New Poll Results Show that 44% of Russians Support Foreign Sanctions Against Officials in Magnitsky Case

August 31, 2011

Accord­ing to a new pub­lic opin­ion poll pub­lished by the Lev­a­da Cen­ter, 44% of Rus­sians sup­port US and EU sanc­tions against Russ­ian offi­cials in the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund who was false­ly arrest­ed and tor­tured to death in police cus­tody after he had exposed a cor­rupt scheme through which in excess of $230 mil­lion had been stolen by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Only 3% of Rus­sians strong­ly oppose such sanctions.

The results of the new poll show a sub­stan­tial increase in the num­ber of Rus­sians who are aware of the Mag­nit­sky case and those who believe that the denial of med­ical care to him by offi­cials in cus­tody was inten­tion­al. The pre­vi­ous poll by the Lev­a­da Cen­ter was held a year ago, using the same Rus­sia-wide rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of 1600 respondents.

The com­par­i­son of the two poll results show that the share of those who heard of the Mag­nit­sky case has increased in the last year from 22% tо 42%. The share of those who are well informed about the Mag­nit­sky case has risen from 6% to 15%. 

In the last year, the share of Rus­sians who believe that the denial of Sergei Magnitsky’s med­ical care in cus­tody was delib­er­ate has gone from 41% to 60%. Con­verse­ly, the share of respon­dents who think the denial of med­ical care was coin­ci­den­tal has gone from 11% to 5%. The share of those who remain uncer­tain on this mat­ter has gone from 48% to 36%. 

The new sur­vey shows that very few believe that there will be an open and trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion into the Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cers impli­cat­ed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky in the theft of $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds. Only 3% of Rus­sians believe that such a trans­par­ent inves­ti­ga­tion will ever take place. Anoth­er 16% think it is “more like­ly than not” that it will take place. At the same time 34% think it is “rather unlike­ly” that such inves­ti­ga­tion will be launched, and anoth­er 16% believe there will nev­er be such an investigation.

A year ago, 33% of Rus­sians thought that the intro­duc­tion of EU and US sanc­tions against Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case would be an effec­tive or rather effec­tive mea­sure to fight Russ­ian cor­rup­tion. This year, the share of Rus­sians sup­port­ing EU and US sanc­tions in Mag­nit­sky case has increased to 44%. Only 3% of Rus­sians are strong­ly against such sanc­tions, anoth­er 10% have a more neg­a­tive than pos­i­tive view towards such sanc­tions, 44% remain undecided.

Source:
Lev­a­da Cen­ter Pub­lic Opin­ion Polls on Mag­nit­sky Case

17 – 21 Sep­tem­ber 2010: http://www.levada.ru/press/2010100505.html
19 – 23 August 2011: http://www.levada.ru/press/2011082904.html

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