Posts Tagged ‘ireland’
Oireachtas committee backs down from sanctioning Russian officials
An Oireachtas committee has backed down from sanctioning Russian officials involved in the death of a lawyer there. A motion to list officials involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, freeze their assets and issue visa bans for them has been replaced by a motion which calls on the Government to convey the committee’s concern over the death.
This motion was unanimously passed by the Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs.
The Russian ambassador to Ireland wrote to the committee in March warning that any move to introduce a Magnitsky law could “have negative influence” on an adoption agreement between the two countries.
Pat Breen, Fine Gael TD and chairman of the committee, said after the meeting he “wouldn’t regard as blackmail” the failure by the committee to support sanctions. “We have reached a motion that fulfils our obligations on human rights,” he said.
Fianna Fáil Senator Jim Walsh who proposed the original motion said after the committee meeting he was “disappointed we didn’t have some sanctions”.
“But politics is about achieving compromise,” he added. The approved motion was proposed after Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan proposed an amendment to Mr Walsh’s motion removing the sanctions.
Several members of the committee had been contacted by people trying to adopt Russian children who were fearful the applications could be jeopardised. The Russian government should be “thoroughly ashamed” for “ this use of children”, Independent Senator David Norris told the committee. He had been contacted by one couple who had already adopted a Russian child and wanted to adopt a second child from Russia but were were concerned after reading about the ambassador’s letter. The motion approved by the committee was about “realpolitik”, he said afterwards. “You have to be realistic if you want to get things done,” he added.
The approved motion notes the Russian Human Rights Council’s findings that Mr Magnitsky “died as a result of beatings by prison guards” and the dropping of charges of negligence against two doctors. It calls on the Government to use the EU presidency to highlight its concern over the death.
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Irish Parliament Backs Down on Magnitsky List
An Irish parliamentary committee avoided pushing for a blacklist on Russian officials implicated in rights abuse following a warning that it could jeopardize a bilateral adoption agreement.
The foreign affairs and trade committee passed a resolution urging Irish leadership to express concern over the prison death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, the Irish Times said Thursday.
But it dropped its earlier plans to call for an EU-wide blacklist on officials implicated in the case, similar to the one passed in the United States last year.
Russian Embassy in Dublin said in March the blacklist could “have a negative influence” on the pending adoption agreement, though it later denied making a direct link between the two issues.
Committee head Pat Breen dismissed allegations that the Russian stance amounted to blackmail, while Senator Jim Walsh, who proposed the blacklist, called the resolution a “compromise,” the Irish Times said.
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We might be a small country, but we can’t allow Russia to bully us over adoptions
THE Government should strongly resist Russian threats to scupper an adoption agreement between Ireland and Russia if we support sanctions against Russian officials connected with the death of a Moscow-based lawyer. The same goes for Russian warnings that trade links between Ireland and this increasingly mafia state could also be jeopardised.
The Russian authorities are trying to stop Ireland from using its current presidency of the Council of the European Union to push for the implementation of EU-wide sanctions against Russian officials suspected of being involved in the death of the whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. The exploitation of orphaned Russian children as blackmailing bait shows how immoral the Putin regime is.
A capitulation to this kind of blackmail would amount to surrendering to a regime that pays little heed to democratic norms. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has receded into a Stalinist-like dictatorship where human rights, freedom of expression, media plurality and political diversity have been severely eroded.
The background to this furore centres on a plucky Russian lawyer called Sergei Magnitsky. He ended up behind bars in 2008 after he uncovered what he claimed was systematic and large-scale corruption and fraud carried out by Russian officials and police officers. When Mr Magnitsky reported the theft he was arrested himself and accused of tax evasion.
Sergei Magnitsky died in a pretrial detention centre in Moscow in November 2009. The 37-year-old father of two had been held, without trial, for 358 days. According to his family and friends he died from injuries and medical problems sustained after repeated abuse and torture while in detention.
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Ireland Bows to Russia’s Intimidation
If any doubt ever existed that Russia’s newly imposed adoption ban was undertaken not out of genuine concern for the fate of orphans now in the custody of American parents but rather to punish any government that takes a strong line on Russian human rights violators, then recent events in Ireland have just eliminated any such reservations.
On February 27th, Bill Browder, the London-based CEO of Hermitage Capital and the man behind the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which calls for the sanctioning and banning of Russian officials credibly accused of gross human rights abuses, testified before the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Irish Parliament (the Oireachtas). As he’s done in Washington and numerous European capitals before, Browder outlined the facts of how his former attorney, Sergei Magnitsky, uncovered a $230 million tax fraud perpetrated by a Russian organized crime syndicate consisting of Interior Ministry, intelligence, and federal tax officials, who used Hermitage Capital’s corporate documents as cover. Magnitsky himself was then arrested for the crime and tortured to death in pretrial detention; his corpse was found in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison hospital, with his arm handcuffed to a radiator, lying a pool of urine. He is now being tried posthumously in Russia, a legal grotesquerie that not even Stalin had the gall to attempt during the Great Terror. And, unless you’ve not bothered to open a newspaper these past several months, the Magnitsky affair has become the most widely reported human rights scandal in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as well as the driving force behind the eponymous US law, which Putin yesterday described as “imperial” in design at a four-hour marathon press conference.
Following Browder’s testimony, Irish Senator Jim Walsh, a member of the leading center-right party Fianna Fail, drafted a resolution, modeled on what Britain, Holland, Italy, the Council of Europe, and European Parliament have already done, calling on the Irish government to “publicly list the names, deny visas into Ireland, and freeze any assets found in Ireland” of those Russian officials who “were responsible for the false arrest, torture and death” of Magnitsky, “perpetrated or financially benefited from the crimes” that he “uncovered and exposed, and/or participated in the cover up of those responsible for those crimes.” It further called for the passage of an Irish counterpart legislation to the one the US Congress passed last November, and for EU-wide visa sanctions on those officials named as conspirators or accomplices in the affair. The resolution was co-signed by eight members of the Foreign Affairs committee.
