Posts Tagged ‘navalny’
Navalny charged with embezzlement, faces up to 10 years
Russian investigators have charged Aleksey Navalny – one of the country’s leading opposition figures – with embezzlement, less than a week after he slammed the head of the Investigative Committee on his blog.
Navalny is charged with embezzlement of state funds, an official spokesperson for the Investigative Committee said on Tuesday. Two more people will also be charged in this case, the official added. Navalny was sprung from detention after signing a written pledge not to leave his place of residence before the trial.
The case against Navalny traces back to 2009, when he worked as a volunteer aide to the governor of the Kirovsk Region. He allegedly persuaded the managers of the state-owned timber company Kirovles to sign a deal that led to substantial losses. The investigation was shuttered twice due to lack of evidence, but several regional branches of the Investigative Committee were ordered by authorities to re-open the case.
If convicted, the opposition activist could face from 5 to 10 years in prison. Navalny has forcefully denied every accusation leveled against him.
Later on Tuesday, Navalny updated his blog and dismissed the charges against him as a politically motivated fabrication and a “boring joke.”“There is no motive. There is no gain. The stated damages are taken out of nowhere. All most imported testimony against me has appeared to be false. The witness who testified me himself appears to be a member of my criminal syndicate,” the political activist wrote.
Navalny enclosed a link to the full text of the official charges he is facing, but pointed at what he saw as several key inconsistencies. Kirovles, he claims, sold the timber for 14 million rubles to a dealer, which later sold it to customers. The dealer’s revenue – 16 million rubles – was listed as damages, despite the fact that the state company received 14 million rubles for the goods.
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Telephone Justice: Khodorkovsky, Magnitsky and Navalny
Recent attempts by the Kremlin to smear its political antagonists and critics mark a return to a pre-perestroika use of the judicial system. The Khodorkovsky, Magnitsky and Navalny court case decisions resemble the telefonnoye pravo or ‘telephone justice’ of the Soviet Union, an expression that references the custom of political leaders calling judges in order to instruct them on what rulings pleased them.
Though western critics tend to focus on the problems related to freedom of the press in Russia, the implications of rotten courts can be much more deep-rooted and harmful to Russian society as a whole. The legal system’s systemic disregard for the constitution in its entirety is an overreaching issue that deserves more attention.
Sadly, this alarming trend is not a recent development. In 2005 and 2010, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were found guilty of fraud, money laundering and embezzlement. Before his trial, in 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia and Lebedev was his close associate. A strong advocate for more democracy and freedom of the press, Khodorkovsky could have been a potential political alternative to Putin had he chosen to run for the Russian presidency. After the trial, US State Department commented on the case, saying it “raised a number of concerns over the arbitrary use of the judicial system.” After the 2010 trial, in which Lebedev was convicted and Khodorkovsky’s prison sentence was extended, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented that the case was symptomatic of the “rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations.”
Another Russian court case displaying a flagrant lack of reason or justice is the posthumous conviction of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer hired by the British and US-owned Hermitage capital group to research corruption in the Russian state and local government. He was accused of tax evasion in 2008, after his discovery of a $230 million tax scam implicating Russian police and government officials. Following his arrest and subsequent suspicious death in prison in 2009, the US Senate passed a bill named the Magnitsky Act. The act blocks the Russian officials deemed responsible for his death, though the officials were not convicted in Russia, from entering the US or using the US banking system. The Magnitsky Act is thought to be the reason for the Kremlin’s arbitrary decision to ban Americans from adopting in Russia earlier this summer.
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Not Stupidity, but Malevolence
Critics of the current Russian regime often call its actions “stupid” and detrimental to its own image. According to author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek, however, what looks like government “stupidity” is actually a well-thought out strategy.
It is nice to think of your adversary as an idiot. It makes you feel better about yourself and reassures you by trivializing the threat: what foolishness did he or she think of this time? The same holds true when the adversary is the government. We fume about the Russian government doing this or that. How can it be so stupid? Does it not realize that it is undermining its own position and the image of the country? What we fail to appreciate is that the government understands everything it does; we just don’t understand its real motives. We judge the regime’s objectives, logic, and morals by our standards, when its own standards are completely different. Many of our troubles come from this lack of understanding.
