Magnitsky’s Mother and Widow Along with 54 Famous Politicians, Human Rights Activists and Victims Call for European Magnitsky Sanctions at UK Book Launch of Magnitsky Book Tomorrow

November 4, 2013

The wid­ow and moth­er of late whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky along with 54 famous politi­cians, human rights activists and vic­tims of human rights abus­es are call­ing on politi­cians to imple­ment Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions in Europe.
In the open­ing word to the new book, “Why Europe Needs a Mag­nit­sky Law?”, Magnitsky’s moth­er Natalia urges Euro­pean politi­cians to show courage, like her son had done despite being tor­tured in cus­tody, and to enact the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions across the Euro­pean Union, sim­i­lar to the law adopt­ed last year in the Unit­ed States:
“My son’s life was short… He chose not to com­pro­mise him­self and paid for that with his life… I do not believe that the law adopt­ed in the US is anti-Russ­ian, but that it intro­duces tar­get­ed restric­tions for cer­tain peo­ple fail­ing to respect human rights and that this is fair, even if insuf­fi­cient, pun­ish­ment for them. And I hope the coun­tries of the Euro­pean Union will find the courage to fol­low the US.”
The Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions com­prise visa bans and asset freezes on indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for Mr Magnitsky’s ill-treat­ment and killing, the cov­er up of his death in cus­tody, and oth­er human rights vio­la­tions. The sanc­tions have been imposed in the US under the “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act” which were approved with an over­whelm­ing bi-par­ti­san major­i­ty in the U.S. Con­gress and signed by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma into law on 14 Decem­ber 2012.

The book launch in the UK is host­ed by British MP Dominic Raab, one of the book’s con­trib­u­tors, and by Fair Tri­als Inter­na­tion­al, the jus­tice orga­ni­za­tion for false­ly accused, and Arti­cle 19, an orga­ni­za­tion fight­ing for free­dom of expres­sion and infor­ma­tion. The book makes an emo­tive and ratio­nal case for why the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions must now be imple­ment­ed in Europe.

Robert Buck­land, MP, in his con­tri­bu­tion to the book speaks of the moral duty to act:

“It is our right as a free coun­try to …oper­ate our bor­ders in a way that we see fit. That is why it is now time for visa restric­tions, at the very least, to be enact­ed against the Russ­ian offi­cials in this case…In my eyes, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly, we have a moral duty to do what we can…in the absence of such moral lead­er­ship by the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, we must send a clear mes­sage to those impli­cat­ed in this scan­dal that it will not go unnoticed.”

Dominic Raab, MP, who ini­ti­at­ed the Mag­nit­sky motion in the British Parliament’s Back­bench Com­mit­tee, says it is in the UK’s inter­ests to pro­tect its bor­ders and its finan­cial sys­tem from Russ­ian crime:

“We should try and pro­tect our­selves from the spillover effect of these [Russ­ian] crimes, and the idea of hav­ing visa bans and asset freezes is, in a sense, quite mod­est. We’re not say­ing that we can arrest peo­ple for com­mit­ting these appalling crimes in Rus­sia, just that they can’t trav­el to UK or invest their mon­ey here.”

Magnitsky’s wid­ow, Natalia, writes in the con­clu­sion to the book of her fam­i­ly hor­ror that lasts to this day, four years after the killing of her husband:

“I still remem­ber with hor­ror that ter­ri­ble day, which divid­ed our lives into “before” and “after”, and I still keep think­ing back to the tragedy that we expe­ri­enced and con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence today…I still find it hard to believe that this hap­pened to my hus­band, that this hap­pened to our fam­i­ly, and this even hap­pened in our time, in the 21^st century.”

The new 299-page book was the brain­child of a Russ­ian-French jour­nal­ist Ele­na Servet­taz. It is a pow­er­ful col­lec­tion of 54 essays by Euro­pean, U.S. and Cana­di­an law­mak­ers, Russ­ian human rights and civ­il soci­ety activists and vic­tims of human rights abuse. The rel­a­tives of high-pro­file vic­tims of human rights abuse in Rus­sia speak in the book, includ­ing the daugh­ter of Anna Politkovsksaya, the Russ­ian jour­nal­ist killed in 2006 in her apart­ment build­ing after expos­ing human rights abus­es in Chech­nya, the father of Nadezh­da Tolokon­niko­va, a singer of Pussy Riot punk group, sen­tenced in 2012 to two years in penal colony fol­low­ing a sev­er­al-sec­onds long anti-Putin protest in a Russ­ian church, and Mari­na Litvi­nenko, the wid­ow of Alexan­der Litvi­nenko poi­soned in Lon­don with radioac­tive polo­ni­um in 2006. 

Vera Politkovskaya, daugh­ter of Anna Politkovskaya, said:

“This [the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions] is the only way to fight these peo­ple [Russ­ian offi­cials “feed­ing off” the regime] and the defence­lesss­ness of the absolute major­i­ty of the Russ­ian citizens.”

“Tar­get­ed indi­vid­ual sanc­tions is the least the West can do to uphold its val­ues and help those who do not have the legal pro­tec­tions of a democ­ra­cy,” said Mari­na Litvinenko.

Ele­na Servet­taz, the edi­tor of “Why Europe Needs a Mag­nit­sky Law?”, said: 

“I am very hap­py that the launch of this book will take place in the British Par­lia­ment which has proved many times that issues of cor­rup­tion and human rights real­ly do mat­ter… You will find here direct tes­ti­mo­ny from Russ­ian cit­i­zens who have wit­ness and faced injus­tice, prison terms and even mur­der. But above all, you will find here the ideas of those who are con­vinced that the Mag­nit­sky Law in Europe is the only way to ensure such hor­rif­ic events nev­er hap­pen again.” 

The new Mag­nit­sky book is avail­able free of charge by con­tact­ing the edi­tor at: magnitskybook@gmail.com and will be down­load­able online at: www.magnitskybook.com.

The book launch will take place tomor­row at noon at the British par­lia­ment and at 6:30 pm at the Free Word Cen­tre (http://www.freewordcentre.com/info/visiting-us/) where it is host­ed by Fair Tri­als Inter­na­tion­al and Arti­cle 19 with con­tri­bu­tion from Eng­lish PEN.

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