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Russian ‘blackmailing’ of Ireland ‘unacceptable’, says EU group leader
Russian “blackmailing”of Ireland over plans for a law sanctioning officials involved in the death of a lawyer there is “unacceptable” and should be raised at the EU-Russia summit, the head of a European Parliament political group has said.
The pressure being exerted by Russia to drop support for the law or face a ban on adoptions of Russian children “must be met by a solid and united EU stand”, said Guy Verhofstadt, head of the parliament’s liberal group and former Belgian prime minister. He called on the EU’s Council of Ministers, European Commission and high representative on foreign affairs to “clearly state their solidarity” with the Irish presidency in office. “Russian foreign policy once again is showing its ugly face,” he said.
The Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs will on Wednesday consider a motion by Fianna Fáil Senator Jim Walsh calling for Russian officials involved in the death of Sergei Magnitsky to be listed publicly, their assets frozen and visa bans issued for them. The committee postponed a vote on the issue last Wednesday because of an amendment by Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan, which dropped these sanctions. Committee chairman and Fine Gael TD Pat Breen delayed the vote by a week in the hope that consensus could be reached.
The Russian ambassador to Ireland, Maxim Reshkov, wrote to the committee in March warning that moves towards enacting such a law could “have negative influence on the negotiations on the adoption agreement between Russia and Ireland being proceeded”.
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Russia gives Ireland adoption warning over Magnitsky law
Russia has warned Ireland it could break off talks on cross-border adoptions if lawmakers press for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, according to a letter obtained by AFP on Friday.
The threat follows Moscow’s decision to ban US adoptions of Russian orphans in retaliation for a recent US law freezing the assets and denying entry to America of those tied to Magnitsky’s death in custody in 2009.
The warning was included in a letter from Russian ambassador Maxim Peshkov to Pat Breen, the chairman of the Irish parliament’s committee on foreign affairs, which last month began debating plans for an Irish version of the US Magnitsky law.
Dated March 11, the letter cites the US ban on adoptions and says the committee’s proposals “can have negative influence on the negotiations on the adoption agreement between Russia and Ireland being proceeded”.
Bill Browder, the US-born investor who was Magnitsky’s employer when he died and who is campaigning for an EU version of the US law, condemned the ambassador’s remarks.
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Putin rejects foreign adoptions by same-sex couples
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow should amend its adoption agreements with countries which have legalised gay marriage.
Asked about the legalisation of same-sex marriage and adoption in France, he said other countries should respect Russia’s “moral standards”.
French President Francois Hollande is expected to sign the bill into law after it was passed by parliament.
Moscow has also linked adoptions to a US black list of its officials.
It has emerged that Russia warned the Irish Republic last month that it could stop the adoption of Russian children by Irish parents if the parliament in Dublin endorsed the Magnitsky Act.
The act places sanctions on 18 Russians allegedly involved in the death of anti-corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009.
Russia banned Americans from adopting Russian children soon after the US Congress passed the legislation in December.
MPs in several EU countries, including the Irish Republic, are considering following the American example.
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EU must take a firm stand against Russian blackmail
Reacting to news that the Russian Ambassador to Ireland has written to Irish Members of Parliament threatening to block a treaty on Irish adoptions of Russian children unless Irish parliamentarians drop a Russian-critical human rights resolution, Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE leader reacted in strong terms:
Reacting to news that the Russian Ambassador to Ireland has written to Irish Members of Parliament threatening to block a treaty on Irish adoptions of Russian children unless Irish parliamentarians drop a Russian-critical human rights resolution, Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE leader reacted in strong terms:
“Russian foreign policy once again is showing its ugly face. Blackmailing used by the Russian authorities against Ireland is unacceptable and must be met by a solid and united EU stand. The letter that the Irish Parliament received from the Russian Embassy, threatens that the passing of the Magnitsky legislation in the Dail will lead to a ban on Irish adoption of Russian children. We cannot succumb to pressure.
The European Council should not shy away from its responsibility in agreeing to an EU wide Magnitsky visa ban list. It is now also essential to have the case of Sergey Magnitsky placed on the agenda of the forthcoming EU-Russia Summit. I call on the Council and Commission Presidents and High Representative to clearly state their solidarity with the Irish Presidency in Office.”
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Russia Using Adoption Leverage in Ireland
The Russian government has warned in a letter to Ireland’s Parliament that it may halt negotiations on an agreement for cross-border adoptions if an Irish parliamentary committee approves a resolution critical of rights abuses in Russia.
The letter signals Russia is ready to wield adoption policies as leverage to discourage Western criticism of human rights abuses in Russia with countries other than the United States, where an adoption ban took effect late last year.
The United States Congress passed the Magnitsky Law that banned travel to the United States and ordered the seizure of assets of Russian officials suspected of ties to the death in prison of the lawyer Sergei L. Magnitsky, and other officials suspected of corruption and rights abuses.
In response, Russia’s Parliament passed the Dima Yakovlev Law that bans American couples from adoption of Russian orphans. It is named for a Russian toddler who died after he had been left in a hot car by his adoptive American father.
The letter to Ireland’s lawmakers suggested Russia would proceed with this tactic despite criticism that it harms the interests of the country’s orphans, while also dashing the hopes of prospective adoptive parents abroad, who form an emotional and motivated constituency to influence elected officials. But the Kremlin, much diminished in its foreign policy reach since the end of the cold war, has few other levers of influence left.
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