Posts Tagged ‘moscow times’
Magnitsky Act Passed by U.S. House
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a landmark bill that would allow permanent normal trade relations with Russia and at the same time punish Russians suspected of human rights abuses, including those involved in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The bill, which would repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974 that denied trade advantages to the Soviet Union for hindering the emigration of Jews and other groups, passed with bipartisan support.
The bill will now go the Senate, where its supporters expect it to be approved. It has the backing of U.S. President Barack Obama, who could sign the bill before the end of the year.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday that there will be “tough” but not necessarily “proportionate” retaliation if the bill becomes law, Interfax reported.
Ryabkov said mutual respect was lacking in bilateral relations, and he repeated Russia’s long-standing position that the U.S. is attempting to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs.
The Magnitsky act, named after lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009, stipulates visa bans and a freeze of assets for Russians determined to have been involved in the arrest, abuse or death of Magnitsky, and for others responsible for human rights abuses in Russia.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Russia Vows Retaliation If Magnitsky Bill Passes
The Foreign Ministry on Thursday responded to the advancement of the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. House of Representatives by issuing a warning of retaliation.
The bill, which seeks to punish Russian officials involved in the jail death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, is expected to come up for vote in the House on Friday.
Russia will get back at the United States if the bill becomes law, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.
“We will have to react, and it will be a tough reaction,” he said, Interfax reported.
He did not specify what the government had in mind, saying only that Russia’s response would depend on the final content of the “unfriendly and provocative” legislation and cover the complete range of bilateral ties.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Why the Foreign Ministry Should Keep Quiet
Those nostalgic about the Soviet Union got a nice treat on Oct. 22 when the Foreign Ministry released its report on U.S. human rights violations. Reading just a few pages of the report was enough to bring back memories of the “Ikh Nravy” (Their Morals) series that appeared for nearly a decade in Soviet newspapers and on television, harping on U.S. poverty, crime, homelessness, unemployment, the exploitation of the working class, racism and other “human rights violations.”
The 60-page Foreign Ministry report is a response to the U.S. State Department’s human rights report. Russia’s message: The U.S. has no moral grounds for criticizing Russia on its rights record.
Using a crude strategy that dates back to the Soviet period, Russia’s report tries to shift focus away from its own rights abuses by saying the U.S. government is guilty of the same, or even worse, violations.
This is a favorite tactic of the Kremlin. For example, when the West criticized the state’s takeover of Yukos, President Vladimir Putin said the case differed little from the Enron corruption scandal. When the West criticized Russia for the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky in pretrial detention, Putin said during an RT interview in September that the U.S. is just as guilty because its government executes convicted criminals. When the West criticizes Russia for kidnapping opposition leader Leonid Razvozzhayev in Ukraine, supporters of the Russian government say the U.S. kidnapped Viktor Bout in Thailand.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
New Coordination Council Weighs Rally and Magnitsky
Members of the opposition’s newly elected Coordination Council agreed at their first meeting over the weekend to stage their next rally in December and press the U.S. to expand its Magnitsky list of banned Russian officials.
The opposition group, which met at a restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday, is tasked with trying to mount a structured challenge to President Vladimir Putin.
“They gave us the mandate of trust and made us responsible for coordinating efforts of dozens, hundreds, thousands and millions of people who want positive changes in our country,” said Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger who collected the most votes in the Oct. 20-22 online elections for the Coordination Council.
After some bickering, the new group of 45 leaders agreed to hold the next rally in December to mark the anniversary of the first anti-Putin protests after disputed State Duma elections.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
European Parliament’s Vote on Magnitsky Jars Russians
Senior lawmakers on Wednesday criticized a resolution by the European Parliament to establish a list of banned Russians similar to one under discussion in the U.S. Congress.
“This is yet another gross attempt to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs and [constitutes] bold pressure on our judicial system,” said Leonid Slutsky, deputy head of Russia’s delegation to the European Parliament and a Liberal Democratic Party member in the State Duma.
“Russia will not leave these attempts unanswered,” he told reporters.
Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma’s International Affairs Committee and a United Russia member, said the proposal “aims to divide Europe and Russia” and might create a “negative political climate,” Ekho Moskvy radio reported.
