Posts Tagged ‘khodorkovsky’
Russian lawyer denied prison medical leave dies
A former Yukos oil executive whose struggle to win medical treatment for Aids and cancer came to symbolise the harshness of the Russian prison system, has died.
Vasily Aleksanyan, a Harvard-educated lawyer who headed Yukos’s legal department and was briefly vice-president of the firm, was imprisoned in April 2006 as part of the sweep against the oil company.
He was diagnosed with HIV shortly after his arrest, and later with tuberculosis and cancer of the liver, as well as severely limited vision.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Aleksanyan’s Death ‘Practically Murder’
Human rights activists said former Yukos vice president Vasily Aleksanyan, who died this week of AIDS-related illnesses, would have lived longer if the authorities had not kept him in prison for nearly three years on politically tainted charges.
Aleksanyan, who fought a protracted legal battle with the authorities before finally being freed on bail in 2009 to seek medical treatment, died at home Monday at the age of 39.
“It was practically a murder,” rights champion Valery Borshchyov told Business FM radio on Tuesday. “He could have lived longer if he had not been kept in detention.”
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
U.S. Senate Asked to Blacklist Yukos Foes
A group of humans rights activists, politicians and artists on Monday urged the U.S. Senate to blacklist 305 Russian officials linked to the jailing of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The list includes Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin, but not Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his deputy Igor Sechin, whom Khodorkovsky has repeatedly named as his main enemies.
Rights champion Lev Ponomaryov, a co-signee, told The Moscow Times that Putin and Sechin were not included to make the proposal easier for U.S. senators to approve.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Europe court: Russia violated rights of Yukos
Russia violated the rights of the now-defunct oil behemoth Yukos, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday. But the court rejected a contention that the prosecution of Yukos was politically motivated and deferred any ruling on nearly $100 billion in damages.
Russian authorities were unfair in meting out punishment to the company over tax violations and didn’t give Yukos enough time to prepare its defense, according to the ruling from the court in Strasbourg, France.
The ruling is open for a months-long appeal process available to both sides.
Yukos sought $98 billion in damages, the largest claim in the court’s 50-year history and one of Russia’s biggest legal challenges to date.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Human rights court condemns Russia over collapse of Yukos
Fresh concerns about the perils of doing business in Russia erupted today when the European Court of Human Rights condemned the Kremlin for its role in bringing about the collapse of oil giant Yukos.
Judges ruled that Russia’s government violated the rights of the oil major – once the biggest in Russia – which was forced into bankruptcy over a multi-billion-dollar tax claim after its boss, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested in 2003.
Supporters of Khodorkovsky, who was jailed for nine years after being found guilty of six charges including tax evasion and remains in prison, claim he was the victim of a campaign by then-President Vladimir Putin to destroy a tycoon seen as a threat to his rule.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
U.S. Asked to Blacklist 305 Yukos Attackers by Russian Activists
Russian human-rights activists and opposition politicians have called on the U.S. Senate to blacklist 305 officials in Russia involved in the prosecution of Yukos Oil Co. and its owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
In a letter sent to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, the activists asked them to include the officials in legislation targeting human rights abusers in Russia, according to a copy of the petition posted on Khodorkovsky’s website.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration in July implemented a visa ban on a number of Russian officials after a similar request to punish human rights abusers. Russia warned it would retaliate, threatening to undermine the “reset” in relations between the two countries.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
London Rally: The True Faces of Russia
Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center
Where: London, UK; the South Bank near London Eye.
When: Monday, September 12th, 2011; 10 am
On September 12th, the day the Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, vists Russia, a political movement “Speak Up!” will hold a peaceful campaign, dedicated to his visit. Below is a press release from the organization announcing the protest:
If we could choose between free and fair rights of Russia’s citizens and improved international relations and Russia’s economy, we would undoubtedly go for freedom. And we are kindly asking the UK Prime Minister to consider this when making decisions about short term vs. strategic, long term mutual economic benefits between Russia and the UK.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Musicians Sound Out for Russian Prisoners
Members of the Kremerata Baltica string orchestra emerged on stage first, all dressed in black. Their leader, the violinist Gidon Kremer, took his place in front, wearing a white shirt and a long black vest, with his bespectacled profile to the audience, his knees slightly bent, looking like a forlorn fiddler.
They played something impossibly plaintive, a piece of music in which the sadness built interminably, it seemed. The orchestra took halting breaks followed by a note of even greater sadness. There would be no relief: The musicians seemed simply to stop at one point and take a bow.
“V & V,” for voice and violin, by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, where the taped voice belonged to a long-dead singer, was the opening piece in an unusual concert on Tuesday night that was organized in the geographical center of Europe, a few blocks from the European Court of Human Rights, to draw attention to the continuing struggle of two former oil magnates, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky and Platon A. Lebedev, and, organizers said, other Russian political prisoners.
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
