STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT ASYLUM FOR EDWARD SNOWDEN
August 1, 2013
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain today released the following statement regarding reports that the Russian government has granted Edward Snowden a one-year asylum:
“Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States. It is a slap in the face of all Americans. Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia. We need to deal with the Russia that is, not the Russia we might wish for. We cannot allow today’s action by Putin to stand without serious repercussions.
“The first thing we should do is significantly expand the Magnitsky Act list to hold accountable the many human violators who are still enjoying a culture of impunity in Russia. We should push for the completion of all phases of our missile defense programs in Europe, and move expeditiously on another round of NATO expansion, including the Republic of Georgia. We should challenge the political convictions and detentions of Russian dissidents such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Navalny. And perhaps most importantly, we should speak out on behalf of the many people in Russia who increasingly are finding the courage to peacefully demand greater freedom, accountability, and rule of law in Russia.
“Today’s action by Putin’s Russia should finally strip away the illusions that many Americans have had about Russia the past few years. We have long needed to take a more realistic approach to our relations with Russia, and I hope today we finally start.” hairy woman быстрые займы на карту https://www.zp-pdl.com www.zp-pdl.com payday loan
End of the Affair: Inevitable Collapse of Obama’s Russian Reset
After Snowden and snubs, the relationship between Obama and Putin has reached an all-time low. Peter Pomeranzev on the death of the Russian reset.
It usually ends in tears. The Kremlin-White House romance, has fallen repeatedly from starry-eyed hope and foreign policy petting to hysterics and blame-gaming.
Jimmy Carter thought he could find a partner in Brezhnev. He cast off ‘containment’ and encouraged America to lose the ‘inordinate fear of communism’: by the end of his term he was boycotting the Moscow Olympics as the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Bill Clinton went in for drinking sessions and back-slapping with Boris Yeltsin, but the more he backed him the more corrupt Yeltsin’s regime became and the more the US was discredited: by the time NATO bombed Yugoslavia, the Kremlin was already grinding its teeth. George W. looked into Putin’s eyes and claimed he could “see his soul” (“I looked into Putin’s eyes and saw KGB” quipped the less smitten Colin Powell): by 2008 they were almost at war over Georgia and relations were back to a “Cold War low”. Obama’s decision today to snub his September tête-à-tête with Putin “due to a lack of progress on missiles, arms control, trade, commercial relations, global security, human rights, civil society and…Edward Snowden “ fell on the five year anniversary of the Georgian war. It feels like the beginning of the end of the ‘”reset with Russia”, the policy that has defined Obama’s own dalliance with the Kremlin.
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Rare Assault on Putin Hits Russian Evening News
Viewers of the nightly news in the central Russian city of Chelyabinsk were given a rare glimpse recently of a report condemning President Vladimir Putin, when an allegedly disgruntled employee slipped the critical clip between glowing reports about pig farming and the region’s pro-Kremlin governor.
The anti-Putin item appeared on the Eastern Express channel during its evening news report on July 31, after the newsreader introduced a relatively benign story about new medical equipment in local hospitals, according to a portion of the broadcast later uploaded to YouTube.
Instead of that report, the item that appeared was called “The Epoch of Putin”—a polemic that blamed the president for the deaths of slain journalist and anti-Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison after exposing alleged corruption. It compared corruption levels under Mr. Putin to those in Togo and Uganda.
It also accused Mr. Putin of benefiting from a boost in the polls following a series of terrorist attacks around Russia that started just before his first term as president in 2000.
The report ran for more than two minutes before the channel switched abruptly back to footage of the regional governor, according to the online footage, which spread widely following the broadcast.
Critical broadcast news reports about Russia’s president are almost unheard of in the country, where national television networks are state controlled or have close ties to the Kremlin, and privately owned local stations tend to hold a similar line.
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Alan Mendoza discusses Magnitsky case with Al Jazeera
Alan Mendoza, Director of the Henry Jackson Society, discusses the recent posthumous conviction of Sergei Magnitsky and the failings of the Russian justice system.
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5 Ways to Get Yourself Banned From Russia (Photo Essay)
U.S. rock band Bloodhound Gang found itself unwelcome in Russia after one of its musicians shoved the Russian flag into the front of his pants and dragged it out the back during a concert in Ukraine.
But the rockers are not the first to get a frosty reception in Russia, which was known for being inhospitable to foreigners in Soviet times but still rejects visitors for a variety of reasons today.
Every country certainly has the right to decide which visitors it wants on its soil, but when it comes to Russia the rationale behind such decisions are not always clear.
Here’s a look at five ways to get yourself banned from Russia.
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Returning to the Magnitsky Crime Scene
It is well-known that those guilty of murder often cannot resist the compulsion to return to the scene of their crime, even though they know that doing so will put them at great risk of being exposed.
In recent months, the world has witnessed a bizarre manifestation of this phenomenon in the absurd posthumous prosecution and conviction of Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who unearthed a brazen $230 million dollar tax fraud scheme perpetrated by Russian police and tax officials. It is as though the Russian government, whose officials were implicated in the 2009 death of Magnitsky, could not keep itself from returning to the shameful events that led to his death. In so doing, Russia has put the depth of its legal bankruptcy and corruption on full public display.
