Posts Tagged ‘Nemtsov’
Boris Nemtsov Receives 2015 Sergei Magnitsky Award Poshumously
Zhanna Nemtsova receives her father’s award at the ceremony in London
Boris Nemtsov, the Russian politician, assassinated near the Kremlin in late February this year, was posthumously awarded the Sergei Magnitsky 2015 Human Rights Prize for Democracy. The prize was received by his daughter Zhanna.
Winner of 2015 Sergei Magnitsky Award for Campaigning for Democracy: (Posthumously) Boris Nemtsov.
Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader, winner of the Sergei Magnitsky’s Campaigning for Democracy Award, was a friend of the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky campaign. Boris was one of the strongest voices advocating for the U.S. Magnitsky Act and the implementation of Magnitsky sanctions in Europe, calling them “the most powerful instrument of pressure on killers and cleptocrats.” (see at 27 min of Youtube video of Nemtsov’s interview.
On 27 February 2015, just two days before he was planning to lead on 1 March 2015 the “March Spring,” a large anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow to protest against the Russian war against Ukraine, and three hours after his live appearance at an independent radio station calling for his supporters to join him, Boris Nemtsov was assassinated next to the Kremlin.
In his last live interview, Boris Nemtsov stated his belief that a large showing of people at the demonstration he was planning to lead, could bring a political change in Russia. He said: “If many people come to demonstrate, this will bring change. This march could be a turnaround point. It could make Kremlin sober. And gradually we will be able to achieve a change in the political course.” (see at 44 min. Youtube video).
The Sergei Magnitsky’s Award for Campaigning for Democracy was received by Nemtsov’s daughter, Zhanna, and presented by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the longest serving political prisoners in modern Russia.
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On 6th anniversary of Magnitsky’s death, Photo of Boris Nemtsov Calling for Justice is Published
Boris Nemtsov calling for Justice for Sergei Magnitsky. Photo published by Ludmila Volkova on the 6th anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death
“Nemtsov Most”
263d day after the murder of Boris Nemtsov is marked on the 6th anniversary of Magnitsky’s death
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Russia: Magnitsky Retaliation Bill Approved
A controversial law banning Americans from adopting Russian children has won final approval from the parliament in Moscow.
The bill – in retaliation for a US law intended to punish Russian human rights abusers – will now go to President Vladimir Putin for his signature.
Putin has strongly hinted he will sign the bill, which also outlaws some US-funded NGOs and hits back at sanctions by imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians.
The Federation Council, Russia’s upper parliament, voted unanimously to approve the bill, which has clouded US-Russian relations and outraged liberals who say lawmakers are playing a political game with the lives of children.
The bill has drawn unusual criticism from some government officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Olga Golodets, a deputy prime minister who said it may violate an international convention on children’s rights.
Putin has described it as an emotional but appropriate response to US legislation he said was poisoning relations.
US President Barack Obama this month signed off on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in custody of a lawyer in 2009.
The ban on American adoptions takes Russia’s response a step further, playing into deep sensitivity among Russians – and the government in particular – over adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The bill is named for Dima Yakovlev – a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke when his adoptive American father forgot him in a car.
“It is immoral to send our children abroad to any country,” Federation Council deputy Valery Shtyrov said in a one-sided debate before the 143-0 vote.
Child rights advocates say the law, due to take effect on January 1 if signed by Putin, will deprive children of a way out of Russia’s overcrowded orphanage system.
Opposition activist Boris Nemtsov said: “This is the most vile law passed since Putin came to power. Putin is taking children hostage, like a terrorist”.
Police said they had arrested seven people protesting against the law on Wednesday outside the Federation Council.
Nevertheless, lawmaker Gennady Makin said the Magnitsky Act demanded a tough response. “He who comes to Russia with a sword dies by that sword,” he said.
The dispute adds to tension in US-Russia ties already strained over issues ranging from Syria to the Kremlin’s treatment of opponents and restrictions imposed on civil society groups since Putin, in power since 2000, began a new six-year term in May.
