Posts Tagged ‘Cardin’
U.S.-Russia Relations Continue To Falter With Prosecution Of Dead Man
Russia is prosecuting a dead man, corruption whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, in a case that has severely complicated U.S.-Russia relations. Congress passed a bill that will punish anyone involved in the Magnitsky case and other major human rights violators in Russia. The Russian parliament responded by banning adoptions by American families of Russian children. It is against this backdrop that the new Secretary of State John Kerry finds himself searching for ways to reset relations once again.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
You are listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
Next week, Secretary of State John Kerry sets off on his first official trip. He’ll head to both Europe and the Middle East. He will not be visiting Russia but aides say he might meet his Russian counterparts somewhere on the trip.
They have a lot to talk about, from the crisis in Syria to a dispute over adoptions, as NPR’s Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: There are many signs that U.S./Russian relations are in the tank. One example is playing out in a Russian courtroom, where a dead man is going on trial next month.
NIKOLAI GOROKHOV: (Foreign language spoken)
KELEMEN: This is Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer representing the family of Sergei Magnitsky, the corruption whistle-blower who died in a Russian prison three years ago.
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Russian “Grandma of Human Rights” Nominated for Nobel Prize
This week, Senator Benjamin Cardin (D–MD) nominated the “grandma” of the Russian human rights movement, Lyudmila Alekseeva, for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.
Cardin’s nomination of the veteran of the dissident movement affirms the United States’ support for human rights activists in Russia and gives this “peacemaker” the recognition she deserves.
Alekseeva was born in 1927 in the Crimea and studied history at the prestigious Moscow State University. During her time there, Alekseeva fell in with the dissident crowd. By the 1960s, she protested the Communist Party’s crackdown on dissident writers and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. She continued to work for human rights in the Soviet Union and in 1976 was one of the founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group.
The group, named after its support of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which the Soviet Union signed, was founded in the apartment of dissident physicist and human rights leader Andrei Sakharov.
Only a year after she helped found the group, Alekseeva, like many other dissidents, was exiled from the USSR. She moved to the U.S. and kept up her work promoting human rights. She was frequently published and often appeared on Radio Liberty and Voice of America, U.S. government-funded stations that broadcasted to the Soviet Union.
Two years after the fall of communism, Alekseeva returned to Russia and in 1996 became chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights nongovernmental organization (NGO).
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What the Magnitsky Act Means
Sergei Magnitsky was a 37-year-old lawyer who was beaten, deprived of vital medical attention, and left to die in a Russian prison nearly a year after uncovering a massive fraud allegedly committed by Russian officials to the tune of $230 million. The very people whom Magnitsky implicated in the fraud arrested him in 2008; a year after his murder, several of these officials were promoted and awarded, adding insult to the fatal injury inflicted on Magnitsky.
Magnitsky’s client, Hermitage Capital head Bill Browder, launched a full-court press to seek justice for his lawyer in the West in the absence of any possibility for justice inside Russia. Browder recounted Magnitsky’s riveting story to members of the U.S. Congress and anyone else who would listen. Fortunately, two Congressmen, Senator Ben Cardin (D–MD) and Representative Jim McGovern (D–MA), did listen, and they followed up by leading the campaign to adopt the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which was approved by the House in a 365–43 vote November 16, and by the Senate with an equally bipartisan landslide (92-4) on December 6. The Act will deny visas to and freeze the assets of those in the Russian ruling elite implicated in Magnitsky’s murder and other human rights violations and corruption. Various polls in Russia show support for the legislation by a ratio of more than two-to-one among those familiar with it. In targeting sanctions against corrupt and abusive Russian officials as opposed to the whole country, the Act resonates with the many Russians who are fed up with these kinds of problems in their country. The next critical step is to get European countries to adopt similar measures, which would have an even greater impact on those Russians who like to travel and do business in Europe.
There will likely be international ramifications to the approval of the Magnitsky Act —especially if it gets applied to other abusive officials elsewhere around the world; Senator Cardin strongly supports such an extension of the law’s reach. The Act is also bound to influence the Russian-American relationship—if not today, then in the future. If not implemented aggressively, the legislation risks ending up as yet another piece in the “Let’s Pretend” game that the West has long been playing with Russia and other authoritarian states. (Indeed some hope for this outcome.) This would expose the deep crisis affecting the Western world and signal a victory for the forces of authoritarian corruption seeking to demoralize Western society. The U.S. Congress must see to it that the Obama Administration implements the legislation in a serious manner.
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Will the Magnitsky Act Apply to Ukraine?
November 16 marked the third anniversary of Sergey Magnitsky’s death in a Russian jail. The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee marked the occasion by passing the Magnitsky Bill. It now has moved on to the Senate for approval—the next step on its way to becoming law.
Provided the language Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) have written survives the legislation process, it is possible that the Magnitsky Act would apply to Ukraine. It will be up to the President and the State Department to decide, who, if anyone, may end up on a “Magnitsky List”.
The Magnitsky Act seeks “to impose sanctions on persons responsible for the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, and for other gross violations of human rights in the Russian Federation, and for other purposes.” Individuals guilty of massive human rights violations would be refused visas, and their assets within the preview of the U.S. government would be frozen.
Ukraine’s treatment of former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, as well as of other political prisoners, may come under “other purposes” language, applicable to countries beyond Russia.
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Cardin stands up for rights
Maryland’s junior senator shows leadership by demanding Russian accountability for a politically linked death.
This month’s passage of a new U.S.-Russia trade law has done more than showcase Senator Ben Cardin’s dedication to international human rights.