In any nation with a legitimate legal system, Magnitsky would have been lauded as a whistleblower for his integrity, and the embezzlers, extortionists and those responsible for his death in pretrial detention would have been thrown in jail. In Russia, precisely the reverse happened. Magnitsky was instead arrested and charged with the very fraud he had uncovered and he died in prison after being severely beaten and being denied medical treatment. His death might have passed largely unnoticed as just another small tragedy in a nation where rule of law has become a thing of the past. But Magnitsky’s former client, Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder, felt a deep sense of responsibility to do everything in his power to attain a degree of justice for someone who had sacrificed his life in pursuit of integrity and the truth.
Thanks to the determined efforts of Browder and widespread outrage over the Magnitsky case, the U.S. passed a law imposing financial and visa sanctions on Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death and in other human rights violations. Other nations are considering following suit. In their apparent fury after being exposed on a global scale, Putin’s government responded by doubling down against the victim. While clearing the dozens of officials implicated in the embezzlement scheme and Magnitsky’s death, the authorities instead put the heroic whistleblower on posthumous trial and, in a pre-determined outcome, he was duly convicted several weeks ago.
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Why Did Putin Grant Edward Snowden Asylum? Revenge
Face the Nation, one of America’s premier Sunday political talk shows, spent a good part of this weekend’s broadcast discussing something many in U.S. political circles have been wondering this week: why would Russian President Vladimir Putin give sanctuary to Edward Snowden?
Speaking of the decision to offer Snowden asylum, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer asked Senator Chuck Schumer, “Why do you think Putin did this? I mean, this, kind of, has a high school-like scenario to it. But, you know, often nations have some reason behind their actions. Do you think this was a calculated strategy on his part?”
The senior New York Democrat responded by saying that he felt it had to do with Putin’s resentment over Russia losing the Cold War and the general decline in Russian power.
Speaking to the New York Times’ David Sanger later in the show, Schieffer again returned to the subject, saying of Snowden’s decision, “It’s kind of following a kind of high school scenario here. Here you have Putin sort of — sort of taking on the role of Hugo Chavez. I mean, nobody thought Venezuela posed any kind of threat to the United States, but Chavez apparently thought he could really make his place in the world by poking his finger in the eye of the giant,” referring to the United States.
Sanger concurred saying, “I think that’s exactly right, Bob. This is half high school, half Cold War playbook.”
There may be some truth to these statements. Nonetheless, they show the complete lack of self-awareness that is too often commonplace among American leaders in their interactions with the outside world.
The truth of the matter is that if Edward Snowden had been a Russian spy who arrived in New York or Washington after telling the international press all about Moscow’s domestic surveillance programs, the U.S. would have provided him asylum without question.
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Senators Demand Repercussions For Russia In Wake Of Snowden Asylum
Pressure is building in Congress for President Obama to move the G-20 summit in September away from St. Petersburg in light of Russia’s granting Edward Snowden asylum on Thursday.
“Russia has stabbed us in the back, and each day that Mr. Snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife,” said Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a statement. “Others who have practiced civil disobedience in the past have stood up and faced the charges because they strongly believed in what they were doing. Mr. Snowden is a coward who has chosen to run. Given Russia’s decision today, the President should recommend moving the G-20 summit.”
“Yes. Yes I do,” Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Buzzfeed when asked if she thought Obama should consider not attending the G-20 meeting.
“I think this is a troubling pattern,” Ayotte said, pointing to Putin’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, his crackdown on adoptions and a string of other decisions in which he’s “basically just trampling on what we’ve expressed to him that we want to see happen … we’re not just talking about Snowden here.”
Other senators didn’t explicitly call for Obama’s plans to change, but strongly condemned Putin for allowing Snowden into Russia instead of returning him to the U.S.
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Letter Calls on President Obama to Cancel Meeting with Putin in Moscow
In light of recent disturbing developments for human rights in Russia, we urge President Barack Obama to cancel his summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in September in Moscow and to revise U.S. policy toward Russia to reflect the aggressive, systematic assault on political and civil liberties taking place in Russia.
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
August 2, 2013
Dear Mr. President:
In the past several weeks, the already alarming deterioration of Russia’s respect for political and civil rights has accelerated. Ordinary citizens who participated in peaceful protests against the government are being tried in court on trumped-up charges, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was convicted posthumously in an absurd tax evasion case after having died from abuse in prison, and anti-corruption blogger and leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny was convicted of embezzlement in a politically-motivated trial.
Over the past year, Russia’s Kremlin-friendly Duma has hastily adopted laws that make Russians, particularly those engaged in civil society and journalism, vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment. Russia’s security services and law enforcement are pursuing a government agenda to harass and intimidate anyone perceived as a critic. Hundreds of non-profit organizations have been raided and investigated. Activists and opposition figures are targets of surveillance and harassment, even outside of Russia.
In light of these disturbing developments, we urge you to cancel your summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in September in Moscow and to revise U.S. policy toward Russia to reflect the aggressive, systematic assault on political and civil liberties taking place in Russia. This request is independent of our concern about Russia’s handling of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum today in Moscow. Even if Snowden were to be returned to the U.S. before your planned visit to Russia, which looks highly unlikely, we would still urge you not to travel to Moscow in September for the reasons stated.
While we recognize that certain levels of engagement with the Putin government are important and unavoidable, we also feel that U.S. policy should reflect Russia’s backsliding on human rights and recognize that it has an impact on the broader U.S.-Russia relationship. Such a policy is also important in dealing with other repressive governments elsewhere.
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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
