VOTE ON TORTURE BAN
MPs are to vote this week on a motion calling on the Government to freeze the assets of the Russian officials involved in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and ban them from entering the UK.
The US State Department has already banned them from entering the United States and frozen the assets they have there.
Magnitsky, who worked for British hedge fund Hermitage Capital, died in a Russian prison in 2009 after being tortured. He was jailed after blowing the whistle on corrupt Russian government officials. hairy girls займ онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://www.zp-pdl.com payday loan
‘It Is Completely Naive To Think Anything Will Change After Russia’s Election’
We interviewed a bunch of experts about the significance of Russia’s March 4 election.
Bill Browder is the head of Hermitage Capital Management, which one controlled almost $4.5 billion worth of investments in Russia. He was barred from entering the country in 2005, and the death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009 led to international condemnation. His comments are below.
“It is completely naive to think anything is going to change after this election.
“First of all, Putin has been in power for the last 12 years. Anyone who made the mistake of thinking Medvedev was in power, at this point, it’s pretty obvious that he wasn’t.
“If you go back and read any of Putin’s speeches, he said all sorts of things that looked good on paper. But none of them have ever been implemented, and it’s very clear why: because implementing real reforms would mean that Putin and the people around him could not be able to engage in all these financial crimes, which have made them so wealthy.
“The Russian government doesn’t function to serve the national interest by collecting taxes and providing services as most governments do.
“The current regime collects taxes so that the people in the government can steal that money. They steal it either directly, as Sergei discovered when he came across a $230 million tax rebate fraud involving government officials, or they steal it through other means, like enormous kickbacks from building roads and pipelines, and kickbacks from buying equipment for hospitals.
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A Culture of Corruption Defies Efforts at Reform
Wounded in Afghanistan and an 18-year veteran of the elite Alfa counter-terrorist forces, Sergei Vasilenko considers himself a patriot.
Which is why, when his bosses at the Federal Security Service asked him in 2010 to investigate corruption, he jumped at the chance.
The problem, Vasilenko now says, was that his new chiefs at the Federal Tax Service didn’t want him to do his job properly.
Vasilenko’s experience opens a window into what even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, bidding for a third Kremlin term, calls Russia’s “systemic” corruption. It’s a malaise that Putin’s political opponents say has flourished during the prime minister and former president’s 12 years as the country’s most powerful leader.
Vasilenko says his investigation, into suspected fraud involving tax officials in Moscow, met a wall of silence and he was soon out of a job. The Federal Tax Office said it had investigated Vasilenko’s allegations but declined further comment.
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ECFR: The end of the Putin consensus
Putin’s return: why Europe should prepare for a weaker Putin. On Sunday 4th March Russians will chose their next president. Although Vladimir Putin is certain to win, it will be a hollow victory and his next presidency will be weaker than before.
After the ‘phantom presidency’ of Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin will find himself president of a changed Russia. Central authority is weaker, the economy is faltering and the restless middle classes are confident enough to protest against the government.
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Investor William Browder on Russian corruption and the elections
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Russia will hold its presidential election this Sunday. Despite massive protests in Moscow, Putin said he is confident of his victory. If elected, Putin would serve 12 years as president, making him the longest-standing Russian leader since Josef Stalin.
William Browder, of Hermitage Capital, invested heavily in Russia until he encountered what he characterizes as massive state corruption. He has since led a campaign against corruption in Russia.
Browder has been banned from Russia since 2005 and relocated his company to London. His associates in Russia have been intimidated and jailed. Sergei Magnitsky, Browder’s lawyer, died in prison and Browder has been working to discover the truth about his death. He is campaigning to have those involved in Magnitsky’s death banned from visiting the West.
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MEP Donskis: “Sooner or later Russia will start thinking about life without Putin”
On Tuesday, a hearing on Russia was held during the Subcommittee on Human Rights meeting. Several representatives of civil society and human rights defenders from Russia attended the Subcommittee meeting in order to share information about elections, and problems relating to violations of the freedom of association, discrimination and the rule of law.