On Tuesday, the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the nonbinding resolution, which recommends entry bans and asset freezes for officials implicated in the 2009 prison death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The lawmakers, who rejected a similar proposal two years ago, this time included a statement urging the Russian government “to conduct a credible and independent investigation encompassing all aspects of the case” and “to put an end to the widespread corruption and to reform the judicial system.”
The resolution also asks EU leaders, during their talks with Russian officials, to bring up Magnitsky and “the issue of intimidation and impunity in cases involving human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers in a more determined, resolute and result-oriented manner.”
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Magnitsky Case Goes to Strasbourg Court
The mother of Sergei Magnitsky, the anti-corruption lawyer who died in pretrial detention in 2009, has filed a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Natalya Magnitskaya by the Open Society Justice Initiative, a George Soros-founded human rights group, accuses Russian law enforcement agencies of manipulating the criminal justice system to silence her son after he exposed a $230 million tax fraud involving Interior Ministry officials.
“Sergei Magnitsky was wrongly detained and tortured because he unearthed evidence of grand theft at senior levels of the Russian government, then refused to back down,” said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative and the lead lawyer on the case.
“Though Mr. Magnitsky’s courage was unusual, his fate is not. His case shines a spotlight on the corruption and abuse which pervade Russia’s justice system,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
The complaint, filed Wednesday, says Magnitsky’s death was the result of deliberate abuse while he was moved between five Moscow detention centers over the course of a year. It says he was persistently denied medical treatment for a life-threatening illness and was beaten by guards just before he died.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Lavrov Offers New Warning to U.S. Over Magnitsky Bill
cUsing some of his harshest language yet, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the adoption of the Magnitsky bill by the U.S. Congress would have disastrous consequences for U.S.-Russian relations.
Lavrov, speaking during an interview with U.S. television talk-show host Charlie Rose, said Moscow supported a dialogue on human rights with Washington but did not want to be “lectured” or “judged” through efforts like the Magnitsky bill.
“This would be certainly something which will be detrimental to our relationship,” he said, speaking in English. “Attempts to interfere in the legal procedures of other countries are not really welcome by normal states, normal governments, and this is absolutely the case between Russia and the United States.”
Returning to a well-trodden Kremlin line, Lavrov insisted that Russia was interested in discussing human rights, particularly cases involving the abuse and sometimes death of adopted Russian children at the hands of their U.S. parents and the imprisonment of convicted arms trader Viktor Bout.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
This Is a Terrible Time to Be a Dictator, Mr. Putin
The Moscow Times
The Kremlin and the people are headed toward a new round of conflict starting in September.
Since President Vladimir Putin assumed office in May, several laws have been passed that will clamp down on the opposition, journalists, bloggers and nongovernmental organizations. These include an extrajudicial or administrative procedure for banning specific websites and blogs as well as granting the authorities the right to prosecute anyone who disagrees with Kremlin policy.
The law on NGOs has been one of the most controversial. If foreign-funded NGOs that are deemed by the authorities to be “politically active” fail to register as “foreign agents,” their directors and other top officials within the organizations could be subject to huge fines and prison terms.
Several leading human rights organizations have declared that they will ignore the law and will not register as foreign agents. These include the Moscow Helsinki Group headed by Lyudmila Alexeyeva and the For Human Rights movement headed by Lev Ponomaryov. Both organizations are highly respected in Russia and abroad.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Investigator Removed From Hermitage Tax Case
Police have sacked the lead investigator in a high-profile tax-evasion case against Hermitage Capital CEO Bill Browder and the company’s late lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.
Investigator Mikhail Shupolovsky will take over from Boris Kibis, who has been reassigned in a “redelegation of tasks,” city police said, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Browder and Magnitsky are accused of lowballing Hermitage Capital’s 2001 tax bill by about 500 million rubles ($15 million).
Browder and supporters say both the case and Magnitsky’s 2009 death in pretrial detention are punishment for accusations Magnitsky made against a group of tax and police officials whom he said embezzled a $230 million tax refund.
The case has attracted international condemnation, and U.S. lawmakers have attached Magnitsky’s name to a bill that would impose sanctions on human rights abusers worldwide.
“It will be interesting to see how this new investigator will compromise himself and the Russian state,” a Hermitage Capital representative said in e-mailed comments.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