By sending the shock to the Kremlin — that the U.S. values prosecuting rights abusers as much as it values profits for businesses — the Maryland Democrat has catapulted human rights atop the international agenda and brought new attention to the U.S. Helsinki Commission that he chairs.
The Helsinki Commission — founded amid the Cold War, just like the legislation the new trade bill replaces — once helped secure freedom for Soviet refuseniks unable to emigrate from under the thumb of Communism. Thirty years later, Mr. Cardin and the 21-member, bipartisan, congressional-executive body put the spotlight back on the Soviet region broadly and Moscow specifically.
I remember the June day in 2009 when Senator Cardin first heard about Sergei Magnitsky. Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder spoke of the raid on his office in Moscow and how Mr. Magnitsky, his 37-year-old lawyer, refused to lie about the trumped-up charges his client faced in Russia’s largest-ever tax fraud scheme, and how he suffered in prison for it. Mr. Cardin sat wide-eyed, imagining the story worthy of a movie.
What no one knew in the hearing room that day was that Mr. Magnitsky would die within five months, a tragic victim of either repeated medical inaction in prison or torture. (Is there a difference?)
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Russia’s Victory in Congress
The Magnitsky Act, passed this week by the U.S. Congress, imposes visa and financial restrictions on Russian officials implicated in corruption and human rights violations, thus giving Russian citizens a tool for defending themselves against the authoritarian system. According to IMR Senior Policy Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza, this is the most pro-Russian law ever adopted in a Western country.
Politicians are often accused of indifference, cynicism, a lack of principles and an adherence to realpolitik. These accusations, alas, are often accurate. But sometimes this “system” can be breached.
On December 6th, the U.S. Senate adopted H.R. 6156, previously passed by the House of Representatives, on a vote of 92–4. The bill simultaneously repeals the cold war-era trade-restricting Jackson-Vanik Amendment and introduces targeted visa and financial sanctions on corrupt officials and human rights violators from Russia. This law is dedicated to the memory of Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow attorney who died in police custody in 2009 after being denied medical care and, according to members of the Presidential Human Rights Council, beaten by rubber truncheons. His “guilt” consisted of uncovering a $230 million tax fraud that involved law enforcement officials (it was the same officials who subsequently placed him under arrest.)
In accordance with the ruling group’s “one hand washing the other” principle, those implicated in the “Magnitsky affair” were not only spared punishment, but were actually rewarded; Interior Ministry officials linked to the attorney’s persecution and death received awards and career promotions. As for the prosecutors, they continue with the posthumous investigation of Magnitsky himself, in an attempt to “transfer” the accusations onto him.
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U.S. Senate stands up for human rights
How many times have I said in the past few years that the Senate has stood up for human rights? Not many, but it is deserving for two actions taken yesterday.
First, a bipartisan resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and 30 other senators called for the immediate and unconditional release of Alan Gross from imprisonment in Cuba. The resolution also calls on Cuba to provide needed medical treatment to Gross, who reportedly is quite ill and has lost more than 100 pounds in prison. Gross was the U.S. contractor thrown in the dungeons of Cuba after a Mickey Mouse trial for bringing satellite phones to the Jewish community there. This outrage followed the U.S. administration’s lightening of sanctions on Cuba, a move yet to be reversed.
The resolution is important not only because it prevents Gross from being forgotten and gives hope to him and all imprisoned human rights victims; it also may stop in the tracks any deal by which Gross would be released in exchange for release of five convicted Cuban spies. The Post editorial board put it this way: “There is no equivalence between Mr. Gross and the five prisoners, as Havana itself acknowledges. It agrees the Florida prisoners were its spies, but it has never charged Mr. Gross with espionage.” So bravo to the Senate for its demand for Gross’s unconditional release.
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U.S. Senate Lifts Russia, Moldova Trade Barriers; Passes Magnitsky Sanctions
The U.S. Senate has voted to permanently lift Cold War-era barriers to trade with Russia, a move long sought by Moscow that could increase commerce between the countries by billions of dollars.
In the same vote, senators also voted to sanction Russian officials implicated in the death of anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and in other perceived gross rights violations in Russia.
Moscow has railed against that move, which has overshadowed the trade benefits to come.
The Senate’s 92-4 vote follows the passing of the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in November. U.S. President Barack Obama is now expected to sign it into law.
When he does, Moscow will be exempted from the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which imposed trade restrictions on the Soviet Union for its policy of limiting Jewish emigration. The restrictions have been waived for nearly two decades, but remained on the books as a symbol of U.S. objections to Russia’s human rights record.
Citing the weak U.S. economy, the White House had pushed Congress to lift the restrictions and grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status to Russia, the world’s seventh largest economy.
The move allows the United States to take full advantage of Moscow’s August entry into the World Trade Organization, which China and Europe have already benefited from.
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Freedom House Applauds the U.S. Senate’s Passage of the Magnitsky Act
Freedom House strongly supports the U.S. Senate’s passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, passed today by a vote of 92-4, which places a visa ban on corrupt Russian officials and prevents them from accessing U.S. banking systems. The House version of the bill, which also had strong bipartisan support, was passed on November 16th as part of a trade normalization relations (PNTR) package with Russia and Moldova.
“This is a historic day for the cause of promoting human rights in Russia,” said David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House. “Huge credit goes to the House and Senate leaderships for getting this done, to Congressman Jim McGovern and Senator Ben Cardin for their invaluable shepherding of the legislation, to the other Senate and House sponsors of the bill on both sides of the aisle, and to all those have been seeking justice for Sergei Magnitsky and for other cases of gross human rights abuses like his. Next year, the Congress should apply this model to human rights abusers in other countries where there is impunity for such violations.”
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