Congress acts to pass landmark human rights measure in memory of murdered Russian lawyer
Three years to the day after an anti-corruption lawyer was tortured to death in Russia, a bill bearing his name and aimed at punishing human rights violators has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The so-called Sergei Magnitsky amendment, named after the lawyer who died at age 37, passed by a margin of 365 to 43 votes, bringing together hard-line Republicans and liberal Democrats.
President Vladimir Putin’s government has made clear its vehement opposition to the amendment, which the Obama administration has also opposed vigorously, fearing it will damage its ‘reset’ policy of courting Russia.
The amendment, which allows the U.S. to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russian officials believed to be connected to Magnitsky’s death, was passed on Friday as part of a broader measure to normalising trade relations with Russia.
William Browder, an American-born investor who is based in London after being expelled from Russia in 2005, has been a tireless campaigner for the measure in memory of Magnitsky, who acted for him and paid the price with his life.
Principal backers in the House have included Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, respectively among the most right-wing and liberal inthe chamber. In the Senate, liberal Ben Cardin and conservatives John McCain and Jon Kyl have banded together.
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Magnitsky Act overcomes further hurdle in US Congress
The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Magnitsky Act, with 365 to 43 in favour of passing the bill.
The vote went in favour of passing the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 and a law to grant Russian Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), a hangover from the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, which was originally introduced by the US to prevent the former Soviet Union from enjoying PNTR with the US.
The vote was originally scheduled to take place on 3 August before Congress broke for the summer recess, but was postponed until last week.
Bill Browder, the founder of Hermitage Capital Management and a client of lawyer Magnitsky, who died in November 2009 in pre-trial detention, has been instrumental in bringing Magnitsky’s plight to the attention of the US Congress and was in the US on Thursday testifying prior to the vote on Friday.
Browder, who has compiled a dossier of thousands of pages citing evidence of the 60 Russian officials suspected of collusion in Magnitsky’s arrest, torture and subsequent death, told The Lawyer that the latest vote was hugely significant both for the Magnitsky campaign and for eradicating impunity for human rights abuses in Russia more generally.
“It’s the most important piece of human rights legislation since the Jackson Vanik Act 35 years ago and creates real consequences for human rights abusers in Russia,” he said.
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Magnitsky Act Promises to Punish Human Rights Abuse, Open Trade
Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that included language—called the Magnitsky Act—that for the first time punishes Russian officials implicated in serious human rights abuses.
The bill was passed by an overwhelming majority—365 to 43—demonstrating strong bipartisan support. The Senate will vote on the Magnitsky Act and the underlying bill during the lame-duck session after the Thanksgiving recess.
The Magnitsky Act is named after the late Moscow lawyer, accountant, and whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who in 2009 accused Russian police and tax officials of embezzling $230 million from the Russian treasury. For his “crime” of holding government accountable, Magnitsky was jailed, tortured, denied medical care, and finally beaten to death in his prison cell.
Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the Magnitsky case as a “tragedy” while vehemently opposing the U.S. legislation named after the whistleblower. Some perpetrators of the Magnitsky persecution even received medals and promotions.
Instead of conducting a proper investigation to bring those responsible for Magnitsky’s death to justice, the Kremlin has threatened to retaliate, accusing the U.S. of meddling in Russia’s internal affairs.
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Lawyers for Magnitsky family accuse investigators of illegal actions – Hermitage Capital
The lawyers for the relatives of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital, who died in a Moscow detention facility in 2009, have complained to the administration of three law enforcement agencies about an investigator who provided materials relating to the Magnitsky criminal case to his colleagues in the Interior Ministry, the press service for the investment company said.
“The lawyer for Magnitsky’s mother has filed a statement stating a conflict of interest in the investigation into the lawyer’s and the creation by the administration of the investigative body of a situation threatening the safety of the victims and the witnesses in the case,” the press service said in a report obtained by Interfax on Monday.
The statement has been sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Investigations Committee, and the Investigations Department of the Interior Ministry.
“The statement says that the Investigations Committee has provided unlimited access to the materials of the case involving Magnitsky’s death to the Interior Ministry officials whom the victim stated as accomplices in his torture and killing, thus violating the victim’s rights,” the press release.
The lawyers said such actions create “conditions for a threat to the life and safety of the victims and other persons who have provided investigators with evidence on the role in the crime against Magnitsky of Interior Ministry officials who are interested in hiding this information and evading responsibility.”
Magnitsky, who was accused of tax evasion, died at the Moscow detention facility Matrosskaya Tishina on November 16, 2009. Acute cardiac arrest was officially named as the cause of his death. Magnitsky’s defense lawyers claimed that he had complained of health problems and requested a thorough medical examination.
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What Obama needs to do about Russia
At least as far as foreign policy went, Russia received an unexpected amount of attention in this year’s U.S. presidential election campaign. Whether it was the Romney team’s dismissing the so-called reset, its claim that Russia is America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” or President Obama’s infamous open mic moment, in which he promised his Russian counterpart “flexibility” on missile defense if reelected, ties with Moscow kept cropping up.
