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Civil Society Leaders Urge EU to Pass Magnitsky Sanctions
On June 5, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament held a seminar on Russian political prisoners. The event took place on the eve of the “Bolotnaya Square” trial, widely viewed as politically motivated. The participants stressed the urgent need for the EU to take a firm stand with regard to human rights abuses in Russia.
The situation regarding political prisoners in Russia has been deteriorating since 2011, when unprecedented mass protests against fraudulent elections were held all over the country. A group of prominent political leaders, policy experts, and human rights activists gathered to discuss the situation at the European Parliament. They included Lyudmila Alekseeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group; Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management; Anna Karetnikova of the Council of the Human Rights Center “Memorial;” Mikhail Kasyanov, co-leader of the Republican Party of Russia—People’s Freedom Party and a former Russian prime minister; Vadim Klyuvgant, a lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Nikolai Kavkazsky; Vladimir Kara-Murza, IMR senior policy advisor and a member of the Coordinating Council of the Russian opposition; and Pavel Khodorkovsky, president of the IMR. Leonidas Donskis, a member of European Parliament and the ALDE Group spokesman on human rights, moderated the seminar. The event was also dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s upcoming 50th birthday on June 26.
In his opening remarks, Donskis noted that “the human rights saga in Europe is an interesting combination of Russian, Ukrainian, East European courage and Western organization.” After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West had high hopes for Russia, as the era of Boris Yeltsin was very promising in terms of democratic development and political freedom. But today Russia is sliding back to the “obese of Soviet legislation,” and Europe is finding itself at a crossroads: should it lower its standards for countries that play a crucial role in international trade, like China and Russia, or should it continue to apply universal standards of human rights and dignity? In Donskis’ opinion, if the standards are lowered, it will be a historic failure for Europe and a betrayal of great minds such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, who shaped the entire discourse of human rights. The EU legislator also stressed that Russian political prisoners exist, calling Mikhail Khodorkovsky a symbolic figure in this group, and suggesting that he stopped being just a Russian political prisoner and became a European political prisoner. “As long as corruption exists as an international phenomenon, every fighter against corruption or every fighter for human rights becomes an international figure… These people fight for Europe,” Donskis observed.
Mikhail Kasyanov said there are thousands of cases of human rights abuses in Russia, and about one-third of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights are coming from Russia. But the public is largely unaware of this situation, because “there is a taboo” on discussing it. Kasyanov reminded the audience that Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and therefore needs to abide by its obligations; Russia has signed up the European Convention on Human Rights, but is not fulfilling its provisions. The former Russian prime minister added that in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovksy and Platon Lebedev, reputable Russian lawyers and independent international experts have been clear that the evidence was fabricated, and that these two people should therefore be released. Kasyanov also recalled the case of Sergei Magnitsky and the sanctions that were imposed by the U.S. against officials involved in his death, as well as against other human rights abusers. He called for similar measures to be undertaken by the EU, emphasizing that they do not target Russia, but rather deprive criminals and human rights abusers of privileges.
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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
Duma Bill To Clamp Down on NGOs
Amid the public furor over the State Duma’s proposed ban on U.S. adoptions, many seem to have overlooked the fact that the so-called “anti-Magnitsky act,” which passed the lower house of parliament on Friday, would also place harsh new restrictions on non-governmental organizations.
Unlike the adoptions ban, the new restrictions on U.S. funding for certain groups haven’t sparked pickets outside the Duma, and tens of thousands haven’t signed online petitions opposing them.
But human rights leaders say the rules are a further tightening of the screws on civil society organizations, which have been pressed in recent months by new laws that expanded the definition of treason and required certain groups to classify themselves as “foreign agents,” which all major NGOs boycotted.
“It feels like war has been declared,” said Alexander Cherkasov, head of the Memorial human rights organization. “Nobody sewed on the yellow star. The new law, to extend the metaphor, says: ‘We’ll shoot you even if you’re not wearing a yellow star.'”
