Ban on US families adopting Russian children moves step closer
Bill containing measure is approved by Russian parliament and now goes to president, who can either sign it or turn it down.
The upper chamber of Russia’s parliament has unanimously voted in favour of a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. It now goes to the president, Vladimir Putin, to sign or turn down.
All 143 members of the Federation Council present voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the United States and from Russian activists who say it victimises children by depriving them of the chance to escape often dismal orphanages.
The bill is one part of a larger measure by angry lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed US law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Putin has not committed to signing the bill, but has referred to it as a legitimate response to the new US law.
Some top government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against it, arguing the measure would be in violation of Russia’s constitution and international obligations.
But Senator Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the council’s foreign affairs committee, referred to the bill as “a natural and a long overdue response” to the US legislation.
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Political War is On: Russian Federation Council unanimously approves anti-Magnitsky bill, bans US adoptions
The Russian Federation Council approved on Wednesday a law prohibiting the adoption of Russian children by Americans. The bill was previously supported by Russia’s State Duma in response to the Magnitsky Act.
All 143 Federation Council members voted for the law, an Interfax correspondent reports.
The bill, dubbed the Dima Yakovlev Law, bars Americans involved in violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms from visiting Russia. Their financial and other assets shall be impounded, and they shall be prohibited from concluding property and investment deals in Russia.
The law also imposes a visa ban and asset freeze on US officials who violate the rights of Russian citizens abroad, and bans the US sponsorship of NGOs that operate and engaged in political activity in Russia, which receive donations and property from U.S. citizens or organizations, as well as the work of US citizens in Russian NGOs.
As the bill was passing through the Lower House, it was also amended with a provision that it can be applied to any nation that violates the rights of Russians, not just the USA.
Russia prepared the Dima Yakovlev bill as retaliation against the so-called US Magnitsky Act, named in honor of a whistle-blowing lawyer who died in jail before going on trial.
In addition, the Russian Federation Council adopted a resolution, “On Measures to Upgrade the Mechanism of Child Adoption by Russian Citizens.”
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Prosecutors drop charges in Magnitsky killing to leave family at square one
Supporters of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky have seen their hopes of justice fade after it emerged that prosecutors have withdrawn charges against the only person to be tried in connection with his death.
An investigation into the death of Mr Magnitsky in Moscow’s Butyrka prison in 2009 saw charges brought against two people, both doctors: Larisa Litvinova, who was responsible for the lawyer’s treatment during the last weeks of his life, and Dmitri Kratov, who at the time was the chief medical official at the prison.
Charges of professional negligence against Dr Litvinova were dropped earlier this year after prosecutors claimed the statute of limitations had run out, and on Monday the state prosecutor, Konstantin Bokov, urged the court to acquit Dr Kratov. “There is no cause-and-effect relationship between Kratov’s actions and Magnitsky’s death,” Mr Bokov is reported to have said. “I request his acquittal.” The court is expected to make its ruling on Friday.
Mr Magnitsky died in November 2009 after nearly a year in jail – the victim, former colleagues say, of retribution from the same police investigators he had accused of stealing $230m from the state through fraudulent tax refunds. The 37-year-old’s death was attributed by the prison to a heart attack, but Mr Magnitsky’s supporters insist he was fatally beaten after exposing what he described as a web of corruption.
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State Prosecutor Requests Acquittal of Sole Defendant in Magnitsky Death
A state prosecutor on Monday asked a Moscow court to acquit a former senior prison official and the only remaining defendant in Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s death of negligence charges that resulted in the lawyer’s death in pretrial detention in 2009.
If the plea is satisfied, no one will be prosecuted in Magnitsky’s death, since the charges against the first of the two suspects were dropped in April.
State prosecutor Dmitry Bokov asked Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court to acquit Dmitry Kratov, former deputy head of Moscow’s Butyrka pretrial detention center, over a lack of evidence, legal news agency Rapsi reported.
In late 2008, shortly after accusing tax and police officials of embezzling $230 million, Magnitsky was jailed on tax evasion charges. He died of heart failure at the Matrosskaya Tishina prison a few months after being transferred from Butyrka.
An independent inquiry by the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council determined that Magnitsky died after being beaten by guards.
In an e-mail in June, Hermitage Capital called the investigation a “farce” because Kratov was “not present at Matrosskaya Tishina.”
Although it was determined that Kratov “failed to take the necessary diagnostic and treatment measures, which resulted in Magnitsky’s death through carelessness,” the prison official hadn’t received any written complaints from Magnitsky or other people about the lawyer’s health, Bokov said.