The Russian bill would outlaw US-funded “non-profit organisations that engage in political activity”, which Putin accuses of trying to influence Russian politics.
Russia ejected the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds Russian non-governmental groups, in October, and Putin has signed a law forcing many foreign-funded organisations to register as “foreign agents” – a term that evokes the Cold War. займ на карту онлайн unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://www.zp-pdl.com займы на карту срочно
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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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The Kremlin’s blacklist
On July 12, as I stopped at the gate of the Russian Embassy compound in northwest Washington, the on-duty officer had some unexpected news. “I cannot let you in,” he said through an intercom. “You are forbidden to enter the embassy.” Being a Russian citizen and a credentialed Russian journalist, and having been to my country’s embassy on numerous occasions, I was naturally curious. Yevgeny Khorishko, the embassy’s press secretary, whom I called for an explanation, was brief: The directive to “strike” my name from the list of credentialed Russian journalists came from Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. No reason was given. In an interview later with Slon.ru, a Moscow news Web site, the press secretary explained that the decision reflected the fact that I am “no longer a journalist.”
The explanation would seem passable, except for one detail: The ambassador’s directive came before it was publicly announced that I had been dismissed as Washington bureau chief of RTVi, as Russian Television International is known, effective Sept. 1. How Kislyak could have known this in advance remains a mystery.
Around the same time, two trustworthy sources in Moscow informed me that my name has been placed on a “blacklist,” making me unemployable not only by RTVi but also by other, even privately owned, Russian media outlets. This was quickly verified, as one editor after another indicated that cooperation at this stage is impossible. From his own sources, opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov found out the name of the Kremlin official who has supposedly blacklisted me: Alexei Gromov, President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. As for the reason for the Berufsverbot, my interlocutors were unequivocal: It was my advocacy for the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, currently being considered by the U.S. Congress.
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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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Magnitsky memorial meeting held in Moscow
Several dozen people got together in Moscow on Sunday to mark the 40th birthday of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for British hedge fund Hermitage Capital who died in jail in 2009 after being denied essential medical assistance.
Those present were shown a film about Magnitsky’s life and death, and many of them took the floor, Solidarnost (Solidarity) opposition coalition spokeswoman Olga Shorina told Interfax.
Those who attended the event included Magnitsky’s mother, Natalya Magnitskaya, People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS) Co-Chairman Boris Nemtsov, and rights defender Valery Borshchev.
Magnitsky, who had his birthday on April 8, was charged with tax evasion. He died in a detention center in Moscow on November 16, 2009. Later a criminal investigation was launched into his death.
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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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Why Russia’s Opposition Supports the Magnitsky Act
Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center
Last week The New York Times published an interesting story articulating, somewhat by mistake, a profound irony at the heart of the Russia’s contentious political debate: both the opposition as well as their tormentor, Vladimir Putin, believe it’s high time to normalize trade relations with the United States. Where they differ, is on what should remain in place as a check on human rights abuses.
Currently Russia is denied Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) due to the antiquated Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold-War-era trade-restricting apparatus put in place to guarantee emigration rights for Soviet Jews. Russia’s opposition thinks repealing Jackson-Vanik-a top priority for President Obama-will deny Putin “a very useful tool” for his “anti-American propaganda machine…helping him to depict the United States as hostile to Russia using outdated Cold War tools to undermine Russia’s international competitiveness,” while Putin and his allies want the lower tariffs and other perks PNTR provides.
But most media coverage failed to capture the most significant position included in the opposition’s statement: they indicate their support for “smarter” sanctions such as the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act to replace JV. In order for one antiquated law to be taken off the books, they are asking for a more modern one to take its place: legislation meant to promote human rights in Russia that is named for the anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Russian prison two years ago after being denied medical care. More importantly, the new legislation specifically targets individual bureaucrats who have been accused of human rights abuses and corruption in a high effective manner, leaving all other normal Russian citizens the full
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