Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian activists urge US senator to back bill to help jailed tycoons

Ekho Moskvy

Text of report by Gazprom-owned, editorially independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on 20 January

[Presenter] A group of Russian human rights activists, writers, actors, politicians and journalists have appealed for help to US Senator John Kerry, asking him to support a bill which they think can help free Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and Platon Lebedev, who used to run Yukos.

The bill, named after Sergey Magnitskiy [a Hermitage Capital lawyer who died in pre-trial detention] is now under consideration in the [US] Senate. The bill not only provides for sanctions in the Magnitskiy case but also encompasses the whole spectrum of human rights violations. According to rights campaigners, the list of people involved in breaching human rights should also include civil servants responsible for the politically motivated persecution of Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev.