Posts Tagged ‘huffington post’
Why This Russian Criminal Case Matters to Canada
On Tuesday, the Canadian Parliament will hear testimony concerning the torture and tragic death in detention of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered the largest corporate tax fraud in Russian history, identified the senior Russian perpetrators, and paid for it with his life. His story is one of great moral courage and heroism, and his saga shines a spotlight on the pervasive culture of repression, corruption and impunity implicating senior government officials in Russia today.
Working as a tax attorney for Hermitage Capital Management in Moscow, an international investment fund founded by CEO William Browder — who will be the main witness at Parliamentary hearings today — Magnitsky blew the whistle on widespread Russian government corruption, involving officials from six senior Russian ministries.
The officials he testified against then arranged for his arrest and detention — and for the subsequent cover-up of their criminality — beginning a nightmare in which he was thrown into a prison cell without bail or trial, and systematically tortured for one year in an attempt to force him to retract his testimony.
Despite the intense physical and psychological pain Sergei Magnitsky endured at the hands of his captors, he refused to perjure himself, even as his health deteriorated. Denied medical care for the last six months of his detention, he died in excruciating circumstances at the age of 37, having developed a severe pancreatic condition while being held in the Butyrka prison, a notorious Czarist-era jail that also that also held Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Raoul Wallenberg.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
One Hour and Eighteen Minutes
With the wave of oligarchs that continue to flock to London to battle out their grievances, sadly embezzlement scandals and corruption are associations we regularly make with Russia nowadays.
As Russia’s recent accession to the WTO has brought corruption in the country under renewed scrutiny, a play showing at London’s New Diorama Theatre has also shed new light on the lesser-known aspects of the Russian judicial system.
One Hour and Eighteen Minutes, written by Elena Gremina and translated by Noah Birksted-Breen looks at the run-up to the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison cell in 2009, having been arrested after he stumbled across a cover-up by state officials to embezzle an estimated $230m (£146m) from the Russian treasury.
The timing of the play couldn’t be more poignant since on Friday 16 November the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, which will impose visa sanctions and asset freezes on 60 Russian officials implicated in Magnitksy’s death.
At the same time the House of Representatives also voted in favour of a law to grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), which will repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, a hangover from Cold War times when the US decided to prevent a number of countries that restricted the emigration of their citizens from enjoying PNTR.
The US House Ways and Means Committee approved both laws in July, but the House of Representatives’ vote was postponed in August for a range of unclear and arguably inexplicable reasons.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Foreign Policy Questions for the Candidates
The spirited exchange at last Thursday’s vice presidential debate elevated attention to foreign policy, which will be a dominant theme of the next two debates. President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney have begun to flesh out their views on the challenges America faces abroad, but they have said little about a range of pressing international issues and skirted critical aspects of stories that currently grab the news headlines. In an effort to stimulate deeper debate on U.S. foreign policy, particularly on the future of democracy and human rights around the world, Freedom House submits the following questions to the presidential candidates:
Strategic Countries
1. To President Obama: How does your stated commitment to prevent mass atrocities apply to Syria? The death toll has passed 30,000, and the Syrian regime continues to bomb civilians. Moreover, the regime has crossed the red line you set against moving chemical weapons. At what point do you think more forceful U.S. measures will be needed to stop the killing in Syria?
2. To Governor Romney: You have criticized the Obama administration’s record on supporting human rights in China and pledged to vigorously engage Chinese civil society groups that promote democratic reform. How would your support for democracy advocates in China differ from President Obama’s?
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
USAID Expulsion Means the End of “Reset”
On September 18 the U.S. announced that they are shutting down USAID activities in Russia at a request of the Russian government. All operations will have to stop by October 1. In a short statement, the Department of State celebrated accomplishments of AID’s work in the country over the last 20 years and promised to continue cooperation with Russian NGOs.
The reason for Kremlin’s actions are clear. As domestic unrest continues in Russia, the regime is looking for ways to silence the increasingly vocal civil society. Organizations that USAID has been supporting observe elections, investigate corruption and human rights abuses, and expose many other problems that have driven tens of thousands to protest during the last year.
Unsurprisingly, Vladimir Putin’s regime is determined to cut sources of funding for these NGOs. The business community is afraid to be involved in “politics” (however broad the definition of it may be), fearing to share the fate of oil-tycoon-turned-philanthropist-turned-political-prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and government grants are not an option. So there isn’t much choice for civil society organizations other than to raise funds from foreign donors. There is also a growing trend to attract small donations via the Internet (a.k.a. crowdfunding), but not every initiative can be sustained that way.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russia Bills Fall Victim to America’s Broken Political Process
In spite of the fact that the U.S. economy continues to suffer and Europe is imploding, the U.S. Congress has left Washington for its traditional five-week summer recess. Among the plethora of legislation that Congress failed to address prior to its departure were two bills concerning Russia — the establishment of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) and the ‘Magnitsky Act.’ This failure means that the review of these bills will not take place until next month at the earliest — when Congress has only eight working days — or perhaps even during its ‘lame duck’ session following the November elections. Many business stakeholders and politicians from across the country have expressed concern that the failure to pass the Russia PNTR legislation would have grave consequences for U.S. manufacturers and further complicate strained Russia/U.S. relations.
