Posts Tagged ‘leonidas donskis’
MEP Leonidas Donskis: The Magnitski list as a wake-up call
The Magnitski list becomes much more than merely a benign and disconnected political fantasy. After the United States Congress adopted this law, with its clear legal and political implications, Russia retaliated by prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian orphans – a mean, regrettable, and ugly move from Russia’s side with a total confusion of political and humanitarian agendas. Now it is a decisive time for the EU to take a stand.
That Sergei Magnitski posthumously became a litmus test of our political sensibilities and moral commitments is obvious. A brave and conscientious Russian lawyer, who exposed shocking corruption of a cleptocratic regime, and who refused to abandon his struggle by cooperating with high-ranking officers involved in this money-laundering enterprise, Magnitski reached out to the world paying the highest possible price – his own life.
The Magnitski list of the aforementioned officers, whose bank accounts and assets would be frozen, who would be denied the EU entry visa, and who, in effect, would face charges and legal prosecution for a crime, appears as a slap in the face to Putin and his regime. The official Russia is quite used to EU lecturing on the grounds of its deteriorating human rights record and severe human rights violations, as if to say that these are parallel realities – you can talk as much as you wish, yet when it comes to oil and gas, just calm down and make up your mind.
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MEP who joined Magnitsky group hopes EU draws Russian “black list”
MEP Leonidas Donskis has joined an interparliamentary group, members of which maintain they seek justice for lawyer Sergey Magnitsky who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after revealing a financial fraud scheme of Russian authorities.
Donskis, the first Lithuanian representative in the group, told BNS he expected the European Union (EU) to have enough courage to respond to the case to follow the example set by the United States’ to draw a “black list” of Russian officials.
“The Magnitsky case has bared a sensitive problem one cannot remain indifferent to. We’re talking about a lawyer who chose to stand up to corruption, unveiled horrific facts of corruption and sacrificed his life, which is already obvious,” Donskis told BNS on Wednesday.
He said his joining the group was a demonstration of the position of the European Parliament (EP) and Lithuania.
Set up in Canada in December, the group now includes 16 politicians from 12 countries: Canada, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in November of 2009. Russian authorities had charged him with tax evasion, however, his colleagues maintain that the case was developed in revenge for his testimony, which said that employees of law-enforcement institutions could be connected with the embezzlement scheme he had exposed.
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MEP Donskis: “Sooner or later Russia will start thinking about life without Putin”
On Tuesday, a hearing on Russia was held during the Subcommittee on Human Rights meeting. Several representatives of civil society and human rights defenders from Russia attended the Subcommittee meeting in order to share information about elections, and problems relating to violations of the freedom of association, discrimination and the rule of law.
The European Parliament has adopted more than one resolution concerning Russia which stressed the importance of Russia`s efforts to promote human rights protection, which is important for the development of the EU-Russia relations. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that after the Russian Duma elections and before the upcoming presidential elections the situation in Russia is not improving, as the long-standing problems are not addressed. Furthermore, worrying cases, like that of Sergei Magnitski`s, are not moving forward, and facts brought to light by human rights defenders still frequently remind about the methods used by Russia for the fight against “inconvenient” citizens.
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