Posts Tagged ‘mcgovern’
House takes lead on Russian human-rights bill
The House Foreign Affairs Committee this week will become the first panel to vote on human-rights legislation that lawmakers of both parties say is a precondition to normalizing trade relations with Russia.
The panel is scheduled to mark up the so-called Magnitsky bill, sponsored by U.S. Congressional Human Rights Commission co-chairman Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.), on Thursday. The bill has the support of committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and is expected to easily pass the House despite Russian threats of retaliation.
“If this new anti-Russian law is adopted, then of course that demands measures in response,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Yuri Ushakov said last week.
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Dem lawmaker not afraid of Russian threats over human rights legislation
Threats of retaliation won’t deter Congress from moving forward with legislation slapping travel and financial restrictions on Russian officials accused of human rights violations, the bill’s Senate sponsor tells The Hill.
“We’ve heard this before,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said of comments this week by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, who warned of “repercussions” if the legislation becomes law.
“This is an issue that’s important for Russia. Our legislation just tells Russia to do what is right in their own country,” Cardin said. “We’re not asking them to do anything other than adhere to basic international human rights standards.”
Putin spokesman Yuri Ushakov said Russia would “very much like to avoid” the legislation during a press briefing previewing Putin’s meeting with President Obama during the G20 summit in Mexico next month, according to The Washington Post. “But if this new anti-Russian law is adopted, then of course that demands measures in response,” Ushakov said, according to the Post.
A Senate aide dismissed the heightened Russian rhetoric as a sign that the bill — named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was arrested on fraud charges and died in custody three years ago after accusing tax officials of a $230 million fraud — has a good shot of passing.
“The substance of the threats aren’t really new,” said the aide. “They might be getting louder as the Magnitsky bill gets closer to becoming law, but the threats are all the same. The reality is that coming to the United States is a privilege and if someone has engaged in activities that are against the rule of law and human rights, the United States will take what actions it has available to it even if others choose not to act.”
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Replacement of Jackson-Vanik Amendment unacceptable – aide
ITAR-TASS
Russia considers unacceptable the replacement of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to a new decision by the U.S. authorities, presidential aide, Russia’s G-8 Sherpa Arkady Dvorkovich said.
Commenting on the upcoming talks between Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama, Dvorkovich told journalists on Thursday: “I don’t doubt that during the meeting, the names of Jackson and Vanik will come back although there is nothing to discuss because this is the internal problem of the American Administration.”
According to the presidential aide, if it necessary Russia is ready to talk about this. But “we don’t intend to the cancellation of this amendment by any means. Moreover, primarily American companies will be hurt by such actions”, Dvorkovich said.
He stressed that the attempts to replace the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to a new law, “which will solve problems and which seem to see by certain American senators, are unacceptable”.
In addition, Dvorkovich said, “We will be forced to react. But why our countries need this?”
The U.S. House of Representatives will discuss a bill that would impose financial and visa restrictions on Russian officials linked with the criminal persecution of the Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. It is expected that the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs will discuss it next week. The bill is an updated version of a previous legislation, introduced by McGovern and another Tom Lantos commission co-chairman, Frank Wolf. A similar bill has been introduced to the U.S. Senate by Senator Ben Cardin last May. The proposed U.S. legislation has sparked an angry reaction from the Russian authorities. The Obama Administration has been opposed to the bill, saying there was no need to pass special legislation to ban Russian officials allegedly linked to Magnitsky’s death from entering the United States. Earlier, Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak said this document “is America’s violent rejection of the principle of mutual respect in interstate relations”. займ срочно без отказов и проверок займ онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php www.zp-pdl.com займы без отказа
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Obama’s misguided wooing of an uninterested Putin
Putin’s response was to claim that he needed to skip Camp David in order to put together a new government cabinet — even though he is now the president, not the prime minister. Some Russian analysts dismissed that explanation; they posited that Putin was offended by the State Department’s mild criticism of the beatings of demonstrators during his inauguration last week. Others speculated that he was managing serious behind-the-scenes power struggles.
Either way, Putin appears lukewarm at best about the main cause of Obama’s focus on him: his ambition to conclude a groundbreaking nuclear weapons accord in 2013. The deal would go well beyond the New START treaty of 2010 and aim at a radical, long-term reduction of the U.S. and Russian arsenals. It would be Obama’s legacy achievement on the foreign-policy issue that most engages him, and the retroactive justification for his Nobel Peace Prize.
Putin, however, doesn’t seem terribly interested. A seven-point directive on relations with the United States he issued last week listed “further reduction of strategic offensive arms” sixth, and said they “are possible only within the context of taking into account any and all factors influencing global strategic stability.” That means missile defense: Point seven reiterates Moscow’s demand for “firm guarantees” about U.S. anti-ballistic missile systems.