Many of the government’s initiatives damage Russia’s image and result in international scandals. Prison sentences for members of the punk band Pussy Riot mobilized protests by top figures in the European music industry. Laws directed against homosexual propaganda have elicited fierce criticism of the Russian government from all corners of the world. The government’s insistence on protecting the law enforcement mafia in the Magnitsky case drew the world’s attention to a new instrument of government influence that violates human rights.
And we continue to wonder: What does the government think it is doing? How can it fail to foresee the possible consequences of its actions? Unfortunately, we just don’t understand the government. It very likely weighs its actions in advance and expects consequences. As much as we would like to think otherwise, it is anything but stupid. It simply has different objectives. In the Pussy Riot case, the government wanted to demonstrate that Russia is a religious and fundamentalist country, rather than a secular one; that the sentence handed down in the farce trial was a reflection of the people’s will; and that individual freedom pales before the power of the inferior mob.
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Letter Calls on President Obama to Cancel Meeting with Putin in Moscow
In light of recent disturbing developments for human rights in Russia, we urge President Barack Obama to cancel his summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in September in Moscow and to revise U.S. policy toward Russia to reflect the aggressive, systematic assault on political and civil liberties taking place in Russia.
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
August 2, 2013
Dear Mr. President:
In the past several weeks, the already alarming deterioration of Russia’s respect for political and civil rights has accelerated. Ordinary citizens who participated in peaceful protests against the government are being tried in court on trumped-up charges, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was convicted posthumously in an absurd tax evasion case after having died from abuse in prison, and anti-corruption blogger and leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny was convicted of embezzlement in a politically-motivated trial.
Over the past year, Russia’s Kremlin-friendly Duma has hastily adopted laws that make Russians, particularly those engaged in civil society and journalism, vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment. Russia’s security services and law enforcement are pursuing a government agenda to harass and intimidate anyone perceived as a critic. Hundreds of non-profit organizations have been raided and investigated. Activists and opposition figures are targets of surveillance and harassment, even outside of Russia.
In light of these disturbing developments, we urge you to cancel your summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin in September in Moscow and to revise U.S. policy toward Russia to reflect the aggressive, systematic assault on political and civil liberties taking place in Russia. This request is independent of our concern about Russia’s handling of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum today in Moscow. Even if Snowden were to be returned to the U.S. before your planned visit to Russia, which looks highly unlikely, we would still urge you not to travel to Moscow in September for the reasons stated.
While we recognize that certain levels of engagement with the Putin government are important and unavoidable, we also feel that U.S. policy should reflect Russia’s backsliding on human rights and recognize that it has an impact on the broader U.S.-Russia relationship. Such a policy is also important in dealing with other repressive governments elsewhere.
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Statement on the Rule of Law in the Russian Federation In Light of Magnitsky and Navalny Convictions
As delivered by Charge d’Affaires Gary Robbins to the Permanent Council, Vienna
The United States is disappointed and saddened by the posthumous conviction of Sergey Magnitsky on July 11 and by the July 18 conviction and sentence of Alexei Navalny to five years in prison. In both cases we have deep concerns about the apparent political motivation behind these trials. We remain troubled by the failure to respect the rule of law or to ensure the fair trial guarantees required by international law and OSCE commitments.
Sergey Magnitsky’s conviction in a tax evasion case was an insult to the efforts of those who continue to seek justice with respect to the circumstances of his death. The Kremlin’s own human rights council has said there was evidence suggesting Magnitsky was beaten to death while in custody. We continue to call for full accountability for all those responsible for Magnitsky’s death, and will continue to support the efforts of those in Russia who seek to hold these individuals accountable.
The conviction of Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of embezzlement, is another troubling case. For the past several years Navalny has been a leading member of the political opposition, campaigning against corruption. The case had been dismissed twice for lack of evidence. We understand Mr. Navalny is appealing his case while continuing his bid to be the next mayor of Moscow.
Notwithstanding Navalny’s interim release on bail, both his and Magnitsky’s convictions raise serious questions about respect for the rule of law in the Russian Federation. We call on Russian authorities to cease any campaign of pressure against individuals seeking to expose corruption and to guarantee that individuals can freely exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedoms of expression and assembly. We call on Russia to embrace serious efforts, like Mr. Navalny’s and Mr. Magnitsky’s before him, to improve government accountability and combat corruption in order to nurture a modern economy.
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Putin, a hypocrite on Snowden, Navalny
One of the many disturbing aspects of the NSA spying revelations is how much joy they have brought to the world’s chronic violators of human rights and political freedoms.
On Thursday in Moscow, where former NSA contractor Edward Snowden awaits his asylum papers, a Russian court removed a major critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin’s list of worries, sentencing the charismatic opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five years in jail on theft charges. Amid intense anger at the verdict and fears that it would raise Navalny’s profile, the court agreed on Friday to release him pending appeal.
The trial and the predictable verdict, as the European Union foreign affairs chief said, “raises serious questions as to the state of the rule of law in Russia.” That’s putting it mildly. Navatny is the most prominent, but just one in a long series of politically-motivated prosecutions in a country where the courts seldom make a move that displeases Putin.
Navalny was particularly worrisome to the Russian president. He had gained an enormous following by speaking out against corruption and cronyism, labeling Putin’s United Russia “a party of swindlers and thieves” and using social media to help mobilize the president’s critics. He had just announced he would run for mayor of Moscow. But, like other Putin opponents with any possible chance to loosen the president’s complete hold on power, he will likely go to prison instead. Now that he’s released, Navalny is considering whether to stay or withdraw from the race for mayor.
Meanwhile, Putin and his backers are having a field day. They claim it is Washington that leads the world in violating human rights, even as dozens of people who dared protest against Putin’s rule face trial or languish in jail, in a country where a number of journalists who criticized the president have turned up dead under mysterious circumstances.
When Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the wealthiest man in Russia, decided to turn his attention from business to politics, the tax authorities turned on him. He was sent to prison in Siberia, and when he became eligible for parole, the state filed another case, winning another conviction which extended his sentence.
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Obama May Cancel Moscow Trip as Tensions Build Over Leaker
President Obama may cancel a scheduled trip to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin in September as the standoff over the fate of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor seeking asylum there, takes its toll on already strained relations between the United States and Russia, officials said Thursday.
Canceling the meeting in Moscow would be seen as a direct slap at Mr. Putin, who is known to value such high-level visits as a validation of Russian prestige. While the White House may be using the meeting as leverage to win cooperation as it seeks the return to the United States of Mr. Snowden, who is now staying at a Moscow airport, the reconsideration also reflects a broader concern that the two countries are far apart on issues like Syria, Iran, arms control and missile defense.
The conviction on Thursday of Aleksei A. Navalny, a prominent leader of the opposition to Mr. Putin, on embezzlement charges further underscored the deepening divide between the two countries as the White House pronounced itself “deeply disappointed” at what it called a trend of “suppressing dissent and civil society in Russia.” The verdict and five-year sentence came a week after the posthumous conviction of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer investigating official corruption who was arrested and died in custody.
“We call on the Russian government to cease its campaign of pressure against individuals and groups seeking to expose corruption, and to ensure that the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of all of its citizens, including the freedoms of speech and assembly, are protected and respected,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.
The talk of human rights rang hollow to the Kremlin given the Snowden case. Mr. Putin has suggested that Washington is being hypocritical in complaining about Russian actions while seeking to prosecute a leaker who exposed American surveillance programs. But Mr. Putin has also made clear that he does not want the showdown to harm ties.
“Bilateral relations, in my opinion, are far more important than squabbles about the activities of the secret services,” he told Russian reporters who asked Wednesday about the scheduled Moscow meeting.