It is, of course, true that the Cold War world no longer exists, and that Russia occupies a far less significant space in American foreign policy. And the U.S.-Russia relationship simply is not as overtly antagonistic as it was in the Soviet era. But it is also clear that Russia continues to pose serious challenges for the United States.
With this in mind, here are some suggestions for President Obama for how he should approach Russia in his second term.
Forget the reset. The election is over. It’s time to face reality. And the reality is that Russia has rapidly regressed from soft authoritarianism into a less qualified dictatorship that shields brutal regimes around the world with ever greater brazenness. What’s more, the Russian leadership has all but acknowledged that the reset is over. And if you don’t trust the Kremlin’s words, then consider its actions. Putin blamed opposition protests on “signals” that Hillary Clinton had supposedly sent to incite revolts against his regime. In September, the Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of USAID from Russia and rejected the State Department’s request for a six-month extension to wind down grants. And, last month, Moscow decided that it will not negotiate a follow-on Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction pact with the U.S. These are trends that even the reset’s most ardent supporters cannot ignore.
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PHR Applauds US House Approval of Magnitsky Act
PHR applauds today’s vote by the US House of Representatives to pass legislation that would place sanctions on Russians implicated in the torture and death three years ago of a Russian anti-corruption lawyer.
The Magnitsky Act would require the US to place travel and financial restrictions on specific Russian officials associated with the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered and made public a $230 million fraud involving tax refunds.
“Mr. Magnitsky’s death in a Russian prison was almost certainly the result of torture and deliberate medical neglect,” said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of PHR. “Three years later, Russia has failed to take significant action to identify and prosecute those responsible — another instance in a consistent pattern of impunity for officials who engage in torture and other human rights abuses. Today’s House vote is a welcome step toward providing Mr. Magnitsky’s family with some measure of justice, and we look forward to seeing the bill become law.”
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Sergei’s Law: A Congressional victory for trade and human rights in U.S. relations with Russia.
Bravo, Congress. Seriously. The House has earned this praise after Friday’s legislative victory for trade and human rights.
Passed with a rare bipartisan majority of 365 to 43, H.R. 6165 “normalizes” trade ties with Russia by retiring Jackson-Vanik, a landmark 1974 law that pressed the Soviet Union to liberalize Jewish emigration during the Cold War. The bill will let American investors take advantage of lower tariffs and better protections for intellectual property from Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization this summer.
But the law will be forever and justly associated with Sergei Magnitsky. The House voted on the third anniversary of the anticorruption activist’s death in a Moscow jail, after months of torture and neglect. Title IV of the trade measure bans Russian officials who commit such abuses from traveling or banking in the U.S. The “Magnitsky Act” is the most consequential piece of human-rights legislation since Jackson-Vanik, and a worthy successor.
The law grew out of the tireless lobbying of William Browder, an American investor who employed Magnitsky, and the persistence of Senator Ben Cardin, the Maryland Democrat who introduced the bill in 2010. It went nowhere at first, as the Obama Administration opposed sanctions in the name of protecting its “reset” in relations with Russia, and Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry did his best to kill the Magnitsky provision despite bipartisan support.
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Opposition leader accused of treachery for supporting Magnistky bill
The ruling United Russia party has accused opposition figure Mikhail Kasyanov of betraying Russia’s interests for his support of the Magnitsky List bill, recently approved by the US Congress.
In doing so, Kasyanov has “openly admitted that timeserving interests of certain American politicians are more important to him than interests of his own people,” stated senior United Russia’s member Sergey Neverov.
Kasyanov, a former prime minister during President Putin’s first term, is currently not a member of parliament.
The reaction of Russian society to this move should be “definitely negative,” as it may “lead to tensions in relations between the two powers,” Neverov underlined, as cited by Interfax. That will be bad for everyone, “except, apparently, those who deliberately play into the hands of provocateurs who are trying to dictate how Russia should live.”
Earlier, Kasyanov – a co-chairman of the Republican Party of People’s Freedom, also known as Parnas – welcomed the adoption of the so-called Magnitsky List. The bill imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials allegedly involved in the death of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergey Magnitsky and in other human rights abuses in the country. The 37-year-old died in a Moscow pre-trial detention center in November 2009.
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House passes Russian trade deal, but Moscow isn’t happy
Ignoring threats of retaliation from Moscow, the House of Representatives passed a long-delayed trade deal with Russia on Friday, adding language aimed at cracking down on human rights abuses.
The agreement, a priority for President Barack Obama and business groups, would permanently normalize trade relations with Russia, allowing the United States to increase ties with a nation that boasts 140 million consumers.
In a rare show of bipartisanship, the House voted 365-43 to approve the bill. It now goes to the Senate, where final passage is expected.
As part of the deal, the House agreed to repeal a 1974 law authored by former Democratic Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington state that had restricted trade with the former Soviet Union because it wasn’t allowing Jews to emigrate.
Supporters said that was no longer an issue and it was time to normalize permanent trade relations with Russia. Currently, trade is allowed on a year-by-year basis if the president certifies that Russia is complying with the 1974 law.
“Today’s Russia is not yesterday’s Soviet Union,” said Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, who’s a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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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
