Global Premiere for new Sergei Magnitsky film at World Parliaments

November 11, 2010

16 Novem­ber 2010

Unprece­dent­ed World­wide Polit­i­cal and Cul­tur­al Event 
to Protest the Impuni­ty of Russ­ian Offi­cials Who Tor­tured and Mur­dered Anti-Cor­rup­tion Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky

Novem­ber 16^th will mark the one-year anniver­sary of the mur­der in Russ­ian police cus­tody of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer.

To com­mem­o­rate this anniver­sary, the glob­al pre­miere of “Jus­tice for Sergei,” a unique doc­u­men­tary on Magnitsky’s life and trag­ic death, will take place at a num­ber of par­lia­ments around the world, includ­ing the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, Unit­ed King­dom, Ger­many, Esto­nia, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States.

In con­nec­tion with this unprece­dent­ed film launch at par­lia­ments around the world, lead­ing states­men, politi­cians, schol­ars, human rights activists, jour­nal­ists, lawyers and busi­ness­men will join togeth­er for the first time to protest the con­tin­u­ing impuni­ty of Russ­ian state offi­cials who cru­el­ly tor­tured and killed Mag­nit­sky in custody.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, an out­side lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, dis­cov­ered that Russ­ian police were involved in mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing his client’s invest­ment com­pa­nies and lat­er embez­zling $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds through the largest tax refund fraud in Russ­ian his­to­ry. Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied against the state offi­cials involved, and in retal­i­a­tion they arrest­ed him, detained him for 12 months with­out tri­al and tor­tured him in an attempt to force him to retract his tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture, Mag­nit­sky refused to change his tes­ti­mo­ny. He died on 16 Novem­ber 2009 at the age of 37, leav­ing a moth­er, wife and two chil­dren. The new doc­u­men­tary reveals pre­vi­ous­ly unre­leased details of this shock­ing human tragedy.

Com­men­ta­tors at each par­lia­men­tary screen­ing will dis­cuss the leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives under­way in the US, Cana­da and Euro­pean Union coun­tries to deny visas and freeze the assets of the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the cor­rup­tion Mag­nit­sky exposed and his sub­se­quent tor­ture and mur­der in custody.

This will be the first time a world­wide protest has been orga­nized against the impuni­ty of Russ­ian state officials.

See doc­u­men­tary trail­er here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aj2NLFL-lE

See leg­is­la­tion in the U.S. Con­gress, “The Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Act of 2010”:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3881:

World­wide Par­lia­men­tary Screen­ings & Commentators 
16 Novem­ber 2010
(all times list­ed are local)

US Con­gress Participants:

• Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin, Chair­man of the Com­mis­sion on Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe
• Dr. Michael McFaul, Pres­i­dent Obama’s Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Adviser
• Boris Nemtsov, Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader and for­mer Russ­ian Deputy Prime Minister
• David Kramer, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Free­dom House and for­mer US Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State

Loca­tion:       CVC Audi­to­ri­um, Capi­tol Build­ing, Wash­ing­ton DC
Local Time:    3:30pm

Cana­di­an Parliament

• Host: Hon Irwin Cotler MP, for­mer Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Cana­da and coun­sel to pris­on­ers of con­science Nel­son Man­dela and Nathan Sharansky

Loca­tion:       Room 200, West Block, Cana­di­an Par­lia­ment, Ottawa
Time:            5:00pm

UK Par­lia­ment Participants:

• Sir Tony Bren­ton, for­mer UK Ambas­sador to Russia
• Car­la Fer­st­man, Direc­tor, REDRESS, non-prof­it legal/human rights orga­ni­za­tion to help tor­ture survivors
• Edward Lucas, Inter­na­tion­al Edi­tor, The Economist
• William Brow­der, CEO, Her­mitage Capital

Loca­tion:       Grand Com­mit­tee Room, West­min­ster Hall, House of Com­mons, London
Local Time:   6:30pm

Ger­man Bun­destag Participants:

• Mari­na Schus­ter MdB, Mem­ber of the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee and spokesper­son for the Com­mit­tee on Human Rights and Human­i­tar­i­an Aid of the Ger­man Bundestag
• Jami­son Fire­stone, Man­ag­ing Part­ner of Fire­stone Dun­can law firm, Sergei Magnitsky’s for­mer employ­er in Moscow

Loca­tion:       FDP 3^rd floor (Frak­tion­sebene) Reich­stag, Platz der Repub­lik 1, 11011 Berlin
Local Time:   10:00am

Eston­ian Riigikogu Participants:

• Sil­ver Meikar MP, Mem­ber of For­eign Affairs Committee
• Alek­sei Lot­man MP, Head of Green Party
• Astrid Kan­nel, Edi­tor, Eston­ian Nation­al Broad­cast company

Loca­tion:       Room 333, Esto­nia Riigikogu, Los­si plats 1a, Tallinn
Local Time:     12:00 noon

Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Participants:

• Hei­di Hau­ta­la MEP, Chair­woman of Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights
• Kris­ti­ina Oju­land MEP, Mem­ber of Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Rights

Loca­tion:        Yehu­di Menuhin Room, First Floor, PHS Build­ing, Brussels
Local Time:     1:00pm

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