The White House announced the coming meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin when the two leaders met in Northern Ireland last month. It was added as an extra stop on a trip to St. Petersburg for the annual gathering of the Group of 20 nations. But while Mr. Obama is still committed to going to St. Petersburg, officials said he is now rethinking the Moscow stop, not just because of the impasse over Mr. Snowden but because of a growing sense that the two sides cannot agree on other issues enough to justify the meeting.
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Putin re-embraces repression
A FORMER KGB colonel like Vladimir Putin was never expected to be a champion of human rights, but the Russian President has failed to live up to even those reduced expectations. The five-year prison sentence imposed on his most prominent opponent and anti-corruption campaigner, Alexei Navalny, is an indication of the extent to which his clampdown is escalating and of the need for the West to reassess its response ahead of the G20 summit in St Petersburg in September.
Even members of the Kremlin’s so-called human rights council have described the trumped-up embezzlement charges brought against Mr Navalny as “punishment for his political activities”. The relentless campaign aimed at silencing opposition is the harshest crackdown on dissent since the collapse of communism. Days before the conviction of Mr Navalny (who has been released on bail pending appeal), Mr Putin’s determination to wreak vengeance through a servile court system was also evident when Sergei Magnitsky, an eminent human rights lawyer, was posthumously convicted of tax fraud to besmirch his name. Magnitsky had exposed a $US230 million embezzlement scheme benefiting regime officials. He died in jail after being beaten and suffering untreated pancreatitis. Punk band Pussy Riot was imprisoned for staging an anti-Putin stunt, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once one of Russia’s richest oligarchs and who fell out with Mr Putin, has spent 10 years in jail on charges his critics agree were a travesty of justice.
The Kremlin is using the corrupt court system to provide a veneer of due process and legality for brutal repression as dozens of other activists await sentencing. Mr Putin’s disregard for human rights extends to the supply of weapons to the Syrian regime, which have been used to slaughter tens of thousands of its own people. The fugitive American security contractor Edward Snowden says Russia and Latin American countries that have offered him asylum have his “gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless”. Mr Putin’s Russia is no such thing.
Current abuses recall the dark days of Soviet repression and the West must leave the Russian leader in no doubt about its abhorrence. After decades of communist repression, Russians deserve better than blatant corruption, intolerance and authoritarianism. займ срочно без отказов и проверок займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php займы на карту
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As Russia harms human rights, other democracies must step in
THE EMBEZZLEMENT case against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was so outlandish that even calling it a show trial was too generous. Navalny — anticorruption activist and candidate for mayor of Moscow — wasn’t allowed to present any witnesses. The judge, Sergei Blinov, has reportedly never found a defendant “not guilty” in his career. The abnormally harsh five-year sentence handed down Thursday came as a shock, and the judge’s decision to release Navalny on appeal after protests in several cities did not dispel that sentiment.
Navalny’s punishment for criticizing Putin follows another bizarre legal case: the recent posthumous conviction of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison after exposing massive government tax fraud. For the Russian government, it wasn’t enough to arrest Magnitsky for blowing the whistle, or to engineer his death — as many suspect. Authorities took the extraordinary step of convicting him from the grave of the very crimes he sought to expose.
These cases, along with yet another investigation of financier-turned-Kremlin-critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has already spent a decade in prison, signal the rapid deterioration of what freedom was left in Russia. They also highlight the need for a concerted effort by major democracies to raise pressure on Russia without fully alienating its leadership.
Now there is an effort underway to beef up the Magnitsky Act, passed last year in the wake of his death, which sanctions Russian officials believed to be linked to his case. Currently, 18 midlevel Russian bureaucrats have been barred from entering the United States. Any assets they have on US soil will be seized. US Representative James P. McGovern, the Worcester Democrat who championed the act, wants to expand the list of names to include higher-ranking Russian officials. “We know there are people close to Putin who are responsible for a lot of these abuses,” McGovern says. “The question is: Do human rights matter? If they do, we can’t be silent.”
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