UK Foreign Ministry Releases 2010 Human Rights Report —  Magnitsky Case Highlights Russian Corruption

April 4, 2011

UK For­eign & Com­mon­wealth Says Mag­nit­sky Case Shows Weak Rule of Law and Wide­spread Cor­rup­tion in Rus­sia and Calls for an Inde­pen­dent Investigation

The UK For­eign & Com­mon­wealth Office has named the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer killed in police cus­tody in Moscow, as one of the most seri­ous vio­la­tions of the rule of law and human rights in Rus­sia in its 2010 “Human Rights and Democ­ra­cy” Report pub­lished last week. The 2010 Report high­lights the call by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for EU-wide visa and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions against the Russ­ian offi­cials involved in Magnitsky’s death.

“The inves­ti­ga­tion into the death in pre-tri­al deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky due to inad­e­quate med­ical treat­ment had not con­clud­ed by the end of 2010. On the anniver­sary of his death on 16 Novem­ber, the Prosecutor-General’s Office announced that it was extend­ing the ‘pre­lim­i­nary’ inves­ti­ga­tion until 24 Feb­ru­ary 2011. On the same day, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for sanc­tions against offi­cials involved in Magnitsky’s death to pre­vent them from enter­ing the EU, and to freeze their assets,” said the FCO in the 2010 Report.

The 2010 FCO Report stress­es the lack of any out­come to the state inves­ti­ga­tion into Magnitsky’s death two years ago at the hands of Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials he accused of steal­ing $230 mil­lion of pub­lic funds. The FCO voic­es its sup­port for an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the Mag­nit­sky death being car­ried out by human rights activists.

“No new infor­ma­tion emerged in the inves­ti­ga­tions into the mur­ders of the human rights defend­ers Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemiro­va, or the death in cus­tody of Sergei Magnitsky…During 2010 we sup­port­ed the Social Part­ner­ship Foundation’s work to estab­lish a net­work of inde­pen­dent prison mon­i­tor­ing boards and con­duct an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the Mag­nit­sky case,” stat­ed the FCO in the Report’s sec­tion titled “Human Rights in Coun­tries of Concern.”

The 2010 FCO “Human Rights and Democ­ra­cy” report was pre­sent­ed to the UK Par­lia­ment last Thurs­day, 31 March 2011.

“It [the Report] is intend­ed not only to shine a light on human rights vio­la­tions but to inform our work and shape our future pol­i­cy,” said For­eign Sec­re­tary William Hague address­ing the launch of the 2010 FCO Report.

The 2010 FCO report sum­maris­es the dire state of human rights and the grow­ing cor­rup­tion in Rus­sia, saying:

“Despite some minor reforms and encour­ag­ing pub­lic state­ments about human rights in 2010, there was no evi­dence of sys­temic, far-reach­ing change… Cor­rup­tion remains a wide­spread fea­ture of Russ­ian soci­ety… Trans­paren­cy International’s 2010 Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index ranked Rus­sia 154 out of 178 coun­tries. They also report­ed that 53% of Rus­sians believe that cor­rup­tion had increased in the coun­try over the past three years. Russia’s Pres­i­den­tial Anti-Cor­rup­tion Coun­cil made lit­tle impact in 2010…”

In total, the 2010 FCO Report fea­tures 26 coun­tries that present the most seri­ous and wide‑ranging human rights con­cerns and that had received tar­get­ed human rights engage­ment by the FCO in 2010.

Full text of the FCO Human Rights and Democ­ra­cy Report:
http://s3-eu-west‑1.amazonaws.com/htcdn/Human-Rights-and-Democracy-The-2010-Foreign-Commonwealth-Report.pdf

Address by William Hague
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=Speech&id=576187382

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