The proposed rules would make it illegal for NGOs that receive funding from U.S. citizens or organizations to participate in “political activities” or otherwise threaten Russia’s national interests.
They would also ban Russian citizens who hold American passports from being members or leaders of “political” NGOs, including local branches of international groups, which could see their assets seized for breaking the law.
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Russian lawmakers back adoption ban in row with U.S.
Russia’s lower house of parliament approved a law banning Americans from adopting Russian children on Friday, in retaliation for U.S. human rights legislation which Vladimir Putin says is poisoning relations.
The State Duma overwhelmingly backed a bill which also outlaws U.S.-funded “non-profit organizations that engage in political activity”, extending what critics say is a clampdown on Putin’s opponents since he returned to the presidency in May.
The law responds to U.S. legislation known as the Magnitsky Act, passed by the U.S. Congress to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials accused of involvement in the death in custody of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
Washington’s ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, said the Russian bill unfairly “linked the fate of orphaned children to unrelated political issues”.
Putin hinted at a news conference on Thursday that he would sign it into law once the Senate votes on it next week, describing it as an emotional but appropriate response to an unfriendly move by the United States.
“It is a myth that all children who land in American families are happy and surrounded by love,” Olga Batalina, a deputy with Putin’s ruling United Russia party, said in defense of the new measures.
In a pointed echo of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian legislation has become known as the Dima Yakovlev law, after a Russian-born toddler who died after his American adoptive father left him in locked in a sweltering car.
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This Is a Terrible Time to Be a Dictator, Mr. Putin
The Moscow Times
The Kremlin and the people are headed toward a new round of conflict starting in September.
Since President Vladimir Putin assumed office in May, several laws have been passed that will clamp down on the opposition, journalists, bloggers and nongovernmental organizations. These include an extrajudicial or administrative procedure for banning specific websites and blogs as well as granting the authorities the right to prosecute anyone who disagrees with Kremlin policy.
The law on NGOs has been one of the most controversial. If foreign-funded NGOs that are deemed by the authorities to be “politically active” fail to register as “foreign agents,” their directors and other top officials within the organizations could be subject to huge fines and prison terms.
Several leading human rights organizations have declared that they will ignore the law and will not register as foreign agents. These include the Moscow Helsinki Group headed by Lyudmila Alexeyeva and the For Human Rights movement headed by Lev Ponomaryov. Both organizations are highly respected in Russia and abroad.
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New bill labels NGOs as ‘foreign agents’
A new bill soon to be introduced to the State Duma will label all NGOs with foreign finances that work in politics as “foreign agents,” United Russia’s press-service announced on Friday.
“One of the authors of the bill, deputy Alexander Sidyakin, stresses that the proposed changes to the law on NGOs do not ban them in any way and do not limit their rights, but are aimed at providing public scrutiny for their functions as a foreign agent and to make this data open knowledge for Russian citizens,” Interfax quoted United Russia’s press-release as saying.
United Russia member Sidyakin was also one of the authors of the new rally fines bill.
Foreign agents with a political agenda
Russian NGOs that receive funding and property from foreign states, international and foreign organizations, foreign nationals will be recognized as “foreign agents” in the new bill. NGOs that “take part in political activity in Russia in the interests of foreign sources” will be also be considered agents.
United Russia explained that NGOs that take part in Russia’s political life are the ones that “regardless of declared aims and tasks, finance and hold political campaigns in order to influence the decision-making by the state organs, aimed at changing state policies,” as well as participating in forming public opinion with said aims.
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Alekseyeva hopes Europe will follow example of U.S. with “Magnitsky law”
Russian human rights activists have backed the decision made by the U.S. Senate Committee on International Affairs to approve the “Magnitsky bill,” which envisions visa and financial restrictions on some Russian officials.
“It’s a very good decision. I hope some European countries will follow the example of the U.S.,” Moscow Helsinki Group Chairman Lyudmila Alekseyeva told Interfax on Wednesday.
