Posts Tagged ‘the other russia’
Sergei’s Law – Justice for Sergei Magnitsky
More than two years after lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Russian prison, the doctors, guards, and government officials who are to blame have not been held responsible. As Financial Times Moscow Bureau Chief Charles Clover put it: “These guys basically just killed him. They murdered him. They tortured him to death.” If that wasn’t bad enough, the Russian government has chosen to open its first posthumous prosecution in the country’s history against Magnitsky.
While it would be ideal to rely on the Russian justice system to bring these people to justice, time has shown that some type of additional pressure is needed. Enter Sergei’s Law, a US congressional bill that would bar the Russians involved in Magnitsky’s death from entering the United States:
If passed, the bill would send a signal to the Russian government that the treatment of people like Magnitsky is simply unacceptable and will not go without tangible consequences.
As the video shows, more information on how you can help get Sergei’s Law passed can be found at SergeisLaw.com. займы онлайн на карту срочно займы онлайн на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php hairy woman
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Kasparov & Nemtsov: Sanction Putin’s Criminals
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to discuss the accession of Russia to the World Trade Organization and the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment that impedes American trade relations with Russia. The Obama administration has portrayed it as little more than overdue Cold War housekeeping while touting the imagined economic benefits for American farmers that could result from freer trade with Russia.
But the reality on the ground in today’s authoritarian Russia is far more complex. We support the repeal, both as leaders of the pro-democracy opposition in Russia and as Russian citizens who want our nation to join the modern global economy. It is essential, however, to see the bigger picture of which Jackson-Vanik is a part.
The “election” of Vladimir Putin to the presidency is over, but the fight for democracy in Russia is just beginning. At both major opposition meetings following the fraudulent March 4 election, we publicly resolved that Mr. Putin is not the legitimate leader of Russia. The protests will not cease and we will continue to organize and prepare for a near future without Mr. Putin in the presidency. Getting rid of him and his cronies is a job for Russians, and we do not ask for foreign intervention. We do, however, ask that the U.S. and other leading nations of the Free World cease to provide democratic credentials to Mr. Putin. This is why symbols matter, and why Jackson-Vanik still matters.
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Stealing the Future in Russia
The Other Russia
The adjective “Orwellian” has become cheap currency in modern political discourse. Liberals and conservatives alike in open democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States enjoy using the term to describe nearly any infringement on civil liberties by the state. Video cameras to deter crime, wiretaps of suspected terrorists, security checks at airports – all have been deemed worthy reference to George Orwell’s masterpiece 1984. As much as I share these concerns, those of us who live in actual police states would prefer to preserve the power of the vocabulary required to describe our circumstances.
The most powerful theme in Orwell’s book is not that of the all-seeing Big Brother, but that of the control and distortion of language, especially in the form of newspeak. Words take on inverted meanings, terms expressing unapproved ideas are eliminated, and human thought itself is curtailed through the reduction and simplification of vocabulary. This attempt to warp reality via information control is not science fiction to anyone brought up on Pravda in the Soviet Union – or anyone living in Putin’s Russia today.
And so, the presidential election of March 4 — the most fraudulent in Russian history — is proclaimed “fair and clean” by the state-controlled media. Peaceful civilian protests are dubbed “extremist provocations” and the riot police who brutally suppress the protestors are “maintaining order.” The public outcry over fraud in the December 4 parliamentary elections was followed by even greater corruption and the preordained reinstallation of a KGB lieutenant colonel who clearly aims to install himself as dictator-for-life.
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Kasparov: “How I ‘Called’ for War on Russia”
Several days ago I spoke at a conference in Washington on the subject of the reset in relations between Russia and the US organized by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which traditionally represents the interests of the Republican Party. The fact that the main presenter was Speaker of the House of Representatives and Republican John Boehner shows how seriously the Republican Party is going to look at this issue during the upcoming electoral cycle. And there is nothing shocking about this. Every other foreign policy issue, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq, is linked in one way or another with the actions of the Bush administration, while the idea for the reset in relations with Russia and the bets that were hedged on Medvedev – or, more specifically, on a split within the tandem – was thought up and materialized by the Obama administration. Putin’s imminent return to the post of president makes obvious the failure of Obama’s attempt to support “liberal modernizers” in the Kremlin, which the Republicans will undoubtedly remind him of before the next election.
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Turning the Chessboard
After the public humiliation of Medvedev on September 24, one would think that even his most devout followers, the ones who tried in vain to find the reform-minded characteristics of a “liberating tsar” in the pale image of Putin’s shadow, had ought to have turned their backs on him. The first one to emerge from their stupor was Sergei Aleksashenko (naturally, the people with the most direct connections to money will react to the operative changes of a situation quicker than others), who decided to refute our image of Medvedev as a weak leader without any willpower. After that, Igor Jurgens told us unabashedly that, regardless of the apocalyptic predictions that he and Yevgeny Gontmakher have been eagerly feeding the Russian press over the course of the past year, life is not going to end after Putin’s return to the Kremlin. “We will continue modernization, because there’s no other option,” – with this phrase, one of the main ideologues of systemic Russian liberalism has once again confirmed that the members of the Institute of Contemporary Development saw the campaign in support of Medvedev as a purely tactical measure related to additional opportunities to influence the situation in the country. Whereas it is impossible for liberals of the court to have strategic differences with the Putin regime.
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Russian Court Sanctions Arrest of Hermitage Executive Cherkasov (updated with corrections)
The Other Russia
Update: This article has been corrected from earlier versions. Please see statement below. We apologize for any misunderstanding.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court has sanctioned a warrant to arrest Hermitage Capital Management executive Ivan Cherkasov in absentia, Gazeta.ru reports.
Interior Ministry investigator Oleg Silchenko had announced on May 3 that he was seeking the arrest of Cherkasov, a colleague of deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who has lived in London since 2006, on the basis that the Hermitage Capital executive has failed to pay 2 billion rubles in taxes.
Cherkasov’s lawyers asked the judge to delay the court hearing for several days to give them time to study court materials and prepare their defense with Cherkasov himself. However, as lawyer Aleksandr Antipov told the BBC’s Russian service, this request was denied with no explanation as to why.
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Play Based on Magnitsky’s Death to Premiere in US
A play based on the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is set to stage its North American premiere in Washington, DC on May 4, 2011.
The play, called “One Hour Eighteen,” is a highly acclaimed production based on excerpts from Magnitsky’s personal diary. As has been the case in Moscow since premiering last June, the play will be followed by a group discussion.
Sergei Magnitsky’s tragic death has become a symbol for those working to further human rights and the rule of law in Russia today. After uncovering a $230 million tax fraud case implicating a variety of Russian officials, bankers, and members of the mob, Magnitsky was arrested and placed in a Moscow detention facility. After eleven months of being denied proper medical care, he died without ever seeing trial in November 2009. What followed was an unprecedented global outcry demanding justice for what, upon closer inspection, appeared to be a case of premeditated murder. While a still-ongoing independent inquiry ordered by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev concluded last week that Magnitsky’s jailing and treatment was illegal, no charges have been filed in the case.
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