Posts Tagged ‘Cardin’
Russia blames doctors, not police, in death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
Russian authorities, under persistent international pressure to charge police officials in the pretrial detention death of a 37-year-old lawyer, on Monday blamed prison doctors instead.
Human rights activists, colleagues of Sergei Magnitsky and even U.S. senators have urged Russia to call Interior Ministry officials to account for arresting, prosecuting and then denying medical treatment to Magnitsky, who died in custody in November 2009.
But on Monday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, told the Interfax news agency that doctors would be prosecuted because of “flaws” in treatment that caused Magnitsky’s death.
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Our Answer to Magnitsky
“Our answer to Chamberlain.”
This Soviet slogan originated in the late 1920s as a government protest against British Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain, who was outspoken in his criticism of the Soviet policy toward China. But instead of addressing the arguments raised by Chamberlain, the Kremlin responded with the only weapon they had: a massive propaganda campaign that included military threats aimed at Britain. The expression later took on the broader meaning of basically “Go fly a kite!” when the Kremlin had nothing else to say in response to criticism from the West.
“Our answer to Chamberlain” is the best way to describe the bill introduced by the Foreign Ministry and United Russia (and supported by the other three parties in the State Duma) that would blacklist foreign bureaucrats and public officials who have allegedly violated the rights of Russian citizens located abroad. Foreigners who end up on the list would be barred from entering Russia and prevented from conducting business deals, and whatever assets they hold in Russian banks would be frozen.
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The Top 10 Reasons You Should Support S. 1039
Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center
When people think of President Barack Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia, the first things that come to mind are the deferral of the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, a new nuclear arms reductions treaty, or maybe even the friendly hamburger summit with his contemporary President Dmitry Medvedev.
While there are no shortage of arguments disputing the advantages and failures of the reset strategy, when it comes to human rights, the most impactful policy proposal comes not from the White House or State Department, bur rather an item of legislation conceived last year by Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Md). The draft law aims to become a model for the way governments can emphasize values and combat human rights abuses through the creation of specific disincentives targeted at those responsible. How does it work? Instead of punishing citizens who also suffer under these officials, the law would focus on visa restrictions of certain officials, and halt their use of Western financial institutions to launder ill-gotten funds.
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Reset Regret: Moral Leadership Needed to Fix U.S.–Russian Relations
The discussion about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law has careened through at least three phases in U.S. relations with Russia, each one resulting in sometimes jarring shifts in Washington’s approach to Moscow.
In order to reaffirm America’s interests, when dealing with Russia, the U.S. should concentrate on the values of freedom and justice. The Administration needs to stop its policy of “pleasing Moscow” and instead add pressure on Russia to start a “reset” of its own policies that currently disregard human rights, democracy, and good governance. The U.S. should deny visas to corrupt Russian businessmen, examine their banking practices and acquisitions, and target Russian police and prosecutors who fabricate evidence, and judges who rubber stamp convictions, which is what the bipartisan S. 1039 “Justice for Sergey Magnitsky” bill aims to do.
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In Tit-for-Tat, Russia Wants to Blacklist Foreigners
With the United States considering sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the Foreign Ministry has turned to the State Duma with a blacklist of its own.
But instead of punishing other countries for human rights abuses against their own citizens, the ministry would blacklist foreigners deemed to have violated the rights of Russian citizens.
Under a bill submitted to the Duma on Tuesday, blacklisted foreigners would be barred from entering Russia, while their assets in Russian banks would be frozen and they would be banned from conducting business deals in Russia.
“This is our acceptable answer to the actions of the West, including the U.S. State Department, which drafts certain blacklists of Russia citizens,” said Igor Lebedev, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party’s faction in the Duma, Interfax reported.
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Why Do “Progressives” Like Samuel Charap Shill for Russia and Oppose the Magnitsky Bill?
I’m liberal, but not “progressive” — and there’s a reason.
