US Senate Committee to Hold Hearing on Magnitsky Law and Russia Policy

December 14, 2011

In response to the dete­ri­o­rat­ing human rights sit­u­a­tion and par­lia­men­tary fraud in Rus­sia, the Sen­ate is mov­ing for­ward with the Sergei Mag­nit­sky bill. Today, the U.S. Senate’s Sub­com­mit­tee on Euro­pean Affairs will hold a hear­ing to dis­cuss U.S. pol­i­cy options towards Rus­sia, includ­ing the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act which will leg­is­late visa and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on human rights abusers in Russia. 

Today’s hear­ing will be presided by Sen­a­tor Jeanne Sha­heen, chair of the Sen­ate Sub­com­mit­tee and one of the co-spon­sors of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky bill.

David Kramer, pres­i­dent of Free­dom House and for­mer Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Democ­ra­cy, Human Rights and Labor, who is one of the advo­cates of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, will speak at the hearing.
“The point is to make clear to Russ­ian offi­cials that if you don’t mur­der jour­nal­ists, lawyers, and oppo­nents or engage in oth­er gross human rights abus­es, then you have noth­ing to fear from the bill,” said Mr Kramer.

26 U.S. sen­a­tors are now co-spon­sor­ing the ‘Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty’ leg­is­la­tion which was intro­duced in May by the co-chair of the U.S. Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion, Sen­a­tor Ben­jamin Cardin. After today’s hear­ing at the Sen­ate Sub­com­mit­tee, the next step for the bill is the con­sid­er­a­tion by the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee chaired by Sen­a­tor John Kerry.

Ear­li­er Sen­a­tor Ker­ry stat­ed his sup­port for the visa sanc­tions on Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case that had been inde­pen­dent­ly imposed by the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion in July.

“Respect for human rights is a cor­ner­stone of our for­eign pol­i­cy. The com­mit­tee is deeply con­cerned about what hap­pened to Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and I strong­ly sup­port the administration’s deci­sion to use its author­i­ty to bar human-rights abusers from com­ing to the U.S.”
“The bill caused the State Depart­ment to ban cer­tain Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the Mag­nit­sky case, though this is not suf­fi­cient, and these indi­vid­u­als should also be added to an asset-freeze list,” said David Kramer.
“The only way to have seri­ous inves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions in the Mag­nit­sky or oth­er cas­es — and to go beyond prison offi­cials but to include Min­istry of Inte­ri­or offi­cials who were respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s incar­cer­a­tion in the first place — is to keep the pres­sure on and pass the bill,” said David Kramer.
Co-spon­sors of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky bill, U.S. sen­a­tors Jeanne Sha­heen (D‑NH), Joe Lieber­man (I‑CT) and John McCain (R‑AZ) released last week a state­ment on the unrest fol­low­ing the Russ­ian elections: 

“We con­demn the sweep­ing arrests of hun­dreds of oppo­si­tion lead­ers, jour­nal­ists, and human rights activists in Rus­sia and the use of vio­lence against peace­ful pro­test­ers by Russ­ian secu­ri­ty forces… The protests under­way in Rus­sia right now are in response to the bla­tant fraud that char­ac­ter­ized Sun­day’s elec­tion in Rus­sia, which, accord­ing to the inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al elec­tion observers, clear­ly vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and Rus­si­a’s own laws.”
The judges in Moscow who sanc­tioned the arrests of Russ­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ures protest­ing the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion fraud have been involved in the wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and denial to him of life-sav­ing med­ical care and are includ­ed on the list issued by the U.S. Helsin­ki Com­mis­sion last April, known as the Mag­nit­sky list.
“In the absence of account­abil­i­ty and rule of law in Rus­sia, Amer­i­can and Euro­pean par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have made it clear that if Russ­ian offi­cials engage in major human rights abus­es, they and their imme­di­ate fam­i­lies can­not enjoy the priv­i­lege of trav­el­ing to, liv­ing or study­ing in the West, or doing their bank­ing in West­ern finan­cial insti­tu­tions,” explained David Kramer the ratio­nale for the bill.
“Threats from Russ­ian offi­cials that pas­sage of the Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion would sink the reset pol­i­cy and end coop­er­a­tion on issues such as Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan are hol­low. Rus­sia pre­sum­ably is coop­er­at­ing with us on these strate­gic chal­lenges because it is in their inter­est to do so, not because they’re doing us favors,” said David Kramer about Russia’s response.
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Details for the US Sen­ate Sub­com­mit­tee on Euro­pean Affairs Hearing
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=08d381d8-5056-a032-52d2-1c872efe21b0

The State of Human Rights and Rule of Law in Rus­sia: U.S. Pol­i­cy Options
10:00 AM Wednes­day, Decem­ber 14, 2011
419 Sen­ate Dirk­sen Office Building

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