Alekseyeva said no real investigation into the death in a Moscow detention facility of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky has been conducted in Russia. She said the decision made by the U.S. Senate committee is a signal from the international community to the Russian authorities.
“I believe it’s an international verdict,” Alekseyeva said.
Alekseyeva said she does not believe measures taken by Russia in response will be effective.
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Civil society surges ahead of the authorities
Russia’s civil society has made a dramatic leap forward over the past three years and is doing much more to curb corruption than the authorities, Yelena Panfilova, a prominent, outgoing member of the presidential anti-corruption and human rights council, said on Wednesday.
“Russia today is not the same country it was when I joined the council three years ago; first of all, it’s about the society, not the authorities,” Panfilova, who heads Transparency International’s Russian branch, said at a news conference in Moscow marking the end of the council’s term under President Dmitry Medvedev.
Panfilova announced last week that she was not planning to continue her work with the council, which is expected to be reshuffled following the inauguration of Vladimir Putin on May 7. Several other council members also said they were going to resign.
Some observers have suggested it was their unwillingness to compromise with former KGB agent Putin that forced them to leave the council. But Panfilova downplayed the allegation on Wednesday, saying her departure was due to her desire to focus on civil activism rather than a falling out with the authorities.
Council members admitted that their success in promoting human rights and the rule of law in Russia was limited.
“We have done a small part of what we were planning to do,” Lyudmila Alexeyeva, who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, said.
’No disappointment’
Yet, when asked by a Western reporter whether they were disappointed with a lack of progress in their work, council members said they were rather realistic and did not expect things to improve by leaps and bounds.
“To be disappointed, one must first be charmed,” Panfilova quipped, adding that this was not the case with her, since she realized that Russia still has a long way to go before its citizens can enjoy full human rights and social justice.
She admitted, however, that she was “embarrassed” with the strong opposition that many of the council’s initiatives faced from local officials who were reluctant to sacrifice their power in favor of a more open and just society.
Unresolved cases
Among the goals to be pursued by the newly formed council, Fedotov and his colleagues named the tightening of punishment for abuse of media freedom, the creation of public television, as well as better anti-corruption controls.
It is yet unclear how many of the council’s current initiatives will survive Putin’s return to the Kremlin. The issues in question include the high-profile cases of jailed ex-Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in a Moscow pre-trial detention in November 2009 triggered international outcry.
“We couldn’t resolve the main problems with the Khodorkovsky and Magnitsky cases,” Mara Polyakova, a council member overseeing reforms in the legal and law enforcement systems, admitted.
Nevertheless, she said she believed the council’s campaign to highlight the Khodorkovsky case had a “major effect on our citizens.”
Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were detained in 2003 on fraud charges and subsequently jailed for eight years. They had been due for release in 2011, but were found guilty on a second set of charges and their sentences extended until 2018 in a highly controversial trial in December 2010.
In early February, the council urged Medvedev to pardon Khodorkovsky along with 30 other prisoners. But Medvedev refused, saying he did not understand why he should pardon someone who had not asked for clemency.
Hermitage Capital lawyer Magnitsky’s death at Moscow’s infamous Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention center came to Medvedev’s attention last year, after the presidential council issued a report saying that his arrest was unlawful, his detention marked by beatings and torture aimed at extracting a confession of guilt, and that prison officials instructed doctors not to treat him. Two doctors have been charged with negligence in connection with the case, but charges were subsequently dropped against one of them.
Magnitsky was arrested in November 2008 on tax evasion charges by those same officers he had shortly before accused of stealing $230 million from the state budget.
New council ‘up to Putin’
Fedotov said it was up to Putin to ensure that the council does not “turn into window dressing.”
Fedotov said he would welcome any newcomers in the council if they share the same values as those whom they would replace.
“But if in the place of those great people we will have people who attack human rights rather than protect them… I will not be there,” he said. онлайн займы hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php payday loan
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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