What’s behind Russia’s bill banning US adoptions?
The bill had originally been a smaller, tit-for-tat response to US legislation, but the Russian Duma has expanded it into a much broader anti-American measure that even Putin may not approve.
A Russian bill that had seemed initially like a tit-for-tat response to US legislation now looks to be exploding into broad legislation that bars almost any US citizen from engaging in non-business activity in Russia – including the adoption of Russian children.
Russia’s State Duma on Wednesday passed a bill, in key second reading, that would ban all adoptions of Russian children by US citizens, order the closure of any politically-active nongovernmental organization with US funding, and block US passport-holders from working in any nonprofit group that authorities deem connected with politics. The bill passed the 450-seat Duma overwhelmingly, with just 15 deputies opposed.
The now radically-amended Dima Yakovlev bill, named after one of 19 Russian children who have died because of alleged negligence of his American adoptive parents in the past two decades, goes far beyond the originally-stated intent to respond to the US Senate’s Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Obama last week.
The initial bill, which passed first reading last Friday, would have levied economic and visa sanctions against US officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses against Russians. Among the categories of Americans to be hit in the original bill were adoptive parents who abused their Russian-born children and officials involved in the extradition and prosecution of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a New York court last year.
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Why Putin’s Russia Is Dissolving
In Moscow at a conference for young Russian journalists last week, I met Eduard Mochalov, who differed from most of the participants in having spent much of his working life as a farmer. He retains the ruddy countenance and the strong, chapped hands of the outdoor worker in a hard climate — in his case, that of the Chuvash Republic, about 700 kilometers east of Moscow.
Mochalov’s story is that when thieves stole some of his cattle and pigs, he protested to the authorities, only to find himself in jail for eight months based on a wrongful accusation. Maddened by what he considered the result of corruption behind the scenes, he protested all the way up to President Vladimir Putin, going so far as to appear in Red Square with a placard telling his story. As he pursued justice, his farm went untended.
And so he turned to journalism. “I had no choice. The whole administration was corrupt, nothing to be done but fight them with words,” he told me. Four years ago he founded a newspaper that he boldly named Vzyatka, which in Russian means bribe. It comes out nearly every month and is replete with investigations and denunciations of corruption in his locality. He prints some 20,000 copies and gives them away. Demand, he says, hugely outpaces supply.
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Tough Talks Expected At EU-Russia Summit
President Vladimir Putin will meet with European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday for a pre-Christmas summit, but the mood will hardly be festive.
Disputes involving visas, trade and energy have cast a shadow over EU-Russia relations in recent months, giving both sides tough issues to discuss. More broadly, the Europeans are expected to voice concern about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent, while Moscow’s stance toward Europe is cooling following its recent foreign-policy emphasis on Eurasia.
“I have no high expectations of this summit,” said George SchЪpflin, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s conservative Fidesz party.
Schopflin said feelings among Brussels officials toward Moscow had definitely cooled over the past months.
“There is considerable unease about human rights,” he said by telephone.
In a highly critical motion passed last week, the European Parliament demanded that Russia end “politically motivated persecutions, arrests and detentions” among opposition members.
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Bill Browder: “The Impunity Bubble Is Broken”
After the Magnitsky Act was passed by the U.S. Senate, Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital and one of the bill’s most active proponents, spoke at Columbia University Law School. He told the story of Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed the largest embezzlement scheme in Russian history, was jailed and died in Moscow prison. Ian Hague, co-founder of Firestone Management, and Kimberly Marten, acting director of the Harriman Institute, also shared their views on the issue.
It so happened that the event entitled “Failed Mafia State” at Columbia University Law School was held on December 6th, the same day the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed by the U.S. Senate. On December 14th, the bill was signed by President Obama and came into full effect. The new law imposes a visa ban and asset freeze on individuals involved in the imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, as well as on those responsible for other gross human rights violations in Russia.
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What the Magnitsky Act Means
Sergei Magnitsky was a 37-year-old lawyer who was beaten, deprived of vital medical attention, and left to die in a Russian prison nearly a year after uncovering a massive fraud allegedly committed by Russian officials to the tune of $230 million. The very people whom Magnitsky implicated in the fraud arrested him in 2008; a year after his murder, several of these officials were promoted and awarded, adding insult to the fatal injury inflicted on Magnitsky.
