Posts Tagged ‘senate’
Three cheers for the Magnitsky Act and American values
In the next few days, the House and the Senate will almost certainly vote on and pass the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. The bill is named after a 37-year old lawyer who was tortured to death in a Moscow prison after he uncovered an elaborate scheme that had defrauded the Russian treasury of $230 million. November 16th will be the third anniversary of his death.
The Magnitsky Act would deny entry to the United States and freeze the assets and property of those individuals responsible for this embezzlement, the death of Sergei Magnitsky and its cover up, as well as any current or future abuse of human and political rights.
The anti-Putin opposition in Russia has overwhelmingly supported the Magnitsky Act. Even leftists and nationalists have been ardently in favor. Just as vehemently, the Kremlin has denounced the legislation, crying “interference in its internal affairs” and threatening an “appropriate response.”
The “interference” objection has not a leg to stand on. The legislation is directed not against Russia but against those who torment and defraud it. Moreover, Russia and the Soviet Union—to which Russia is the legal successor—are party to multiple agreements, most notably the Helsinki Act of 1976 and its subsequent iterations that explicitly make human and political rights subject to international scrutiny.
As for the Kremlin’s response, Russians on the internet have had tons of fun with it: “No more shopping trips to Moscow by the wives of US officials!” “No more Black Sea vacations for them!” “US officials will be prohibited from keeping their money in Russian banks and their children denied admissions to Russian colleges!”
Although it might precipitate a petty tit-for-tat, the Magnitsky Act is part of something far larger than mere ups and downs in U.S.-Russian relations. It is a long overdue step reaffirming the core values that guide U.S. foreign policy and advancing what is—or ought to be—one of its key, overarching geostrategic objectives: The emergence of a stable, free, and democratic Russian state at peace, in the long last, with its own people and the world. быстрые займы на карту hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/get-a-next-business-day-payday-loan.php займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно
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SENATORS SEEK ADDITIONS TO MAGNITSKY LIST OF RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS
US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
U.S. Senators Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Ben Cardin, D-Md., and John McCain, R-Ariz., all members of the Foreign Relations Committee, today requested the Obama administration add individuals to a U.S. government list of Russian human rights abusers who are subject to U.S. sanctions and travel restrictions. Enacted in 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law and Accountability Act, requires the U.S. government to maintain a list of individuals involved in human rights violations committed in Russia. Despite reports indicating the administration would make additions to the list at the end of 2013, the annual report on enforcement of the act that was sent to Congress in December contained no new names.
“On December 20, 2013, we received the Department of State’s first annual report. Disappointingly and contrary to repeated assurances and expectations, this report indicates that no persons have been added to the Magnitsky list since April 2013 and does not provide adequate details on the administration’s efforts to encourage other governments to impose similar targeted sanctions,” said the senators in their request of Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. “We look forward to your response to our request and hope you will also clarify when we can expect additional names to be added to the Magnitsky list as well as specific administration efforts to encourage other governments to adopt legislation similar to the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012.” займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно быстрые займы на карту https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php займы без отказа
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Obama Signs Magnitsky Act Into Law
US President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law the Magnitsky Act, a bill punishing Russian officials for alleged human rights violations that US lawmakers attached to a landmark trade bill normalizing trade relations with Moscow.
The aspects of the law targeting Russian officials, which simultaneously repeals the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik law, has angered the Kremlin, which says it is an attempt by the United States to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs.
The law calls on the White House to draw up a list of Russian officials deemed by Washington to be complicit in rights abuses. These officials will then be banned from obtaining US visas and have their US assets frozen.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an angry statement Friday in response to the new US law, calling the linking of the human rights legislation to the trade bill “cynical.”
The statement also made reference to the Obama administration’s original reluctance to attach the Magnitsky Act to the trade legislation, an effort that had overwhelming bipartisan support in the US Congress.
“We regret that a US administration declaring its commitment to the development of stable and constructive bilateral relations was unable to defend its stated position against those who look to the past and see our country not as a partner, but rather an opponent—fully in line with the canons of the Cold War,” the ministry said in the statement.
