardinal of the Kremlin and never ceased being so — and while he was furloughed, he was put in charge of religion, too, and that’s why no doubt we see a nasty new legislative development regarding religious groups — no longer can they register as nonprofit or non-commercial groups like NGOs; they will have to be approved in a separate section of law.
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From jail cell, Mikhail Khodorkovsky urges Britain to ban senior Russian officials from Olympics
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon, has called on Britain to prevent Russian ofrficials suspected of human rights abuses or corruption from attending the Olympics.
In a letter passed to The Sunday Telegraph from his prison cell, Mr Khodorkovsky urged a ban on 308 officials including high-profile figures such as Russian deputy prime minister Vladislav Surkov, youth leader Vasily Yakemenko and controversial elections chief Vladimir Churov.
The provocative proposal comes as William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, travels to Moscow for a one day visit tomorrow.
He is expected to broach democracy issues briefly but the main focus of the trip will be multilateral cooperation over Syria and Iran.
Mr Khodorkovsky, jailed on allegedly trumped up charges of fraud in 2003, stopped short of requesting an entry ban on Vladimir Putin, but urged Prime Minister David Cameron to press the Russian president on his autocratic leadership if he travels to London for the Games.
“If he is willing, there is much that Putin can do to push Russian society down the road to democracy and reform,” said Mr Khodorkovsky, 48, who is behind bars at a penal colony in Karelia region in northwest Russia. “But surrounding himself by ‘yes men’, he will not often hear the case for change. It is the role of other world leaders to spell out the price Russia tragically pays for being semi-detached from the family of modern democratic nations.”
The tycoon said western countries had “much to gain” if they helped transform Russia from a country where “the state expropriates assets and where the rule of law has been corrupted” into a stable democracy with a diverse economy.
“I would strongly urge Mr Cameron to speak the truth to Mr Putin, that Russia cannot survive on fossil fuels alone and that the days of being able to maintain a ‘managed democracy’ are numbered,” he said.
Mr Putin was elected for a third term as president in March after a series of mass street protests against his rule, and announced a new government dominated by loyal hardliners last week.
Mr Khodorkovsky, who was once Russia’s richest man and owner of the Yukos oil giant, was prosecuted after coming in to conflict with Mr Putin in the early 2000s, when the latter was serving his first term in the Kremlin. The businessman was handed a new sentence in a second fraud trial in 2010 which will keep him in jail until 2017.
Mr Putin is widely thought to have initiated the legal charge on Mr Khodorkovsky in retaliation against him sponsoring opposition parties, while the Russian leader’s supporters say the businessman is a thief who deserved all he got.
In the letter passed to The Sunday Telegraph via his lawyers, Mr Khodorkovsky said Mr Putin needed to be taught a lesson: “I understand it would be very difficult for the British government to ban any head of state from the Olympics, especially from a member-state of the G8 and Council of Europe.
“I also, however, understand that the values of the Olympics are about respect, excellence and friendship and it would do Putin no harm to be exposed to these ideals and think of applying them at home.”
Mr Khodorkvosky said there was “something that the British government can do to raise the profile of human rights whilst playing host to the Olympic Games”. He referred to a list of Russian officials allegedly involved in human rights violations which was presented to the US Congress last year by the opposition leader and former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.
“I would call on the UK public to look closely at Kasparov’s list when checking against the Russian delegation visiting for London 2012,” said Mr Khodorkovsky.
The suggested visa-ban list, available online, includes Mr Surkov, the former Kremlin “grey cardinal”, Mr Yakemenko, who was once head of the rampantly nationalist Nashi youth group, Mr Churov, who is detested by liberals for his alleged role in election fraud, and Yury Chaika, Russia’s tough prosecutor general.
It also features hundreds of prosecutors, policemen and state employees allegedly involved in the persecution of Yukos employees.
It is unclear how many of the people on the list intend to visit London for the Olympics. Mr Yakemenko’s federal agency on youth affairs, RosMolodezh, is subordinated to the ministry of sport and he is known to be a table tennis fan. No one was available for comment at the agency on Friday.
Moscow is already seething at US and EU proposals to introduce a “Magnitsky list”, featuring people allegedly involved in the death in custody of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
The US is said to have quietly introduced a ban on 60 Russian officials suspected of involvement in his death in July last year, and the UK reportedly followed suit in April. US senators want more stringent measures to freeze the officials’ assets.
The UK has been trying to patch up relations with Moscow after a sharp dip following the death in London in 2006 of former KGB colonel Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Cameron met Mr Putin and then-President Dmitry Medvedev on a visit to Moscow last September and said the Litvinenko affair should not “freeze the entire relationship”.
A British government official said on Friday that Russia remained a “crucial partner” for the UK and that Mr Cameron’s visit last year had “set the tone for a relationship on a stronger footing”.
He said the principle areas of discussion during Mr Hague’s visit to Moscow tomorrow would be multilateral issues such as Iran, Syria and the Middle East peace process.
However, the Foreign Secretary is also expected to address the ongoing stalemate over Litvinenko’s alleged murder. Russia has refused to extradite the chief suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, to the UK. A lack of prosecutions in the Magnitsky case may also be raised.
Mr Khodorkovsky said in his letter that he did not expect to be released early from prison under Russia’s current leadership. He kept up his spirits by corresponding with intellectuals like popular Russian novelist and opposition figure Boris Akunin, and by anticipating time with his family when he is finally freed, he said.
