19 May 2016 – Fol­low­ing yesterday’s approval of the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights bill by the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tors Cardin and McCain called on the House speaker to swiftly bring it to a vote.

 

“For too long in too many coun­tries, per­pe­tra­tors of human rights vio­la­tions and grand cor­rup­tion have not been held to account for their crimes and yet con­tinue to enjoy travel and finan­cial priv­i­leges in the United States. With today’s House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee pas­sage of the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights and Account­abil­ity Act, we are one step closer to pre­vent­ing such impunity, — said Sen­a­tors Ben Cardin and John McCain in a joint state­ment. — We …call on Speaker Ryan to ensure a full House vote on Global Mag­nit­sky with­out delay.”

 

Cardin and McCain, the two orig­i­nal co-sponsors of the Global Mag­nit­sky bill, spoke about the impor­tance ofSergei Magnitsky’s legacy.

 

“The bill is named for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who has the unfor­tu­nate dis­tinc­tion of serv­ing as a prime exam­ple of the cor­rupt, hor­rific crimes that befall count­less inno­cent peo­ple world­wide. Mr. Mag­nit­sky lost his life for sim­ply doing his job and try­ing to do the right thing when he dis­cov­ered wide­spread fraud and abuse of power in Rus­sia. Just like Mag­nit­sky, human rights defend­ers are vic­tim­ized and stig­ma­tized around the globe,” said sen­a­tors Cardin and McCain.

 

The House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee rejected an amend­ment pro­posed by 68-year old Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabacher seek­ing to remove the name of Mag­nit­sky from the Global Human Rights bill. To jus­tify his amend­ment, Con­gress­man Rohrabacher claimed he could not fig­ure out who stole US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get – Sergei Mag­nit­sky or Russ­ian offi­cials. This is despite the fact that the money has been found in the accounts of Russ­ian offi­cials and their fam­i­lies and most recently, through the Panama Papers, on account of Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.

 

Other Con­gress­men firmly rejected Con­gress­man Rohrabacher’s amend­ment describ­ing it as an unac­cept­able attempt to “rewrite history.”

 

Con­gress­man Con­nolly said that it was impor­tant to call out behav­iour of Pres­i­dent Putin which did not adhere to inter­na­tional norms, “whether in Crimea or in a prison cell.”

 

Russ­ian vet­eran human rights defender Lud­mila Alex­eeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, sent a mes­sage to mem­bers of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee ahead of the mark up, stating:

 

“Con­gress­man Dana Rohrabacher has been fooled by the Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion, and has argued that the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky be dropped from the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Bill. To do this would be a gross betrayal of the human rights move­ment, and of the legacy of Sergei Mag­nit­sky who had sto­ically sac­ri­ficed his life in con­fronting cor­rup­tion and offi­cial abuse in Rus­sia. … To remove his name from the Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights bill would be a sell­out of vic­tims of oppres­sion and abuse every­where around the world, whom Serge Mag­nit­sky has given hope, and of the prin­ci­ples of integrity he had paid with his life.”

 

Dur­ing the mark-up, con­gress­man Engel said the Global Mag­nit­sky bill would show to all that human rights abuse and cor­rup­tion can­not go on with impunity:

 

“This leg­is­la­tion would send a pow­er­ful mes­sage that human-rights abusers and cor­rup­tion aren’t just inter­nal mat­ters.  They are the con­cern of all coun­tries, and they should not be per­mit­ted to go on with impunity.”

 

On the eve of the Global Mag­nit­sky bill’s mark-up, Russ­ian author­i­ties announced a new crim­i­nal case against Alexei Navalny, the Russ­ian anti-corruption activist and Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions sup­porter. The new case was opened in response to a com­plaint from ex police offi­cer Pavel Kar­pov, who has been sanc­tioned by the US and the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for his role in Mag­nit­sky case.

 

Last month, the Russ­ian author­i­ties also announced another crim­i­nal probe opened on another spu­ri­ous appli­ca­tion of Pavel Kar­pov against Alexei Navalny and William Brow­der for mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Russ­ian police cus­tody, as part of a CIA plan.

 

“The rea­son for the most recent attack on civil soci­ety lead­ers and out­burst of the Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion on the Mag­nit­sky case is the fear of cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials to not be able to enjoy the fruits of their cor­rup­tion in the West as a result of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions. To fight the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions, they use fab­ri­cated crim­i­nal cases, and dis­in­for­ma­tion both inside the coun­try and in the West. Russ­ian civil soci­ety lead­ers and inde­pen­dent media have been almost com­pletely shut down, while the Russ­ian pop­u­la­tion is fed a diet of myths and dis­in­for­ma­tion,”said William Brow­der, a leader of the global jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky move­ment and author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.”

 

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who exposed the theft of US$230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian bud­get and gave tes­ti­mony impli­cat­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials, was arrested and killed in Moscow deten­tion cen­ter in Novem­ber 2009. Those respon­si­ble for his death and those he exposed for the US$230 mil­lion theft have not been brought to justice.

 

Global Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­ity Act passed the U.S. Sen­ate vote in Decem­ber 2015.

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

http://www.billbrowder.com/

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