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Obama Signs Russia, Moldova Trade Bill And Magnitsky Sanctions Into Law
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed into law legislation that grants permanent normal trade relations to Russia and Moldova while also paving the way for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
“I think the legislation is important legislation — all of it — and the president was happy to sign it,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters after the bill was signed on December 14. “He believes it’s an important step forward in our relationship with Russia.”
By permanently exempting Moscow from trade barriers imposed by the Cold-War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the United States will look to benefit from increased commerce with Russia afforded by its August entry into the World Trade Organization.
The attached Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act mandates the president to publicly name Russian officials that he determines are responsible for the death of the Russian whistleblower. The officials will then be subject to U.S. visa bans or visa revocations as well as asset freezes.
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Cardin stands up for rights
Maryland’s junior senator shows leadership by demanding Russian accountability for a politically linked death.
This month’s passage of a new U.S.-Russia trade law has done more than showcase Senator Ben Cardin’s dedication to international human rights.
By sending the shock to the Kremlin — that the U.S. values prosecuting rights abusers as much as it values profits for businesses — the Maryland Democrat has catapulted human rights atop the international agenda and brought new attention to the U.S. Helsinki Commission that he chairs.
The Helsinki Commission — founded amid the Cold War, just like the legislation the new trade bill replaces — once helped secure freedom for Soviet refuseniks unable to emigrate from under the thumb of Communism. Thirty years later, Mr. Cardin and the 21-member, bipartisan, congressional-executive body put the spotlight back on the Soviet region broadly and Moscow specifically.
I remember the June day in 2009 when Senator Cardin first heard about Sergei Magnitsky. Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder spoke of the raid on his office in Moscow and how Mr. Magnitsky, his 37-year-old lawyer, refused to lie about the trumped-up charges his client faced in Russia’s largest-ever tax fraud scheme, and how he suffered in prison for it. Mr. Cardin sat wide-eyed, imagining the story worthy of a movie.
What no one knew in the hearing room that day was that Mr. Magnitsky would die within five months, a tragic victim of either repeated medical inaction in prison or torture. (Is there a difference?)
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U.S. Senate stands up for human rights
How many times have I said in the past few years that the Senate has stood up for human rights? Not many, but it is deserving for two actions taken yesterday.
First, a bipartisan resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and 30 other senators called for the immediate and unconditional release of Alan Gross from imprisonment in Cuba. The resolution also calls on Cuba to provide needed medical treatment to Gross, who reportedly is quite ill and has lost more than 100 pounds in prison. Gross was the U.S. contractor thrown in the dungeons of Cuba after a Mickey Mouse trial for bringing satellite phones to the Jewish community there. This outrage followed the U.S. administration’s lightening of sanctions on Cuba, a move yet to be reversed.
The resolution is important not only because it prevents Gross from being forgotten and gives hope to him and all imprisoned human rights victims; it also may stop in the tracks any deal by which Gross would be released in exchange for release of five convicted Cuban spies. The Post editorial board put it this way: “There is no equivalence between Mr. Gross and the five prisoners, as Havana itself acknowledges. It agrees the Florida prisoners were its spies, but it has never charged Mr. Gross with espionage.” So bravo to the Senate for its demand for Gross’s unconditional release.
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U.S. legislation infuriates Russia
Washington Post
The U.S. Senate on Thursday repealed a trade sanction imposed 38 years ago to force the Soviet Union to allow Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate, replacing it with a modern-day punishment for human rights abuse that has enraged Russian officials.
The old law, one of the last vestiges of the Cold War, was called the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, named after a U.S. senator and a representative. The new law, passed 92 to 4, grants Russia and Moldova permanent normal trade relations, but it is coupled with the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, which honors a dead Russian. The law blacklists Russians connected to the death of Magnitsky in police custody and to other gross human rights violations, prohibiting entrance to the United States and use of its banking system.
“Today, we close a chapter in U.S. history,” Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), one of the prime movers of the Magnitsky bill, said during the debate on Jackson-Vanik. “It served its purpose. Today, we open a new chapter in U.S. leadership for human rights.”
How the United States can best promote democracy and human rights in Russia – and elsewhere – became a matter of agonizing and often bitter debate as pressure grew to repeal Jackson-Vanik. Not only was it widely considered a relic with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and freedom to emigrate from Russia, but, under the regulations of the World Trade Organization, which Russia joined this year, it also penalized American exporters.
