Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Why Magnitsky is Good for Business

Minding Russia

Momentum is building in the US press for passage of the Magnitsky Act. After the liberal initially won the mindshare advocating only repeal of JVA with no further action (i.e. with this ambiguous and wimpy New York Times piece), yesterday, the Wall Street Journal rightly called Magnitsky “a bi-partisan challenge to Obama’s blind spot on Russia”:

For two years, the White House has scuttled the Magnitsky bill. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, who dreams of the top job at Foggy Bottom in a second Obama term, refuses to hold hearings. Mike McFaul, the new ambassador to Russia, last week called it “redundant” because the State Department put some Russian officials on a visa black list last year. He didn’t mention that it only did so in response to Senate pressure and in an effort to pre-empt Senate action. Nor did he say that, unlike the Magnitsky bill, State didn’t publicly name names or ban them from using the U.S. banking system.

Russian opposition leader Ilya Yashin blogs today in a post made “best post of the day” in favour of retiring the Jackson-Vanik Amendment but passing the Magnitsky Act. He describes a recent meeting with Ambassador McFaul about JVA — and it’s good that Russian opposition figures are making clear their support for the Magnitsky bill since McFaul tried to portray the opposition as only interested in JVA.

He then talks about how Russia should not be punished and kept out of the modern world economy and JVA is essentially an anachronism. Ok.