Obama’s fixation on a nuclear deal has prompted a major turnaround in his treatment of Putin, whom he shunned for three years in the hope of promoting the supposedly more “reformist” Dmitry Medvedev. Though he might have waited several days to call, Obama nevertheless congratulated Putin on an election that international observers said was neither free nor fair. He has made repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which limits U.S. trade with Russia, a priority in Congress this spring.
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Russia Ambassador warns Congress over human rights bill
By Erik Wasson – 04/23/12
Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on Monday warned Congress that there would be “significant reaction” in Moscow if members try to attach a human rights measure to one granting permanent normal trade relations to his country.
Kislyak told reporters that passage of the bill could “impair the ability” of the U.S. and Russia to work together.
Russia wants Congress to grant it permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) and the White House is pushing Congress to do so before Russia joins the World Trade Organization this year.
At this point, Russia will join the WTO regardless of what Congress does and if Congress does not act U.S. exporters to Russia will be hurt. Kislyak made clear Russia will deny new lower tariffs to U.S. companies if Congress does not grant PNTR, as it would be entitled to do under WTO rules.
Some in Congress want to use the occasion to press Russia on human rights and democratization, however.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that specifically addresses the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblower working for a London investment firm who died in suspicious circumstances while imprisoned by Russian authorities in November 2009.
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Prosecuting the Dead: Part II
JURIST Contributing Editor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law says the enactment of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act will be an important practical and symbolic act showing that the US government acknowledges the long slide of the Russian people back into anarchy and lawlessness…
Russia has attempted to cover up, gloss over and sweep under the rug the fact that they seized a young Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky off the street, tortured him in a year-long detention without a hearing or trial and allowed him to languish and die in prison, all for calling the Russian government out on a vast tax fraud scheme in the amount of over $250 million.
Over these past few years, the Russian government has gone after Magnitsky’s former employer, Hermitage Fund, his boss, William Browder and even his mother in attempts to bring silence to a growing call for justice by the international community. Futile gestures and “investigations” have led to no real findings of fact nor an open hearing on those facts to determine accountability. Time and time again they have concluded no real harm and have tried to drop the case.
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Co-Chairman McGovern Introduces Bill, with Co-Chairman Wolf as Original Cosponsor, Imposing Sanctions on Individuals Responsible for the Mistreatment of Sergei Magnitsky and for Other Gross Human Rights Violations
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
United States Congress
THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012
Washington—Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission co-chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) today introduced the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, which would impose a visa ban and asset freeze on individuals responsible for the detention, abuse or death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, as well as on individuals responsible for other gross violations of human rights.
Commission co-chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA); commission executive committee members Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ); and commission members Dan Burton (R-IN), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), and Ed Royce (R-CA) are original co-sponsors of the resolution. Other original co-sponsors include House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Sander Levin (D-MI).
Mr. Magnitsky was wrongly arrested by Russian authorities and tortured to death after exposing the largest tax fraud in Russian history. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act would end the impunity for those responsible for this crime, while also holding accountable individuals responsible for other gross violations of human rights against people seeking to expose illegal activity by Russian officials or to exercise fundamental rights and freedoms.
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US Senate panel may vote on Russian human rights bill
Human rights legislation named after an anti-graft lawyer who died in a Russian jail is likely to be considered by a U.S. Senate committee this spring, the panel’s chairman Senator John Kerry said on Tuesday.
The Sergei Magnitsky bill would require the United States to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russians or others with links to his detention and death, as well as those who commit human rights violations against other whistle-blowers like him.
The 2009 death of the 37-year-old Magnitsky, who worked for equity fund Hermitage Capital and died after a year in Russian jails, spooked investors and tarnished Russia’s image. The Kremlin human rights council says he was probably beaten to death.
Before his arrest, he had testified against Russian interior ministry officials during a tax evasion case against Hermitage.
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US trade upgrade may worsen relations with Russia
The Obama administration wants Congress to remove Soviet-era trade restrictions that have been a sore point in U.S.-Russia relations for decades. But the conditions lawmakers are demanding to make the change may only worsen America’s increasingly shaky relations with Moscow.
Republicans and Democrats are trying to tie the easing of the so-called Jackson-Vanik restrictions to a measure imposing sanctions against Russian officials linked to human rights abuses. That would infuriate Russia and would be the latest hitch in what administration officials consider a major foreign policy success: improved relations with Russia after a sharp downturn during the Bush administration. They call it the “reset.”
Obama administration officials are trying to keep the rights and trade measures apart. They are concerned about retaliation and do not want to aggravate relations further. Tensions have been growing over issues like missile defense and the international response to uprisings in Libya and Syria. But the U.S. still hopes for a degree of cooperation with Russia on other matters, such as stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
“We want to deal with trade issues in one sphere and democracy issues and human rights in another sphere,” said Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia.
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