Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Bloggers Expose Corruption, One Top Official at a Time

Huffington Post

Can a businessman who is connected with organized crime, banned on these grounds from entering a country where his business is located, and has foreign citizenship be a senator? In Russia, the answer is yes. At least, this is the result of an investigation made by the country’s No. 1 blogger, Alexei Navalny. On March 14, he published documents that prove that Senator Vitaly Malkin not only runs business in Canada (which is against the law in Russia), but he has been denied a visa to that country because Canadian authorities suspect him of links with money laundering networks. Moreover, Malkin has (or had) a double Israeli citizenship, which is prohibited for members of either house of the Russian Parliament. Besides, Malkin was a member of a delegation of Russian parliamentarians last year who toured Washington, D.C., attempting to prevent passing of the Magnitsky Act. The blogger demanded that Malkin’s appointment be invalidated. The senator’s spokesperson denied the accusations but failed to comment on the documents.

In recent months, similar reports of corruption in the highest ranks of the government have become almost a daily routine. Last week, the Chairperson of Duma Anti-Corruption Committee Irina Yarovaya was accused by Navalny of living in an undeclared $2,900,000 flat in downtown Moscow. The week before, the blogger found that the Governor of Pskov Andrey Turchak owned a luxury house worth 1,270,000 Euro in Nice, France. And it’s not just Navalny; other bloggers are also discovering transgressions of members of Parliament, governors and other top officials. Most investigations deal with undeclared property or illegally acquired academic titles.

Bloggers even coined a humorous term for this activity — pekhting — after a veteran MP, Chairman of Duma Ethics Committee and Putin loyalist Vladimir Pekhtin. Earlier this year Navalny published documents indicating that the deputy owns two expensive apartments in Miami. After initially denying the accusations, Pekhtin eventually had to resign from the Parliament. His act sent shockwaves through the ranks of bureaucrats who had become used to impunity in exchange for loyalty.