Posts Tagged ‘moscow times’
U.S. Senator Slams Putin for Protest Crackdown
Outspoken U.S. Senator John McCain has criticized President Vladimir Putin for a recent crackdown on protesters, as well as for oligarchy, corruption and activities in the Baltics and Ukraine.
In an interview with the Voice of America’s Russian service, McCain said Putin had to “understand that there is great resistance to the way he governs,” “the way the elections were held” and how “demonstrators were being cracked down” on last week.
“People in Russia are very unhappy with this oligarchy and corruption that goes from top to bottom,” McCain said in the interview Friday, adding that liberal opposition politician Boris Nemtsov had told him that the protest movement was “not gonna be stopped.”
McCain also said U.S. concern should be expanded to Putin’s activities in Ukraine, the three Baltic states and the “military buildup” in Kaliningrad.
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Russian Envoy Warns U.S. on Magnitsky Bill
Russia’s ambassador to the United States warned the U.S. on Wednesday that legislation to ban Russian officials implicated in the 2009 jail death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky could damage relations between the two countries.
The U.S. State Department expressed support last week for the so-called Magnitsky Act, which is being considered by Congress and would impose sanctions on foreign officials accused of human rights abuses.
“Trying to use it as an instrument of pressure on us will not bring any results except to damage Russian-U.S. relations,” Ambassador Sergei Kislyak said on Voice of Russia radio.
He also said the U.S. government was showing a lack of respect for Russia by intervening in the investigation into Magnitsky’s death. This “is Russia’s internal affair and is being investigated in accordance with Russian law,” he said in the interview, Interfax reported.
Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made similar comments last month, signaling Moscow’s strong irritation with U.S. actions on the case.
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U.K. Eyes Magnitsky Suspects
Britain has joined the United States in taking steps to bar entry to Russian officials implicated in the 2009 jail death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced strengthened immigration rules in its annual human rights report this week that would make it difficult for Russians accused of human rights violations in the Magnitsky case to enter Britain.
The U.S. State Department last year blacklisted 60 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death, and U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation that would bar people accused of human rights abuses at home from entering the United States. hairy woman hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php https://www.zp-pdl.com онлайн займы
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State Department Sends Mixed Message on Rights Bill
The Moscow Times
25 April 2012
The U.S. State Department says it is in favor of punishing Russian officials implicated in human rights abuses, but does not necessarily support a congressional bill designed for that aim.
Asked if the department encouraged or discouraged the so-called “Magnitsky bill,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said late Tuesday that “we do support the goals of the legislation,” according to the state department’s website.
Nuland also said it was wrong to link the bill to a repeal of the Jackson-Vanik legislation, something that is pitting President Barack Obama against a number U.S. lawmakers.
The bill is motivated by the death of Sergei Magnitsky, whose supporters say he was tortured to death in jail.
It was resubmitted to the House of Representatives last week, prompting Moscow’s Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak to warn that it would significantly hurt ties with Washington.
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U.S. Lawmakers Submit Updated Magnitsky Bill
22 April 2012
By Natalya Krainova
Fifteen ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives have submitted a bill to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The bill is an updated version of a similar one submitted to the chamber in April 2011, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission said on its website Thursday.
“Since Russian authorities have not provided justice to Mr. Magnitsky and his family, the United States should do what it can to hold individuals accountable for these heinous crimes,” Representative James McGovern said, Magnitsky’s former employer, Hermitage Capital, said in a statement Friday.
The updated bill doesn’t specifically name any officials, a Hermitage Capital spokesperson said. Neither did the previous version.
The earlier bill called for sanctions on Russian officials implicated in the detention, prosecution and death of Magnitsky and in the conspiracy to defraud the Russian Federation of taxes on corporate profits through fraudulent transactions and lawsuits against Hermitage.
Unlike the new version, that bill didn’t call for sanctions against officials implicated in other crimes.