The House approved the measure last month. President Obama said he looked forward to signing the law because of the WTO benefits for American workers, although originally the administration had argued that the Magnitsky bill was unnecessary because the president could – and would – create the desired blacklist by executive order.
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Sergei Magnitsky: symbol of prison abuse in Russia
Sergei Magnitsky, whose case triggered a US-Russia row on Thursday, was a lawyer working for a Western firm who died in pre-trial jail at 37 in Moscow in 2009 after claiming to have discovered a major tax fraud covered up by government officials.
He died after spending almost a year under pre-trial arrest that his mother said had exposed him to “torture conditions” and which his employer called retribution for his testimony against interior ministry officers.
Prosecutors said that Magnitsky died from acute heart and pancreatic failure and fluid in the brain in combination with other conditions, including diabetes.
Human rights campaigners, including the Kremlin’s human rights council, said that the lawyer was ill-treated deliberately and even tortured, handcuffed one hour before his death despite suffering from acute pain.
Magnitsky’s firm Firestone Duncan was providing legal support to what was once Russia’s largest investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, whose head William Browder fell out of favour with the Kremlin and was denied a visa in 2005.
Prior to his arrest, Sergei Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a scheme used by police officials to reclaim about $235 million in taxes paid by his client.
However instead of looking into the claims Russia charged the lawyer with fraud and locked him up in Moscow’s Matrosskaya Tishina jail, later transferring him to Moscow’s infamous Butyrka prison.
His death caused an international outrage, whose ripple effects are still felt today.
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Senate Passes Russian Trade Bill, With Conditions
The Senate voted on Thursday to finally eliminate cold war-era trade restrictions on Russia, but at the same time it condemned Moscow for human rights abuses, threatening to further strain an already fraught relationship with the Kremlin.
The Senate bill, which passed the House of Representatives last month, now goes to President Obama, who has opposed turning a trade bill into a statement on the Russian government’s treatment of its people.
But with such overwhelming support in Congress – the measure passed the Senate 92 to 4 and the House 365 to 43 – the White House has had little leverage to press its case.
And President Obama has shown little desire to pick a fight in which he would appear to be siding with the Russians on such a delicate issue.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the Senate vote, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said the president was committed to signing the bill.
The most immediate effect of the bill will be to formally normalize trade relations with Russia after nearly 40 years. Since the 1970s, commerce between Russia and the United States has been subject to restrictions that were designed to punish Communist nations that refused to allow their citizens to leave freely.
While presidents have waived the restrictions since the cold war ended — allowing them to remain on the books as a symbolic sore point with the Russians — the issue took on new urgency this summer after Russia joined the World Trade Organization. American businesses can take advantage of lower trade tariffs only with nations that enjoy normalized trade status
By some estimates, trade with Russia is expected to double after the limits are lifted.
But another effect of the bill – and one that has Russian officials furious with Washington – will be to require that the federal government freeze the assets of Russians implicated in human rights abuses and to deny them visas.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were inspired to attach those provisions to the trade legislation because of the case of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was tortured and died in prison in 2009 after he exposed a government tax fraud scheme.
During the Senate debate, it was Mr. Magnitsky’s case, and not Russia’s trade status, that occupied most of the time.
One by one, Democratic and Republican senators alike rose to denounce Russian officials for their disregard for basic freedoms.
“This culture of impunity in Russia has been growing worse and worse,” said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. “There are still many people who look at the Magnitsky Act as anti-Russia. I disagree,” he added. “Ultimately passing this legislation will place the United States squarely on the side of the Russian people and the right side of Russian history, which appears to be approaching a crossroads.”
Russian officials denounced the Senate vote.
“This initiative is intended to restrict the rights of Russian citizens, which we consider completely unjust and baseless,” said Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian foreign ministry’s human rights envoy, in comments to the Interfax news agency in Brussels. “This is an attempt to interfere in our internal affairs, in the authority of Russia’s investigative and judicial organs, which continue to investigate the Magnitsky case.”
Initially there was pressure on the Senate to pass a bill that punished human rights violators from all nations, not just those who are Russian. But the House bill applied only to Russia. And the Senate followed suit, as supporters of the bill wanted something that could pass quickly and not require a complicated back-and-forth with the House.
Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow. микрозайм онлайн займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php payday loan
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