Posts Tagged ‘european parliament’
MEPs to Mogherini: Stop ignoring us on Russia sanctions
A cross-party group of MEPs has urged the EU foreign service to stop ignoring the European Parliament on Magnitsky sanctions.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist, died in jail in 2009 in what EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy once called an “emblematic case” for lack of law and order in Russia.
The EU parliament has urged EU diplomats in four resolutions over the past four years to follow the US in blacklisting the Russian officials implicated in the killing.
This week, 23 MEPs from centre-right and liberal groups in the EU assembly urged foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini to “present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to sanction these 32 individuals”.
They said in a letter, seen by EUobserver: “As the new head of the European External Action Service, what nearest actions do you plan to undertake … to make sure there is no further impunity in the Magnitsky case?”.
MEPs have no formal powers on foreign affairs.
But Mogherini’s spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, told EUobserver the letter is “a new opportunity to consider the case”.
She noted that top EU officials, such as Van Rompuy and Mogherini’s predecessor, Catherine Ashton, on several occasions urged Russia to take action on the issue.
“So far we have not seen a satisfactory response”.
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MEPs to Mogherini: Stop ignoring us on Russia sanctions
A cross-party group of MEPs has urged the EU foreign service to stop ignoring the European Parliament on Magnitsky sanctions.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist, died in jail in 2009 in what EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy once called an “emblematic case” for lack of law and order in Russia.
The EU parliament has urged EU diplomats in four resolutions over the past four years to follow the US in blacklisting the Russian officials implicated in the killing.
This week, 23 MEPs from centre-right and liberal groups in the EU assembly urged foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini to “present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to sanction these 32 individuals”.
They said in a letter, seen by EUobserver: “As the new head of the European External Action Service, what nearest actions do you plan to undertake … to make sure there is no further impunity in the Magnitsky case?”.
MEPs have no formal powers on foreign affairs.
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Put 32 Russian officials on an EU „Magnitsky list”, urge Foreign Affairs MEPs
The EU should ban visas and freeze the EU assets of 32 Russian officials involved in the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, said the Foreign Affairs Committee in a resolution voted on Tuesday. Mr Magnitsky died in pre-trial detention in 2009, after allegedly having been tortured and deprived of medical care. The resolution names the officials.
The EU Council should draw up a common list of officials believed to be responsible for the torture and death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, for its judicial cover-up and for continuing harassment of his mother and widow.
These officials should be banned from travelling in all EU countries and their financial assets held in the EU should be seized, say MEPs in a resolution drafted by Kristiina OJULAND (ALDE, EE) and adopted by 53 votes in favour, 1 against and 2 abstentions.
MEPs refer to independent investigations which found Mr Magnitsky was subjected to „inhumane conditions, deliberate neglect and torture” and point to the need for a joint and firm EU policy towards Russia. They also call on Russia to close the posthumous trial against Mr Magnitsky.
MEPs criticise the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton for failing to place the issue on the Foreign Affairs Council agenda, despite the European Parliament’s October 2012 request that she should do so.
The list
MEPs ask that the following Russian officials, amongst others, be placed on the list:
ALISOV, Igor
DROGANOV, Aleksey
EGOROVA, Olga
GAUS, Alexandra
GERASIMOVA, Anastasia
GRIN, Victor
KARPOV, Pavel
KHIMINA, Yelena
KLYUEV, Dmitry
KOMNOV, Dmitriy
KRIVORUCHKO, Aleksey
KUZNETSOV, Artem
LOGUNOV, Oleg,
MAYOROVA, Yulya
PAVLOV, Andrey
PECHEGIN, Andrey
PODOPRIGOROV, Sergei
PONOMAREV, Konstantin
PROKOPENKO, Ivan Pavlovitch
REZNICHENKO, Mikhail
SAPUNOVA, Marina
SHUPOLOVSKY, Mikhail
SILCHENKO, Oleg
STASHINA, Yelena
STEPANOVA, Olga
STROITELEV, Denis
TAGIEV, Fikhret
TOLCHINSKIY, Dmitry
UKHNALYOVA, Svetlana
URZHUMTSEV, Oleg
VINOGRADOVA, Natalya
VORONIN, Victor
Sixteen of the officials on this list have already been prohibited from entering the United States or using its banking system, by the US “Magnitsky bill”. MEPs suggest 16 additional names of officials which are involved in Mr Magnitsky’s posthumous trial.
At the same time, they stress that the list should be revised regularly and urge Russia to undertake a credible investigation into Mr Magnitsky’s death and bring those responsible to justice.
Next steps
The “Magnitsky list” recommendation has yet to be backed by the full House on April plenary (tbc).
The decision for establishing such a list should be taken by the EU Council.
In chair: Elmar Brok
Procedure: Non-legislative resolution
REF. : 20140317IPR39115
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European Parliament Committee Backs Magnitsky Sanctions
The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has proposed that 32 Russian officials be sanctioned by the EU due to their involvement in the death of Russian whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The European Parliament had previously called on EU member states to emulate the United States’ so-called Magnitsky List and freeze assets and impose visa bans on Russian officials, but certain European countries have blocked any such move.
However, after the March 17 decision by EU foreign ministers to sanction 13 Russian officials and an additional eight Crimeans for their roles in the crisis in Ukraine, there are hopes that EU member states might change their minds.
It is also the first time the European Parliament has presented the names of those they want punished.
