Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Why the Foreign Ministry Should Keep Quiet

The Moscow Times

Those nostalgic about the Soviet Union got a nice treat on Oct. 22 when the Foreign Ministry released its report on U.S. human rights violations. Reading just a few pages of the report was enough to bring back memories of the “Ikh Nravy” (Their Morals) series that appeared for nearly a decade in Soviet newspapers and on television, harping on U.S. poverty, crime, homelessness, unemployment, the exploitation of the working class, racism and other “human rights violations.”

The 60-page Foreign Ministry report is a response to the U.S. State Department’s human rights report. Russia’s message: The U.S. has no moral grounds for criticizing Russia on its rights record.

Using a crude strategy that dates back to the Soviet period, Russia’s report tries to shift focus away from its own rights abuses by saying the U.S. government is guilty of the same, or even worse, violations.

This is a favorite tactic of the Kremlin. For example, when the West criticized the state’s takeover of Yukos, President Vladimir Putin said the case differed little from the Enron corruption scandal. When the West criticized Russia for the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky in pretrial detention, Putin said during an RT interview in September that the U.S. is just as guilty because its government executes convicted criminals. When the West criticizes Russia for kidnapping opposition leader Leonid Razvozzhayev in Ukraine, supporters of the Russian government say the U.S. kidnapped Viktor Bout in Thailand.