Posts Tagged ‘congress’
No way in
Kommersant has a letter written by Russian opposition members, human rights activists and cultural figures in the US Senate which contains a request to impose the same restrictions on officials involved in the Yukos case as those which are being imposed on authorities associated with the Sergey Magnitsky case. The list compiled by the opposition includes 305 people: Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, head of the Investigation Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin, Moscow City Court Chairwoman Olga Yegorova, investigators, state prosecutors and judges associated with all parties in the Yukos case. The authors of the letter are hoping that the people whose names have been blacklisted will be banned entry to the United States and their foreign bank accounts, if they exist, will be frozen.
In particular, the letter addressed to the US Senate was signed by co-chairmen of the People’s Freedom Party Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, human rights activists Lyudmila Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev, film director Eldar Ryazanov, People’s Artists of Russia Lia Akhedzhakova and Natalia Fateeva.
“With this letter we are showing support for the pending Sergey Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011,” reads the letter. “However, Magnitsky’s case is not the only of its kind in our country.”
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
For U.S. And Russia, Distrust Still Runs High
NPR
President Obama’s policy of engagement with Russia has paid off in several concrete achievements, including a nuclear arms control agreement and greater cooperation on Iran and Afghanistan.
But both supporters and critics of the so-called reset policy worry that further victories will be harder to win. Both nations are distracted by presidential politics, preventing policymakers from talking seriously about matters such as missile defense.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Congress Needs Human Rights Assurances To Support Russia MFN Vote
There is a growing sense in Washington that members of Congress will need assurances on human rights if they are to agree to grant Russia permanent most-favored nation (MFN) status, which is necessary if U.S. companies are to fully benefit from Russia acceding to the World Trade Organization.
In a July 7 statement, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) argued that extending permanent MFN and ushering Russia into the WTO is “simply not an option” until Russia is pressed to improve its human rights record. A congressional aide said this sentiment is shared by other members of Congress.
According to an informed source, the White House opposes directly linking improvements in Russia’s human rights situation to Russia’s WTO accession, but since January has nonetheless been advancing the idea that Congress should consider separate human rights legislation this year.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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?
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
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.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