Magnitsky’s client, Hermitage Capital head Bill Browder, launched a full-court press to seek justice for his lawyer in the West in the absence of any possibility for justice inside Russia. Browder recounted Magnitsky’s riveting story to members of the U.S. Congress and anyone else who would listen. Fortunately, two Congressmen, Senator Ben Cardin (D–MD) and Representative Jim McGovern (D–MA), did listen, and they followed up by leading the campaign to adopt the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which was approved by the House in a 365–43 vote November 16, and by the Senate with an equally bipartisan landslide (92-4) on December 6. The Act will deny visas to and freeze the assets of those in the Russian ruling elite implicated in Magnitsky’s murder and other human rights violations and corruption. Various polls in Russia show support for the legislation by a ratio of more than two-to-one among those familiar with it. In targeting sanctions against corrupt and abusive Russian officials as opposed to the whole country, the Act resonates with the many Russians who are fed up with these kinds of problems in their country. The next critical step is to get European countries to adopt similar measures, which would have an even greater impact on those Russians who like to travel and do business in Europe.
There will likely be international ramifications to the approval of the Magnitsky Act —especially if it gets applied to other abusive officials elsewhere around the world; Senator Cardin strongly supports such an extension of the law’s reach. The Act is also bound to influence the Russian-American relationship—if not today, then in the future. If not implemented aggressively, the legislation risks ending up as yet another piece in the “Let’s Pretend” game that the West has long been playing with Russia and other authoritarian states. (Indeed some hope for this outcome.) This would expose the deep crisis affecting the Western world and signal a victory for the forces of authoritarian corruption seeking to demoralize Western society. The U.S. Congress must see to it that the Obama Administration implements the legislation in a serious manner.
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The top 10 lobbying victories of this year
The influence industry scored several hard-fought victories in a year in which lawmakers were more focused on campaigning than legislating.
Though the winners and losers in the lobbying battle over the “fiscal cliff” are not yet known, a number of companies, trade groups and lobbyists already have a signature triumph to call their own in 2012.
The tech industry beat back legislation that would have put a tighter leash on the Internet; business groups outmuscled Tea Party activists to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank; and Wall Street managed to water down a provision in fast-moving ethics legislation.
Here’s a look at the top 10 lobbying victories of 2012, along with the groups and companies — and at least one persistent investment fund manager — who won them.
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MEP calls for entry ban on those involved in Russian lawyers’ death
The EU has been urged to impose an entry ban for “all people” incriminated in the death of a Russian anti-corruption lawyer.
Sergei Magnitsky is said to have uncovered what he described as a ‘web of corruption’ involving Russian tax officials.
He is said to have uncovered the theft of more than €152m and, after reporting it to the authorities, he was himself detained on suspicion of aiding tax evasion, and died in custody on 16 November 2009 at the age of 37.
The lawyer’s colleagues insist the case against him was fabricated to make him halt his investigation into a number of high-profile corrupt officials.
Green MEP Werner Schulz, deputy chairman of the EU-Russia parliamentary cooperation committee, has praised the late lawyer for “daring” to speak out against alleged corruption in his country.
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Swedish Television SVT – Magnitsky report
Swedish TV station SvT present the Magnitsky case to their Swedish audience in the days after the US Congress signed into Law the “Magnitsky Act” which would remove Jackson-Vanik from the statute books, allow the US to have free trade with Russia. The new law would also impose US visa bans and asset freezes on the Russian government officals who were involved in the false arrest, torture, denial of medical care and death of Sergei Magnitsky.
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Will the Magnitsky Act Apply to Ukraine?
November 16 marked the third anniversary of Sergey Magnitsky’s death in a Russian jail. The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee marked the occasion by passing the Magnitsky Bill. It now has moved on to the Senate for approval—the next step on its way to becoming law.
Provided the language Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) have written survives the legislation process, it is possible that the Magnitsky Act would apply to Ukraine. It will be up to the President and the State Department to decide, who, if anyone, may end up on a “Magnitsky List”.
The Magnitsky Act seeks “to impose sanctions on persons responsible for the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, and for other gross violations of human rights in the Russian Federation, and for other purposes.” Individuals guilty of massive human rights violations would be refused visas, and their assets within the preview of the U.S. government would be frozen.
Ukraine’s treatment of former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, as well as of other political prisoners, may come under “other purposes” language, applicable to countries beyond Russia.
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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
