Posts Tagged ‘moscow times’
Why Putin’s Russia Is Dissolving
In Moscow at a conference for young Russian journalists last week, I met Eduard Mochalov, who differed from most of the participants in having spent much of his working life as a farmer. He retains the ruddy countenance and the strong, chapped hands of the outdoor worker in a hard climate — in his case, that of the Chuvash Republic, about 700 kilometers east of Moscow.
Mochalov’s story is that when thieves stole some of his cattle and pigs, he protested to the authorities, only to find himself in jail for eight months based on a wrongful accusation. Maddened by what he considered the result of corruption behind the scenes, he protested all the way up to President Vladimir Putin, going so far as to appear in Red Square with a placard telling his story. As he pursued justice, his farm went untended.
And so he turned to journalism. “I had no choice. The whole administration was corrupt, nothing to be done but fight them with words,” he told me. Four years ago he founded a newspaper that he boldly named Vzyatka, which in Russian means bribe. It comes out nearly every month and is replete with investigations and denunciations of corruption in his locality. He prints some 20,000 copies and gives them away. Demand, he says, hugely outpaces supply.
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Tough Talks Expected At EU-Russia Summit
President Vladimir Putin will meet with European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday for a pre-Christmas summit, but the mood will hardly be festive.
Disputes involving visas, trade and energy have cast a shadow over EU-Russia relations in recent months, giving both sides tough issues to discuss. More broadly, the Europeans are expected to voice concern about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent, while Moscow’s stance toward Europe is cooling following its recent foreign-policy emphasis on Eurasia.
“I have no high expectations of this summit,” said George SchЪpflin, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s conservative Fidesz party.
Schopflin said feelings among Brussels officials toward Moscow had definitely cooled over the past months.
“There is considerable unease about human rights,” he said by telephone.
In a highly critical motion passed last week, the European Parliament demanded that Russia end “politically motivated persecutions, arrests and detentions” among opposition members.
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Why Russia Is Trying a Dead Man
At the end of November, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced the upcoming trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a man who’s been dead for more than three years. Putting a dead person on trial hasn’t been done in Europe in more than 1,000 years. The reason is obvious: a dead person can’t defend himself, no matter how absurd the charges.
The story of this latest twist in the Magnitsky case begins with his death on Nov. 16, 2009. Magnitsky’s death in detention led to the automatic closing of the criminal case against him.
In July 2011, the Kremlin’s human rights council published its conclusions about the arrest and death of Magnitsky. They were unequivocal:
1. Magnitsky’s arrest and detention were in breach of the European Human Rights Convention.
2. Magnitsky was beaten by prison officials before his death.
3. In contravention of the law, Magnitsky was prosecuted by the same officers he earlier implicated in corruption.
4. Authorities resisted full investigation into corruption and fraud uncovered by Magnitsky.
5. The Russian courts failed to provide any legal redress to Magnitsky.
These were not conclusions Russian law enforcement officials wanted to hear. They led to an avalanche of criminal complaints, many of which were filed by Magnitsky’s mother, against those who participated in the theft Magnitsky reported and in his illegal arrest and death. Therefore, in July 2011, the Prosecutor General’s Office decided to legitimize the case against Magnitsky by reopening it.
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Magnitsky Bill Likely to Reopen Old Wounds
Historical mistrust and relatively weak trade links could amplify the Magnitsky Act’s damage to U.S.-Russian relations, although Washington will likely use caution in applying sanctions to Russians suspected of human rights violations, analysts said.
“In the absence of a solid background of trust and partnership, even relatively insignificant episodes can sour relations and leave a trace for a long time,” said Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Over the weekend, Russian condemnations escalated over the U.S. Senate’s nearly unanimous passage of the so-called Magnitsky Act, which normalizes trade relations with Russia and authorizes sanctions on Russians suspected of human rights violations.
“The Magnitsky Act is an attempt to interfere in our internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a group of allies of President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, adding that parliament’s reaction should be “collective and multi-partisan,” RBC reported.
Passage of the Magnitsky bill, which U.S. President Barack Obama said he would sign, appeared to mark a low point in the U.S.-Russian relationship under Obama, who has pursued improved relations under the “reset” policy, resulting in Russia’s joining the World Trade Organization and bilateral agreements on visas and nuclear weapons.
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Why the Magnitsky Act Is Pro-Russian
Moscow Times
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov perhaps put it best regarding the Magnitsky Act passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday: “This is the most pro-Russian law passed in the United States in the history of our countries.”
Indeed, what better way to support Russians’ interests than to punish a group of people who stole $230 million from the state budget, then framed a whistleblower and put him in jail, where he was tortured, denied medical help and eventually died?
A poll conducted by the Levada Center showed that 39 percent of those polled supported the Magnitsky Act and only 14 percent were against it, while nearly half the respondents were unsure of how to answer. Vladislav Naganov, a member of the opposition’s Coordination Council, wrote on his LiveJournal blog: “This is a victory for Russia. Anyone who claims that Russia is against this law does not have the right to speak for the entire country.”
But the Kremlin is of a decidedly different opinion. In recent months, the country’s leadership has organized a massive international media campaign to stop the passage of the act, and it reacted harshly after it was passed. An official statement from the Foreign Ministry disparaged the Senate vote as “a spectacle in the theater of the absurd.” United Russia members were even more outspoken in their condemnation. Sergei Markov, a member of the Public Chamber and former State Duma deputy, wrote on his blog on the chamber site that the Magnitsky Act “is interference in our legal system and a violation of our sovereignty. The drivers of this bill were energetic, dedicated Russophobes.”