The prosecutor also reminded the court that in April investigators closed a criminal case against prison doctor Larisa Litvinova on manslaughter charges related to Magnistky’s death because the statute of limitations had run out, not because Litvinova had been acquitted of the charges.
Kratov faces up to five years in prison. hairy girl займы на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com zp-pdl.com займ на карту
U.S. Online Petition Calls for Visa Ban on Russian Lawmakers
A petition on the White House website seeking to extend travel restrictions to Russian lawmakers who proposed to ban the adoption of Russian orphans in the U.S. surpassed 25,000 signatures, triggering a review.
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, proposed the adoption ban in retaliation for a law approved by Congress this month that imposes a visa ban and asset freeze on Russian officials suspected of involvement in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other human-rights abuses.
Magnitsky, a Russian tax attorney, died in 2009 in a Moscow prison after saying he was abused and denied medical care to force him to withdraw allegations of a $230 million tax fraud by officials.
The web petition to U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration called the Magnitsky law “a profoundly pro- Russian step” in battling corruption and expressed outrage over the Duma proposal, which will “jeopardize the lives and wellbeing” of orphans.
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White House Web Petition Calls For US Blacklisting Of Russian Lawmakers
Over 35,000 people have signed a petition on the White House website urging the enactment of the Magnitsky Act. This would blacklist a majority of Russia’s parliamentarians, who supported a new law banning US citizens from adopting Russian children.
The petition called on the Obama administration to “identify those involved in adopting such legislature responsible under the ‘Magnitsky Act’ and thus included to the relevant list,” arguing that they “breached all imaginable boundaries of humanity, responsibility, or common sense and chose to jeopardize the lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans.”
Within nearly 24 hours, the online appeal gathered the number of votes necessary for an official review. Many of the petition’s signatories have names that are apparently Russian, others suggest bot activity.
On Friday, the Russian parliament held the third and final reading to pass legislation dubbed the ‘Dima Yakovlev bill,’ which banned US citizens from adopting Russian children. The law passed with an overwhelming majority: 420 voted in favor, seven against and one abstained.
The new law also targets countries believed to be violating the human rights of Russians, and outlaws US-funded nonprofit political organizations that could threaten Russian interests.
To become a law, the adoption bill must now be approved by the upper house – the Federation Council – and then signed by President Vladimir Putin. The Dima Yakovlev bill was introduced as a direct response to Washington’s Magnitsky Act.
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Prosecutor requests to acquit defendant in Magnitsky case
The prosecutor has asked a Moscow district court to acquit Dmitry Kratov, former deputy head of the Butyrka pretrial detention center, accused of negligence which resulted in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, the court spokesperson told the Russian Legal Information Agency.
Kratov has been charged with negligence in regards to the death of Sergei Magnitsky. Prosecutor requested to acquit Kratov as no link was established between the actions of the defendant and Magnitsky’s death.
“Pursuant to the experts’ conclusion, Magnitsky died from the heart failure,” the prosecutor said, stressing that Kratov was acting duly.
Magnitsky, who served as a managing partner of the Firestone Duncan auditing firm and a legal consultant of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund, was detained on November 24, 2008.
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Launching political war?
Russia Beyond the Headlines
The U.S. initiative to include those who voted for a symmetrical response to the U.S. in the Magnitsky list sparked the tensions around anti-Magnitsky bill. While State Duma deputies warn against it, some human rights activists support this stance.
The U.S. initiative to include those who voted for a symmetrical response to the U.S. in the Magnitsky list sparked the tensions around the Dima Yakovlev bill. While State Duma deputies warn against it, some human rights activists support this stance. Yet Russia’s Presidential Council for Human Rights argues that the move may spark political war between two countries.
If the idea of including State Duma deputies who voted for a symmetrical response to the U.S. in the Magnitsky list comes true, it will not remain unanswered by Moscow, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for International Affairs Vyacheslav Nikonov believes.
“The reaction to the idea can be only negative,” he said to Interfax on Sunday. “If things really come to that, a symmetrical reply will follow.”
In his opinion, it is difficult to find similar cases in the entire history of diplomacy. “This may be the first case in history when the issue of sanctions against lawmakers in a foreign country would be raised on such a scale. This is an unprecedented situation,” he said.
Up to 50 000 people, including both Americans and Russins, had urged the U.S. White House to consider including Duma deputies in the Magnitsky list.
The petition for applying the Magnitsky Act to the Duma deputies who supported the Dima Yakovlev bill was posted on the White House website. For the U.S. administration to consider it 25,000 signatures should be collected by Jan. 20.