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UK Businessman Fears Danger From Russia after ‘Police Leak’
A senior executive from Hermitage Capital fears his life may be in danger after his home address in London was leaked to officials involved in the pre-trial detention death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Newly released court documents suggest Soca, the UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, passed the information to the Interior Ministry, who forwarded it to an official accused of blocking Magnitsky’s lawyers from visiting their client before his death, the Guardian reported Saturday.
The official is on the list of 60 people who would be banned from entering the US under proposed legislation to punish those involved in the 37-year-old lawyer’s death.
Magnitsky died in a detention center in 2009 after being refused medical treatment. He had been jailed on charges of tax evasion after accusing Russian officials of a $230 million tax fraud.
The executive whose address was revealed, Ivan Cherkasov, has been the subject of death threats from Russia, and he is also facing criminal accusations and an arrest warrant from an Interior Ministry official implicated in the tax fraud. Cherkasov says he and his family are now in danger of retaliation.
Senior Hermitage staff have received numerous death threats since Magnitsky’s death, and Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism unit has offered protection against potential Russian hit men.
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Why Kremlin Kleptocracy Affects U.S. Interests
Over the past year, Washington readily threw its support behind opposition movements in Libya and Syria. That was an easy decision since neither Libya nor Syria was a U.S. ally. When it came to Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who was a U.S. ally, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama eventually did withdraw its support from him, but only when his position turned uncertain.
President-elect Vladimir Putin is not “our son of a bitch,” to use President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s expression. He is no friend of the West, and few people around the world admire his authoritarian kleptocracy. Yet Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are committed to a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations. Moreover, despite mass protests of the past few months demanding systemic change, Putin is not wobbling. Moreover, the protests might even make Putin more accommodating on Syria, Iran, supply routes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and other issues where Washington seeks Russia’s cooperation.
Leading Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney was recently critical of Obama’s reset policy toward Russia. But aside from resuscitating outdated, Reaganite Cold War rhetoric, Romney had nothing to offer on U.S.-Russian relations. It’s a pity because unlike during the Cold War era, the United States — and Romney, the business executive, in particular — could put effective pressure on Russian officials to help combat the country’s largest kleptocrats.
To begin with, the United States could take the lead in imposing worldwide sanctions on the so-called Magnitsky list, a gang of Russian government officials who have been implicated in the wrongful imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital.
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UN Official Slams Russia on Magnitsky Case
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture published a report Tuesday condemning the Russian government over the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The report by Juan E. Mendez said the state should take responsibility for Magnitsky’s death in prison, since he was healthy before his incarceration.
“When an individual dies as a consequence of injuries sustained while in State custody, there is a presumption of State responsibility, particularly when the person was in good health at the time of his arrest,” the report said.
Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 on charges of tax evasion, after he began investigating Interior Ministry and tax service officials in an alleged fraud case. He spent 11 months in prison without trial and reportedly developed a number of serious illnesses, for which he was denied treatment. He died eight days before he was legally required to be released if he were not put on trial.
Western governments have harshly criticized Russia over the case, with some countries considering so-called “Magnitsky acts” barring entry to officials believed to have been involved in the lawyer’s death. Magnitsky’s former employer, Hermitage Capital, has conducted a lobby campaign to pressure the Russian government to investigate the case.
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Replace Jackson-Vanik With the Magnitsky Act
A number of opposition leaders — including myself, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny and others — recently made an appeal to the U.S. Congress. We proposed that Congress repeal the outdated 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment and replace it with a tough Magnitsky act. The proposed law would allow the United States to target sanctions against more than 60 specific Russian politicians and officials who are directly responsible for the death of citizens, for illegally seizing the property of others and for falsifying elections.
Not everyone understood our position on Jackson-Vanik correctly — as if we had somehow become soft on Russia’s poor human rights record. They couldn’t be more wrong. Our position differs substantially from that of the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, and even more from the position taken by Kremlin hard-liners.
President-elect Vladimir Putin, in dealing with the West, would like to exclude any discussion of democracy, human rights and corruption. This would get in the way of the ruling elite’s main goals: to reap profits from the sale of the country’s natural resources and to transfer those funds into safe havens in the West.
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