And that’s because I often feel that many of the positions “progressives” take (I always put the term in scare quotes because I don’t think it’s a valid description) are antithetical to universality and human rights. It’s usually about a certain kind of myopia and selectivity — a propensity to take out the magnifying glass for the sins of America or Israel, yet not find a thing to say about Palestinian or Taliban terror, even if provided with a telescope. And telescopes are what they do use to look for some problems, and not others, far away — the killing by American troops of civilians in Afghanistan, but never the killings by the Taliban, which make up now 85 percent of the civilian deaths. “Progressives” cheer Egyptian democracy demonstrators, even if they throw rocks; they look fearfully around and ask questions about one broken door caused by provocateurs in Belarus the night 600 people were arrested, many beaten brutally by police. Or maybe they’ve never heard of Belarus…
With the exception of Israel, nowhere do you see the gap in the “progressive” conscience, that can plead for justice and human rights and dignity in so many places, than on Russia. On Russia, the “progressives” can be as horribly indifferent to massive human rights problems as the Kremlin itself, and worse, justify them. They can advocate Realpolitik like the Nixon administration and Kissinger; they can back the “reset” without a single question about press freedom or the North Caucasus. Is this just a harkening back to the old Moscow line of the socialist movements of the 1960s and 1980s that always shielded Moscow from criticism? Or is it a more modern form of OstPolitik that imagines that the statecraft of foreign policy — one controlled by proper liberals, of course — will do best if it doesn’t antagonize another great power? What is this really all about?
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WTO: Wish, Trouble, Opportunity
Regardless of the optimism Obama’s administration radiates, it is still uncertain whether Russia will join the World Trade Organization by the end of the year. Too many problems are in one knot to be untangled in such a short time.
The first and, to a large extent, the key factor is Russia’s willingness to pursue this goal.
The most recent factor sounded during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, when Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov expressed his confidence that the remaining issues would be resolved within a few weeks. He warned that otherwise Russia’s accession to the WTO could be drawn out.
Following him, Russia’s Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina echoed this sentiment and added that authorities responsible for the negotiations “are doing their best to reach an agreement.”
However, it seems that in reality Russia is willing to enjoy the benefits of the world trade network while not ready to give any rebates required of such a multilateral membership.
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David Cameron must stand up to Putin
European leaders could honour the memory of Russian reformer Yelena Bonner by helping activists confront this corrupt cabal.
The death on Saturday of Yelena Bonner, widow of Andrei Sakharov, will be lamented across Russia. Her trenchant criticisms of Vladimir Putin’s autocracy – she was the first signatory of the “Putin Must Go” manifesto last March – was echoing as recently as last Thursday at a conference of reformists in Moscow.
Whether her death will have any effect on the decline in democracy in her beloved Russia may be discovered this week.
Russia’s justice minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, is the puppet who will announce this week whether or not the Putin regime will allow any opposition parties to put up candidates in December’s parliamentary elections and the presidential poll next March.
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Loosening Putin’s grip
As dictators fall in the Middle East and even China’s leaders panic at the word “Jasmine,” a question arises: What about Russia? Is Vladimir Putin’s regime immune to this fourth wave of democratic pressures?
It’s a safe bet that folks in Putin’s inner circle are wondering the same thing. Only 43 percent of Russians surveyed say that they would vote for Putin’s ruling party, United Russia, in the parliamentary elections scheduled for December, down from 56 percent in 2009. People are angry about rampant corruption at the highest levels and about the unsolved murders of journalists and others who probe too deeply. A think tank close to United Russia argues that the government is suffering a “crisis of legitimacy.”
That the public mood is souring during an election season presents some stark choices to Putin and to the United States. Putin could respond by providing some outlet for discontent, allowing more room for a political opposition that he has squeezed almost into oblivion. A new political party led by respected Russian political figures Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Milov and Vladimir Ryzhkov applied last month to register to run in the December elections. If Putin is smart, he’ll let them run. They can’t win, at least this time around, against the government apparatus. But Putin’s regime could claim greater legitimacy if a genuine liberal opposition were given a chance to compete.
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