“We, the undersigned, are outraged with the actions of Russian law-makers, who breached all imaginable boundaries of humanity, responsibility, or common sense and chose to jeopardize the lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans, some of whom, the ill and the disabled ones, now might not have a chance of survival if the ban on international adoption is to be put in place,” the petition says.
“We urge this Administration to identify those involved in adopting such legislature responsible under the Magnitsky Act and thus included to the relevant list,” the petition says.
Meanwhile, Head of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Alexei Pushkov sees no legal reasons for Washington complying with the petition of U.S. citizens to add State Duma deputies who voted for the anti-Magnitsky bill to the list of persons who will be denied entry to the United States and to whom other sanctions will apply.
“The administration of the U.S. president does not have any legal grounds for complying with the petition because the Magnitsky Act adopted by Americans does not imply any sanctions in response to the ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans,” he said to Interfax.
Pushkov said relations between Moscow and Washington can badly deteriorate “if the White House decides to include State Duma deputies in the so-called Magnitsky List on any pretext.”
“If this happens, we will follow suit, and then the situation will run into a blind alley because it will develop into an open political war between our countries. I don’ think the U.S. administration is interested in that,” Pushkov said expressing his own opinion.
In contrast, Russia’s eldest human rights activist, Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva supports the initiative to blacklist Russian deputies who have voted for the “anti-Magnitsky Bill”.
“A cannibalic law has been adopted. Our deputies have done enough for being included in the Magnitsky Act and they realize that,” Alexeyeva told Interfax on Sunday.
“Our constitution prohibits deputies to adopt laws that infringe human rights. Do we have the right to a family? Sure. Does the bill adopted by the State Duma violate the right of every unhappy child at an orphanage longing to be adopted? Sure,” Alexeyeva said.
Alexeyeva told Interfax on Friday that she would not ask President Vladimir Putin to veto the Russian bill retaliating against the Magnitsky Act. “I will not send the appeal. I have no hope that something can be changed,” she said.
Head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Mikhail Fedotov regards the initiative of blacklisting Russian Duma deputies as harmful.
“Confrontation should not be built up,” he said. “One should not be fanning anti-American or anti-Russian hysteria, but stop in good time and take half a step backward.”
In his opinion, ‘impermissible amendments’, namely those banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans, should be dropped from the bill passed by the State Duma in the third reading.
“Very many reasons of ethical and legal nature are pushing us to that,” he said.
“The agreement which our deputies decided to denounce concerns not only the adoption of Russian children by Americans but also the adoption of American children by Russians. If something is wrong about the agreement, about something written in it, then amendments can be made in the document. Besides, don’t forget that the agreement came into effect only last month,” he said.
“The preamble to the agreement says that a child should grow up in a family environment to guarantee full and harmonious development of the personality. And if it is impossible to preserve the child’s own family, he or she should be placed in a substitute family in the country of birth. And only if that is impossible, international adoption should be considered,” he said.
“Article 6 of the Russian law says that its effect applies to the citizens of countries that will pass laws similar to the Magnitsky Act. Hence, if, for instance, France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain support the American initiative, citizens of those countries will automatically become unable to adopt Russian orphans,” he said.
“But we have never had any complaints about children adopted to those countries. So it turns out that children, our children become pawns in political games. The council believes that this is impermissible,” Fedotov added.
On Friday the State Duma passed in the third and final reading the ‘anti-Magnitsky bill’ also known as the ‘Dima Yakovlev bill’. Initially the bill contained measures against individuals responsible for the violation of the rights of Russian citizens.
For the second reading several amendments were proposed implying a ban on the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens and also on the operations of organizations helping to find children for adoption in Russian territory.
The story is based on materials from Interfax. займ онлайн займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно
U.S. Petition On Russian Lawmakers Gains Support
More than 32,000 electronic signatures have been added to an online petition urging the U.S. government to impose sanctions on Russian lawmakers supporting a bill that would ban the adoption of Russian children by Americans.
The petition urges the White House to add the names of legistlators supporting the bill to the list of Russians facing sanctions under the recently adopted Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act.
The White House promises to respond to all petitions that gather more than 25,000 signatures within 30 days of being posted. However, the president is not obligated to take any action.
The petition is being actively promoted on Russian social media sites, and almost all the signatures most likely are those of Russian citizens.
Activist Mikhail Shneider wrote on his Facebook page earlier on December 23:
“The signatures mean that the president is obliged to accept any petition that is signed by at least 25,000 people in 30 days. We have gathered that many in one day…. We continue collecting. There are 40,320 minutes until January 20 [when 30 days expires]. We are now gathering between 30 and 35 signatures a minute. By January 20, we could collect more than 1 million signatures.”
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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