The European Parliament has adopted more than one resolution concerning Russia which stressed the importance of Russia`s efforts to promote human rights protection, which is important for the development of the EU-Russia relations. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that after the Russian Duma elections and before the upcoming presidential elections the situation in Russia is not improving, as the long-standing problems are not addressed. Furthermore, worrying cases, like that of Sergei Magnitski`s, are not moving forward, and facts brought to light by human rights defenders still frequently remind about the methods used by Russia for the fight against “inconvenient” citizens.
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Above and Beyond
When my Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in police custody in November 2009, I thought that there was a good chance of getting justice for him from the Russian legal system for what I believe to be his murder. Unlike in many other human rights abuse cases, there was a mountain of documentary evidence proving exactly who killed him.
Sergei had given official testimony to Russian investigators prior to his arrest describing how the police were involved in stealing our companies as well as the $230 million in taxes we had paid to the Russian budget. Official police documents show that the same police officers who Sergei testified against arrested him. After his arrest, Sergei wrote 450 complaints during his 358 days in detention detailing exactly how his rights were violated and who did what to him at every different moment of his horrible ordeal. His complaints showed how specific state officials and judges refused his desperate requests for medical care, fabricated evidence to keep him locked up, and moved him through dozens of cells.
As Sergei was being tortured in detention, the Russian officials who approved the largest known tax refund fraud in Russian history, and their families, got inexplicably rich. On Nov. 16, 2009, Sergei went into critical condition from the withholding of medical care. Only then did the authorities move him to a prison hospital, but instead of treating him, they put him in an isolation cell and let eight riot guards with rubber batons beat him for one hour and 18 minutes until he was dead. He was 37 years old. There is nothing debatable in this story. It was laid out in great detail by the Moscow Public Oversight Commission on Dec. 28, 2009, and then subsequently by President Dmitry Medvedev’s own Human Rights Council on July 5, 2011.
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U.S. must maintain way to press Putin regime on human rights
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Washington Post
Having Campaigned on a platform of anti-Americanism, Vladimir Putin likely will be proclaimed the winner of Sunday’s presidential election in Russia, giving him a new six-year mandate — and likely inaugurating an era of unrest in a nation whose rising middle class rejects him. The United States, which has focused on cutting deals with Mr. Putin while largely ignoring his autocratic domestic policies, now has a clear interest in encouraging the emerging mass movement demanding democratic reform.
It’s therefore unfortunate that the Obama administration’s first initiative after Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency will be to lobby Congress to grant Russia permanent trade privileges. The problem is not the preferences, per se; it is the administration’s resistance to replacing an outdated protocol for pressing Moscow on human rights with one suited to this moment.
The White House is seeking the repeal of a 1974 law known as Jackson-Vanik, which links the trade preferences for Russia to free emigration. Repeal is logical for a couple of reasons: Russia, unlike the former Soviet Union, does not restrict the exit of Jews and others; and if the law is not removed, U.S. companies will be penalized after Russia enters the World Trade Organization later this year.
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INSIGHT-In Russia, a graft-buster’s mission impossible
Wounded in Afghanistan and an 18-year veteran of Russia’s elite Alfa counter-terrorist forces, Sergei Vasilenko considers himself a patriot.
Which is why, when his bosses at the Federal Security Service – successor to the Soviet KGB – asked him in 2010 to investigate corruption, he jumped at the chance.
The problem, Vasilenko now says, was that his new chiefs at the Federal Tax Service didn’t want him to do his job properly. Vasilenko’s experience opens a window into what even Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, bidding for a third Kremlin term, calls Russia’s “systemic” corruption. It’s a malaise that Putin’s political opponents say has flourished during the prime minister and former president’s 12 years as Russia’s most powerful leader.
Vasilenko says his probe, into suspected fraud involving tax officials in Moscow, met a wall of silence and he was soon out of a job. The Federal Tax Office said it had investigated Vasilenko’s allegations but declined further comment.
Now the former soldier works with Analysis and Security, a local anti-corruption campaign group run by former tax officials, security professionals and managers of firms that have been on the wrong end of the kind of shakedowns the group seeks to expose.
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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
