Posts Tagged ‘washington post’
Russia bans entry to unnamed US officials in response to US blacklist tied to Magnitsky death
Russia has banned entry to U.S. officials allegedly involved in killings and abductions, a strong response to Washington’s blacklisting of Russian officials involved in the prison death of a whistleblower.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday it was blacklisting unspecified U.S. officials it claims were involved in the abductions of alleged terrorism suspects, the torture of inmates at Guantanamo prison, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the abductions or abuse of Russians in the United States. It did not say how many U.S. officials were affected.
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U.S. reset with Russia at new stage as officials meet with human rights activists
Michael Posner got up at 4 a.m. in Moscow, bound for this Volga River city where he began filling a yellow spiral notebook with stories of newspapers silenced, human rights advocates threatened and political parties repressed as the United States prepares for a new chapter in its relations with Russia.
Call it reset 2.0.
Posner, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, describes the task as moving decisively to another level in an area where the United States has not made visible progress.
On a trip to Russia that began Monday and ended Saturday, Posner visited Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan, asking activists and opposition politicians what the United States could or should be doing to better support their efforts. He listened, took notes, asked questions and answered even more.
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Give the next Russian ambassador a powerful tool to guard human rights
Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Michael McFaul as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia highlights one of three steps that Congress should take this fall related to Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.
The Senate should confirm McFaul, who has served as President Obama’s top adviser on Russia at the National Security Council. Second, both the House and Senate should waive the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which deals with emigration of Soviet Jews as it applies to Russia, and third, they should replace it with an up-to-date bill that would sanction Russian officials responsible for gross human rights abuses. These moves would strengthen McFaul’s hand as he heads to Moscow.
Notwithstanding some serious concerns we have had with Obama’s “reset” policy — we think the administration has oversold its successes, essentially ignored Russia’s neighbors and done too little on human rights concerns — McFaul is a renowned Russia expert, a strong proponent of democracy promotion (he recently wrote a book on the subject) and deserves the Senate’s support.
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The genius of Vladimir Putin
There is one incontestably great actor on the world stage today, and he has no interest in following our script. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — soon to be Russia’s president again — has proven remarkably effective at playing the weak strategic hand he inherited, chalking up triumph after triumph while confirming himself as the strong leader Russians crave. Not one of his international peers evidences so profound an understanding of his or her people, or possesses Putin’s canny ability to size up counterparts.
Putin’s genius — and it is nothing less — begins with an insight into governance that eluded the “great” dictators of the last century: You need control only public life, not personal lives. Putin grasped that human beings need to let off steam about the world’s ills, and that letting them do so around the kitchen table, over a bottle of vodka, does no harm to the state. His tacit compact with the Russian people is that they may do or say what they like behind closed doors, as long as they don’t take it into the streets. He saw that an authoritarian state that stops at the front door is not only tolerable but also more efficient.
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Russia’s corruptionism
WE’D LIKE TO CONGRATULATE Vladimir Putin on his exciting, come-from-behind victory to become Russia’s next president. After barnstorming across steppe and taiga, presenting a detailed program for the next six years, Mr. Putin won the enthusiastic support of —
Oh, no, wait. That’s not how things work in Russia today. Actually, the story is simpler: Vladimir Putin decided that he would like to be president again, and so he will be.
This may be good news for Dmitry Medvedev, the hapless incumbent whom Mr. Putin installed in the Kremlin in 2008, after Mr. Putin already had served eight years as president. Mr. Medvedev, who had to pretend to lead while Mr. Putin ran the show, can subside into a No. 2 post (prime minister) more suited to his character and to reality.
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Lawyer’s Mother Takes on Russian Officials
Nearly two years after her son died in custody, a slight, 59-year-old retired teacher is confronting the powerful officials who put him in prison and oversaw the system that has been blamed for his death.
Natalya Magnitskaya has avoided public attention since her only child, Sergei L. Magnitsky, died in pre-trial detention. Working for an American law firm in Moscow, he had uncovered a $230 million tax fraud and accused police of the crime. The very officers he testified against soon arrested him and charged him with the fraud.
Now, despairing that those who caused his death will ever be prosecuted, Natalya Magnitskaya has filed an official complaint with Russia’s Investigative Committee, asking for a murder investigation of Russia’s chief prosecutor, deputy interior minister and other police, security and prison officials.
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US bans Russian officials linked to Magnitsky death: report
The Washington Post has a scoop today saying that the US State Department has put Russian officials connected to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on a visa blacklist.
Magnitsky’s colleagues have long been pushing for the move. In May, Senator Benjamin Cardin introduced a bill that would impose sanctions on 60 officials involved in Magnitsky’s death, but, according to the Washington Post, the US State Department unilaterally adopted the move.
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U.S. puts Russian officials on visa blacklist
The U.S. State Department has quietly put Russian officials connected to the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on a visa blacklist as Moscow threatens to curtail cooperation on Iran, North Korea, Libya and the transit of supplies for Afghanistan if the Senate passes a measure imposing even tougher sanctions for human rights abuses.
The Russian government has grown ever more infuriated by a series of international reprimands over the case of the 37-year-old lawyer who died a painful death in pretrial detention, and it has complained that other countries are interfering in its domestic affairs.
The European Parliament, Canada and the Netherlands are moving toward their own visa bans for a list of 60 Russians involved in the case. The United States, however, is the first to have an active blacklist for the Russians, although senior U.S. officials say it has fewer than 60 names.
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Russia blames doctors, not police, in death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
Russian authorities, under persistent international pressure to charge police officials in the pretrial detention death of a 37-year-old lawyer, on Monday blamed prison doctors instead.
Human rights activists, colleagues of Sergei Magnitsky and even U.S. senators have urged Russia to call Interior Ministry officials to account for arresting, prosecuting and then denying medical treatment to Magnitsky, who died in custody in November 2009.
But on Monday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, told the Interfax news agency that doctors would be prosecuted because of “flaws” in treatment that caused Magnitsky’s death.
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