Posts Tagged ‘nemtzov’
A Sobering Look Inside Putin’s Russia
Vaclav Havel was stooped and frail last week when he opened his annual Forum 2000 at the glittering Zofin palace beneath Prague Castle. While the voice of the iconic former Czech president is weakened by illness and the burden of 75 years, through these yearly events Havel still speaks truth to power.
Several speakers, most prominently opposition politicians Gregory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov, painted a grim picture of a corrupted Russia groaning under the weight of a tyranny only slightly less cruel than in Soviet times. The 59-year old Yavlinski, whose Yabloko party will participate in December’s parliamentary elections, said Russia has neither rule of law nor property rights. “The judiciary,” he said, “is controlled by the ruling elite and money.”
Nemtsov, a leader of the People’s Freedom Party, said that by orchestrating a return to the presidency, “Putin has decided to be president for life.” He accused the Russian leader “of keeping totalitarianism to protect corruption.” Putin’s friends, he continued are the “crony capitalists” who have plundered state assets and safely deposited that ill-gotten wealth outside of Russia. Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister in 1997-1998, has been arrested three times this year. The Kremlin refuses to register his party, which is thus unable to contest the Duma elections.
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No way in
Kommersant has a letter written by Russian opposition members, human rights activists and cultural figures in the US Senate which contains a request to impose the same restrictions on officials involved in the Yukos case as those which are being imposed on authorities associated with the Sergey Magnitsky case. The list compiled by the opposition includes 305 people: Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, head of the Investigation Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin, Moscow City Court Chairwoman Olga Yegorova, investigators, state prosecutors and judges associated with all parties in the Yukos case. The authors of the letter are hoping that the people whose names have been blacklisted will be banned entry to the United States and their foreign bank accounts, if they exist, will be frozen.
In particular, the letter addressed to the US Senate was signed by co-chairmen of the People’s Freedom Party Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, human rights activists Lyudmila Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev, film director Eldar Ryazanov, People’s Artists of Russia Lia Akhedzhakova and Natalia Fateeva.
“With this letter we are showing support for the pending Sergey Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011,” reads the letter. “However, Magnitsky’s case is not the only of its kind in our country.”
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