The whole European Parliament is expected to overwhelmingly endorse the proposal during its April plenary. hairy woman онлайн займ https://zp-pdl.com www.zp-pdl.com займы онлайн на карту срочно
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A European Magnitsky List
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament voted on Tuesday to sanction 32 Russian officials involved in the persecution of Sergei Magnitsky, the Moscow lawyer who died in custody in 2009 after exposing official graft. The legislation follows America’s 2012 Magnitsky Act that currently targets 18 officials. When the European Parliament convenes in April, passage would send a signal that Russia’s neighbors will no longer ignore the nature of the Putin regime.
The bill would require all EU states to impose a “visa ban on these officials and to freeze any financial assets that they, or their immediate family, may hold within the European Union.” Among them are a number of Interior Ministry officers, including Oleg Logunov, who as head of the legal department of the ministry’s investigative committee was instrumental in Magnitsky’s unlawful detention. Also included is Igor Alisov, the judge who presided over Magnitsky’s Kafkaesque posthumous “tax-evasion” trial, and who read a “guilty” verdict to an empty defendant’s cage in 2013.
Europe may be tardy in targeting Magnitsky’s killers, but the Obama Administration’s record is worse. It first tried to kill the Magnitsky Act and then tried to water it down. An overwhelming majority in Congress from both parties forced the law on President Obama. Vladimir Putin retaliated by putting U.S. officials on a sanctions list of his own, and he even stopped Americans from adopting Russian orphans.
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European Parliament Calls for EU ‘Magnitsky List’
The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the EU Council of Ministers to impose sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the death of a Hermitage Fund lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.
The resolution, passed Wednesday, would create a blacklist along the lines of the one adopted by the U.S. in April, which contains the names of 18 people suspected of involvement in Magnitsky’s death and other human rights abuses.
They are banned from traveling to the U.S. and having assets there. The measures caused tension between the U.S. and Russia, with Russia drawing up its own blacklist in response.
“The European Parliament … calls on the Council, therefore, to adopt a decision establishing a common EU list of officials involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky; adds that this Council decision should impose targeted sanctions on those officials,” the resolution said.
This is the fourth such European Parliament resolution since 2009. The EU Council didn’t implement any of the previous resolutions, however.
Magnitsky was imprisoned on tax evasion charges in 2008 soon after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million in state funds. He died in jail a year later.
Although members of the Kremlin human rights council said his death was caused by severe beatings, investigators dropped their inquiry due to a lack of evidence. hairy woman займы на карту без отказа zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php unshaven girl
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EU Lawmakers Expand Effort to Sanction Russian Rights Abusers
As the US administration readies its first annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Magnitsky Act, the law imposing visa and financial sanctions on Russian human rights abusers, European legislators are preparing a strategy to move forward with their own sanctions package. Last week, the European Parliament hosted the first meeting of the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Inter-Parliamentary Group, which brings together lawmakers from 13 countries (11 of them from the European Union) and an advisory board that includes representatives from Russia (among them, the author of this blog). The aim of the new coalition is to coordinate between the national parliaments and the European Parliament on the best way to move forward with barring Russian officials implicated in corruption and human rights violations from visiting and stowing their assets in EU member states and Canada.
The Magnitsky Act, passed by the US Congress last year with vast bipartisan majorities (365 to 43 in the House; 92 to 4 in the Senate), was, despite Kremlin assertions to the country, the most pro-Russian law ever adopted in a foreign country. With corruption and political repression being the founding pillars of Russia’s current regime, and with no independent judiciary to protect Russian citizens from abuse, external individual sanctions on those who commit these offenses are the only way to end the impunity. According to a Levada Center poll, 44 percent of Russians support US and EU visa bans on officials who engage in human rights violations, with only 21 percent opposing, and this despite constant attempts by the Putin regime to present individual sanctions against crooks and abusers as “sanctions against Russia”—an insulting equivalence for the country. Leading Russian opposition figures and human rights activists are publicly supporting the Magnitsky sanctions; many of their testimonies have been included in a new book edited by Elena Servettaz, Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law, which was presented in European capitals and Washington DC.
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Browder Testimony to ALDE Group in European Parliament
ALDE
Bill Browder spoke to an ALDE Group conference on the subject of Russian Political Prisoners.
http://www.alde.eu/live-event-video-stream/
The ALDE Group organised a seminar on political prisoners in Russia. A debate on the issue seems even more important since the mass arrests following the demonstrations in Moscow last year. Other speakers included Mikhail Kasyanov and Ludmilla Alexeeva.
The event coincided with Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s 50th birthday
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Russian officials: Banned by the US, on holiday in the EU
Russian officials banned from entering the US on accusations of corruption and conspiracy to murder are frequent visitors in EU countries, leaked information shows.
Pavel Karpov, a senior investigator in the Russian interior ministry, Artem Kuznetsov from the ministry’s economic crimes unit, and Olga Stepanova, a director in the Moscow tax authority, feature on a list of 18 persona non grata published by the US state department on 12 April.
All 18 were banned for their roles in an affair involving embezzlement of Russian tax money and the death of the man who exposed them – Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
But Karpov, Kuznetsov and Stepanova stand out as leading protagonists.
Karpov and Kuznetsov organised the seizure of corporate seals and documents from Magnitsky’s former employer, British investment firm Hermitage Capital, used to expedite the fraud.
Kuznetsov also organised Magnitsky’s arrest and pre-trial detention, in which he died.
Meanwhile, Stepanova authorised a tax refund of $153 million, which flowed into the private bank of Dmitry Kluyev, a convicted criminal, who went on to launder the money in six EU jurisdictions and in Switzerland.
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