“The hope of one day being able to hold my granddaughter in my arms is one of my many dreams that keep me going.” hairy girls займ онлайн на карту без отказа https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php hairy girl
Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West by Edward Lucas: review
Daily Telegraph
The risks involved in probing the seamy underside of Russian life are shown by the fate of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Flung into jail for 11 months, he was eventually forced into a straitjacket and beaten to death on the floor of his cell.
His crime? Magnitsky was representing Hermitage Capital Management, a British-based fund manager, in a long-standing dispute with the Russian authorities over trumped-up charges of tax evasion. In the process, he had discovered how powerful Russians had stolen $230 million from their own government by fraudulently securing the biggest tax rebate in the country’s history.
His ordeal says much about the harsh realities of power in today’s Russia, according to Edward Lucas, a senior journalist at The Economist. In his book Deception, he sets out to show how a venal and amoral state is cynically exploiting the openness of Western free societies to spread tentacles of influence and corruption.
Espionage is the chosen tool of the hard men in the Kremlin and Russian spies are doing their utmost to penetrate our institutions, distort our decision-making and make off with our secrets. Thus Anna Chapman, the agent who resembled a Playboy playmate, lived undercover for years in Britain and the US before being unmasked. Lucas wants to alert us to the scale of the peril: he thinks we do not grasp how ambitious this espionage campaign has become, nor the inherent vulnerability of free societies.
He goes so far as to argue that the West risks becoming as rotten as Russia if the Kremlin’s agents are allowed to continue their work. Instead of Russia slowly normalising and becoming more like us, Lucas thinks we could end up becoming more like them.
Thus he approvingly quotes an observer who writes: “Those who keep calling for an engagement that will eventually transform Russia cannot see that it is the West, not Russia, that is being transformed.” Lucas adds: “I hope this book can help the West to avoid that fate.”
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Civil society surges ahead of the authorities
Russia’s civil society has made a dramatic leap forward over the past three years and is doing much more to curb corruption than the authorities, Yelena Panfilova, a prominent, outgoing member of the presidential anti-corruption and human rights council, said on Wednesday.
“Russia today is not the same country it was when I joined the council three years ago; first of all, it’s about the society, not the authorities,” Panfilova, who heads Transparency International’s Russian branch, said at a news conference in Moscow marking the end of the council’s term under President Dmitry Medvedev.
Panfilova announced last week that she was not planning to continue her work with the council, which is expected to be reshuffled following the inauguration of Vladimir Putin on May 7. Several other council members also said they were going to resign.
Some observers have suggested it was their unwillingness to compromise with former KGB agent Putin that forced them to leave the council. But Panfilova downplayed the allegation on Wednesday, saying her departure was due to her desire to focus on civil activism rather than a falling out with the authorities.
Council members admitted that their success in promoting human rights and the rule of law in Russia was limited.
“We have done a small part of what we were planning to do,” Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, said.
’No disappointment’
Yet, when asked by a Western reporter whether they were disappointed with a lack of progress in their work, council members said they were rather realistic and did not expect things to improve by leaps and bounds.
“To be disappointed, one must first be charmed,” Panfilova quipped, adding that this was not the case with her, since she realized that Russia still has a long way to go before its citizens can enjoy full human rights and social justice.
She admitted, however, that she was “embarrassed” with the strong opposition that many of the council’s initiatives faced from local officials who were reluctant to sacrifice their power in favor of a more open and just society.
Unresolved cases
Among the goals to be pursued by the newly formed council, Fedotov and his colleagues named the tightening of punishment for abuse of media freedom, the creation of public television, as well as better anti-corruption controls.
It is yet unclear how many of the council’s current initiatives will survive Putin’s return to the Kremlin. The issues in question include the high-profile cases of jailed ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in a Moscow pre-trial detention in November 2009 triggered international outcry.
“We couldn’t resolve the main problems with the Khodorkovsky and Magnitsky cases,” Mara Polyakova, a council member overseeing reforms in the legal and law enforcement systems, admitted.
Nevertheless, she said she believed the council’s campaign to highlight the Khodorkovsky case had a “major effect on our citizens.”
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were detained in 2003 on fraud charges and subsequently jailed for eight years. They had been due for release in 2011, but were found guilty on a second set of charges and their sentences extended until 2018 in a highly controversial trial in December 2010.
In early February, the council urged Medvedev to pardon Khodorkovsky along with 30 other prisoners. But Medvedev refused, saying he did not understand why he should pardon someone who had not asked for clemency.
Hermitage Capital lawyer Magnitsky’s death at Moscow’s infamous Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention center came to Medvedev’s attention last year, after the presidential council issued a report saying that his arrest was unlawful, his detention marked by beatings and torture aimed at extracting a confession of guilt, and that prison officials instructed doctors not to treat him. Two doctors have been charged with negligence in connection with the case, but charges were subsequently dropped against one of them.
Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 on tax evasion charges by those same officers he had shortly before accused of stealing $230 million from the state budget.
New council ‘up to Putin’
Fedotov said it was up to Putin to ensure that the council does not “turn into window dressing.”
Fedotov said he would welcome any newcomers in the council if they share the same values as those whom they would replace.
“But if in the place of those great people we will have people who attack human rights rather than protect them… I will not be there,” he said. онлайн займы hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php payday loan
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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