The PNTR bill is being addressed at a crucial time, with Russia becoming a member of the WTO on Aug. 22. Many U.S. companies believe that with more than 140 million consumers and a rapidly growing middle class, Russia will provide an expanding marketplace for U.S. goods and services. According to the President’s Export Council, U.S. exports to Russia rose by 40 percent in 2011 to around $11 billion, and it is projected to double within five years. Following its accession to the WTO, Russia will have to comply with WTO rules on reducing tariffs, applying nondiscriminatory treatment to imports, eliminating export subsidies and adhering to intellectual property rights and digital trade laws — areas that previously concerned U.S. businesses. As a founding member of the WTO, the US will not be required to make any trade adjustments.
The PNTR bill will also address the concerns of some policymakers in Washington by including additional provisions regarding the promotion of the rule of law in Russia. Some provisions advocate the specific protection of American investors, particularly supporting the claims of some investors in the Yukos Oil Company — once Russia’s largest company — that was dismantled and sold by the first Putin administration. Others encourage anti-bribery measures by promoting the expansion of civil society organizations in monitoring and reporting suspected instances of corruption. While major political concerns seem to have been addressed in the bill, U.S. business representatives still fear that the bill will not be passed into law before the presidential elections, putting American companies at a disadvantage in the Russian market.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
The Magnitsky Act and Implications for Russia-U.S. Relations
Throughout the Cold War the U.S. Congress sought to penalize the Soviet Union for its human rights record. Legislation such as the Jackson-Vanik amendment became a long-term influence on bilateral trade between the two countries. That tradition was reinvigorated this past week, when the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, in a rare example of bipartisanship. This has potentially important implications for future of bilateral trade with Russia, which is expected to join the World Trade Organization later this year. Passage of the Act just prior to President Obama’s meeting with President Putin in Mexico this coming week adds greater complexity to the cooling bilateral relationship between Russia and the U.S., and enhances the prospect of further deterioration.
The Act is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer representing Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund and asset management company that was dismantled by Russian authorities after it was accused of tax evasion. Magnitsky implicated top officials in a $230 million tax refund fraud against the Russian government. In 2008 he was arrested and died in prison after spending a year in pretrial detention; the case against him is ongoing posthumously. The U.S. State Department issued visa bans on several dozen Russian officials in connection to the Magnitsky case in 2011. Russia imposed travel bans on several U.S. officials in response.
After the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s approval of the bill, two additional committees (most likely the finance and judiciary committees since it deals with financial sanctions and criminal prosecution) must approve the bill or waive jurisdiction. Once passed in the House, the Senate is expected to introduce its own version of the bill for review.
The Obama administration has been opposed to the Act for two reasons, arguing that it will put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage in Russia, making it harder for them to compete, and possibly prompting the Russian government to favor non-U.S. suppliers or freeze U.S. corporate assets in the country. Adoption of the Act may also be inconsistent, if not oppositional, to another bill, which would grant Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) as required under WTO rules.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Pass the Magnitsky Bill
I don’t often agree with Elliott Abrams against the Obama Administration — but the Magnitsky bill creates strange bedfellows.
The bill is named after a young Russian lawyer, who was tortured and died in prison for trying to blow the whistle on government fraud. It would impose travel bans to the U.S. and financial sanctions on anyone responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross violations of human-rights against individuals trying to defend human rights or who are seeking to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Russian government.
Sounds pretty important in a country that has become one of the leading murderers of journalists, and that is trail blazing the 21st century version of authoritarianism at home, and support for noxious regimes like Syria abroad. And by pinpointing sanctions against those carrying out abuse, it takes a page out of the smart sanctions book that has improved our leverage against countries by letting us target the real wrongdoers, not the general public.
But the Magnitsky bill is even more vital. The Administration wants Russia to join the World Trade Organization. To do that, we need to drop the Cold War Jackson-Vanik legislation that tied trade to allowing Jews and those persecuted by the former Soviet Union to emigrate — since linking issues that way is against WTO rules. This bill lets us get at human rights in Russia another way.
The Administration isn’t supportive — and that’s a real missed opportunity. Research on organizations like the WTO show that they allow outside countries to exercise immense leverage on domestic issues — but only during the negotiation stage. In other words, we can use the WTO to push Russia for some real reforms in its rule of law — but as soon as they are in, we lose that leverage.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
A Sobering Look Inside Putin’s Russia
Vaclav Havel was stooped and frail last week when he opened his annual Forum 2000 at the glittering Zofin palace beneath Prague Castle. While the voice of the iconic former Czech president is weakened by illness and the burden of 75 years, through these yearly events Havel still speaks truth to power.
Several speakers, most prominently opposition politicians Gregory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov, painted a grim picture of a corrupted Russia groaning under the weight of a tyranny only slightly less cruel than in Soviet times. The 59-year old Yavlinski, whose Yabloko party will participate in December’s parliamentary elections, said Russia has neither rule of law nor property rights. “The judiciary,” he said, “is controlled by the ruling elite and money.”
Nemtsov, a leader of the People’s Freedom Party, said that by orchestrating a return to the presidency, “Putin has decided to be president for life.” He accused the Russian leader “of keeping totalitarianism to protect corruption.” Putin’s friends, he continued are the “crony capitalists” who have plundered state assets and safely deposited that ill-gotten wealth outside of Russia. Nemtsov, a deputy prime minister in 1997-1998, has been arrested three times this year. The Kremlin refuses to register his party, which is thus unable to contest the Duma elections.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