Leonid Slutsky, a Duma deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party and deputy chief of the Russian delegation to the European Parliament, called it “interference in Russia’s internal affairs.”
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Shuvalov Says Magnitsky Response Won’t Affect Trade
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov assured investors in New York on Tuesday that Russia’s response to the Magnitsky bill would not affect trade.
Although Russia is preparing measures in response to the U.S. list of suspected human rights abusers in Russia, these measures only concern political relations between the two countries, Shuvalov told a group of international investors during a visit to the New York Stock Exchange, Interfax reported.
“I hope that this will mean absolutely nothing for businessmen,” he said. “Maybe this will affect officials, but it won’t affect businesspeople engaged in mutual trade.”
The U.S. Senate is considering the Magnitsky bill after it was passed by the House of Representatives in November, and President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law by the end of the year.
The bill would implement a visa ban and asset freeze on a list of Russians involved in human rights violations such as the prison death of Hermitage Capital lawyer and whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, while also establishing permanent normal trade relations with Russia.
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Magnitsky, the Accidental Symbol of Global Injustice
Magnitsky’s life reveals a man who was in many ways ordinary and felt compelled to fight a state machine he had trusted his whole career.
When a childhood friend said he was thinking of not returning to Russia after a concert tour abroad in 2000, Sergei Magnitsky gave him a copy of “Brat 2,” a popular movie released earlier that year, in the hope of dissuading him from emigrating.
“Brat 2” tells the story of a justice-seeking rebel, played by the actor Sergei Bodrov Jr., who goes to the United States to rescue his brother from gangsters. He quickly becomes disillusioned with the country, where he thinks people “seek truth in money” and, after helping his brother, returns home to Russia.
Described as “a very Russian man” by friends, Magnitsky also was not impressed by London’s narrow streets when there on business, and he enjoyed traveling around Russia. He once made a trip to Odessa, where he was born.
“The word ‘patriot’ might sound vulgar, but he loved Russia,” said Tatyana Rudenko, Magnitsky’s aunt, who was close to her nephew throughout his life.
Magnitsky, a senior auditor and tax attorney for the Moscow-based law firm Firestone Duncan, died on Nov. 16, 2009, in a Moscow prison, where, according to a Kremlin human rights council investigation, he was badly beaten by guards shortly before he died.
A criminal investigation was carried out, but no senior prison or police officials have been prosecuted in connection with his death.
On Nov. 16 of this year, the third anniversary of Magnitsky’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which seeks to punish Russian officials implicated in his death as well as other Russian officials linked to human rights abuses.
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Key Witness in Magnitsky Case Found Dead in Britain
A key witness in a Swiss investigation into alleged money-laundering by Russian officials suspected in the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was found dead outside his palatial home in southern England, a media report said Wednesday.
The body of 44-year-old Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichny was discovered two weeks ago, but news of his death came to light only now, The Independent reported. Russian media later reported his last name as Perepelichny.
An initial post-mortem conducted by local police was “inconclusive” and could not immediately establish the cause of Perepilichny’s death, the British daily reported, adding that the exiled businessman is the fourth person linked to the Magnitsky case who died suddenly.
Unconfirmed reports said that Perepilichny, who applied for political asylum in Britain three years ago, had gone jogging prior to collapsing not far from his mansion on the outskirts of Weybridge. Local police said additional tests would be carried out to determine the cause of death.
The Independent reported that Perepilichny was instrumental in the opening of a case against the so-called Kluyev Group, a set of government officials accused by Hermitage Capital lawyer Magnitsky of stealing $230 million in Russian government funds.
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Why Obama Should Sign the Magnitsky Act
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Magnitsky Act last week, legislation that would simultaneously sanction Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses and normalize U.S. trade relations with Russia. The dual nature of the bill may seem at cross purposes, but this is not the case. Increasing trade with Russia and investment in Russia requires the rule of law.
For the past four years, under U.S. President Barack Obama, the “reset” policy has delinked questions of human rights, democracy and rule of law from all other areas of U.S. policy toward Russia. In doing so, it has sent a message that the U.S. may talk about these issues but it will not do anything to discourage abuses.
The Magnitsky Act is a recognition by Congress that the reset policy was a mistake. In 1975, after the U.S. Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which withheld U.S. trade benefits to certain countries that restricted emigration, the effects were profound. Year after year, the Soviet Union “paid” to obtain U.S. trade benefits by allowing some of its citizens to emigrate. About 1 million Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, while thousands of other minorities also emigrated. Jackson-Vanik was one of the most successful examples of U.S. human rights legislation. It increased trade and promoted universal human rights.
In August, Russia finally joined the World Trade Organization. According to WTO rules, members may not discriminate against each other, and those members who do are penalized. If the U.S. leaves Jackson-Vanik on the books, Russia can choose to give the U.S. less favorable trade terms with Russia, while U.S. firms that have trade disputes with Russia can be denied access to WTO dispute-resolution mechanisms. That is a situation nobody wants. It’s clear that it is time to repeal Jackson-Vanik and for the U.S. to grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations, or PNTR, to Russia.
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