Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Artists, dissidents look to EU after US human rights law

EU Observer

Artists, exiles and rights campaigners say the EU can help Russia by closing its door to regime officials with blood on their hands.

Vladimir Bukovsky knows what it is like to be inside a Russian jail. He spent 12 years in and out of them in the 1960s and 1970s for trying to expose the Soviet Union’s use of psychiatric institutions to torture dissidents.

The 69-year-old scientist now lives in the UK, but travels to Russia from time to time.

Speaking in London on Tuesday (20 November) after the staging of a play on Sergei Magnitsky – a Russian accountant who was killed in prison in 2009 for trying to expose high-level corruption – Bukovsky said today’s Kremlin reminds him of the old one.

“Russia is going around like a blind donkey … They used to write plays about psychological abuse and now we are here to talk about this play,” he noted.

He added: “Magnitsky was a political prisoner because corruption is at the heart of Russia’s political system and this is exactly what he went against.”

The play – One Hour and 18 Minutes, by Elena Gremina – tries to show the human side of what happened.

It uses home videos of Magnitsky – a portly, jovial 37-year-old – at family parties.