Posts Tagged ‘Fox news’
McCain tells Russia Putin ‘doesn’t believe in you’
US Senator John McCain penned a blistering column for a Russian news website on Thursday, telling the Russian people that their President Vladimir Putin is a dissent-quashing tyrant who “doesn’t believe in you.”
The senior US lawmaker and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee accosted Putin and his associates for rigging elections, imprisoning and murdering opponents, fostering corruption and “destroying” Russia’s reputation on the world stage.
“I am not anti-Russian,” McCain wrote in the piece for Pravda.ru website. “I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.”
McCain last week said he intended to write an op-ed piece for Russian media after Putin had his own column published in The New York Times.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Russian News Service radio that the president would read the piece, but is unlikely to respond.
“McCain is not known as a fan of Putin. To engage in polemics — I doubt it, his is the point of view of a person who lives across the ocean,” Peskov said.
The website Pravda.Ru is not known as a serious news source and has nothing to do with the newspaper Pravda published by the Communist party, which was the country’s most important paper in the Soviet era but which has now fallen into obscurity.
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Judge sets trial date in case against Russian whistleblower who died in prison
The trial of whistleblowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is to begin next month, even though he died in prison three years ago.
A Russian court on Monday ruled the trial is to begin March 4. Prosecutors accuse Magnitsky and his former client, investor William Browder, of evading $16.8 million in taxes.
The trial will be held under procedures allowing posthumous trials to clear the deceased. Magnitsky’s relatives are boycotting proceedings.
Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 by officials he claimed colluded with organized crime to claim a $230 million tax rebate through illegally obtained subsidiaries of Browder’s company. He died in 2009 after being repeatedly beaten and denied medical treatment.
Congress passed a law sanctioning officials Browder accuses of involvement in the fraud. Russia in response banned adoptions by Americans.
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Investor seeks justice at Davos for attorney killed in Russian prison
Each year, the Russian presence at the World Economic Forum seems to grow, with government and business delegations courting investment, as well as the press.
And each year, Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital, comes to Davos to, among other things, seek justice for his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who he claims was killed in a Russian prison while investigating tax fraud.
Browder, who with the late Edmund Safra founded founded the investment firm which specializes in Russian markets, does not mince words.
“The Russian government plays this silly game,” Browder said. “They wash up, dress up, come to Davos and pretend they are normal, Western business people looking to attract investment, and in my opinion, they shouldn’t be allowed to behave like criminals at home and then dine at our tables with white tablecloths when they come to Davos.”
Browder claims Magnitsky, who was 37, when he died in 2007, was tortured, and ultimately denied medical care in jail. Browder, who had been the biggest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, claims $230 million he paid in taxes to the Russian government was stolen by people with ties to the government. Magnitsky had been looking for the money.
The Russians are defiant about the case, and have not convicted anyone.
But Browder has succeeded in lobbying Washington to pass legislation that places asset freezes and visa bans on the 60-some people he says were in some way involved or complicit in Magnitsky’s death. The law, which carries various sanctions for human rights abusers, is believed to have prompted Russia to ban adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans in retaliation, according to reports.
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UN panel strongly criticizes Russia for failing to investigate widespread torture allegations
The U.N. Committee Against Torture strongly criticized Russia in a report for failing to investigate widespread allegations of torture and stepping up intimidation and reprisals against human rights advocates and journalists.
The panel of 10 independent experts expressed concern at the discrepancy between the high number of complaints of torture and ill treatment that it received from detainees and the relatively low number of criminal cases opened by authorities in response leading to prosecution.
The report on Russia’s compliance with a 1987 treaty against torture and other degrading punishments also expressed serious concern about numerous allegations that detainees have been tortured to extract confessions which were then used as evidence in court, and at Moscow’s failure to ensure all detainees the right to a lawyer.
The committee called on Russia to take “immediate and effective measures to prevent all acts of torture and ill-treatment throughout the country and to eliminate impunity of those allegedly responsible.”
It pointed to the increasing intimidation, harassment and attacks against people and organizations monitoring and reporting on human rights.
The committee urged the repeal of a new law backed by President Vladimir Putin that expands the definition of treason so broadly that critics say it could be used to call anyone who opposes the government a traitor. It called for another new Putin-backed law requiring human rights organizations that receive foreign funding to register as “foreign agents” to be amended, saying the term “seems negative and threatening to human rights defenders.”
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Supporting human rights in Russia should be a core strategic interest for US
On Tuesday, July 10, the Russian Duma will vote on ratification of the agreement for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Policymakers in both countries view Russia’s entry as a foregone conclusion. The question before Congress therefore is how best to pressure Russia to respect human rights following its repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
Passed in 1974, Jackson-Vanik tied favorable trade to the freedom to emigrate from the Soviet Union. It provided a foundation for Cold War human rights advocacy. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 26, was meant to fill the void left by lifting Jackson-Vanik.
Named after a Russian anti-corruption lawyer tortured and killed in prison in 2009 after he uncovered a $230 million embezzlement scheme, it would sanction Russia’s worst human rights violators by denying them U.S. visas and freezing their assets in U.S. banks.
However, at the last minute, in order to assuage the Kremlin, the Committee chose not to single out Russia and passed a watered-down version of the bill, applying it to human rights abusers worldwide. Lost is the original purpose of the Act—to show ordinary Russians that the United States wants to see a better Russia—one that does not abuse its citizens and one that can be a strong partner to the United States, an ally with whom we share values.
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Russia Criticized for Corruption at Davos Forum
Russia is hugely represented here at the World Economic Forum.
Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital takes issue with that. “There are so many examples of high level government crime in Russia that it’s almost ridiculous that Russia is allowed to come here as a country displaying its wares. It’s like inviting the Cali drug cartel to Davos.”
Browder was one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia and a vocal anti-corruption campaigner. He was expelled from Moscow in 2005. His offices were raided in 2007. Subsequently his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky was arrested.
Browder says, “he was tortured for 358 days and ultimately killed in prison.”
Magnitsky uncovered $230 million in tax money Browder’s company had paid to the state, but which was ultimately stolen, according to Browder, by tax police who squirreled it away in bank accounts in places like Switzerland.
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It is Insane to Invest in Russia
Bill Browder, Hermitage Capital Management CEO, on with investing in Russia, his experiences with high level government corruption and the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in a Russian jail.
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