Parliamentarians from 13 Countries Pledge to Advance Magnitsky Sanctions Worldwide

November 11, 2013

In a pow­er­ful mul­ti-coun­try move, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from 13 coun­tries have pledged their sup­port to fur­ther the Mag­nit­sky cause and Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions around the world. Those sanc­tions include tar­get­ed visa bans and asset freezes on the Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as well as oth­er gross human rights abusers. 
The new­ly formed Inter-par­lia­men­tary Group formed under the title “Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky” will hold its inau­gur­al meet­ing at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on 13 Novem­ber 2013.
“The Mag­nit­sky case has come to rep­re­sent all that’s wrong with Putin’s Rus­sia. By form­ing the inter-par­lia­men­tary group on the Mag­nit­sky case, we hope to give expres­sion to the best ini­tia­tives from par­lia­ments around the world and imple­ment them across the coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed by par­lia­men­tar­i­ans par­tic­i­pat­ing in this group,” said Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP, the chair of the Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Inter-par­lia­men­tary Group, who was coun­sel to Nel­son Man­dela and Natan Sha­ran­sky dur­ing their long peri­ods held behind bars. He also served as Attor­ney Gen­er­al and Jus­tice Min­is­ter of Canada.
The first par­lia­men­tary meet­ing of the Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Group will take place on the eve of fourth anniver­sary of Magnitsky’s mur­der in Russ­ian police cus­tody, which took place on the 16^th of Novem­ber 2009. The par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are com­mit­ted to advanc­ing the cam­paign for Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions in Europe, Cana­da and oth­er parts of the world.
“This will be the inau­gur­al launch of a glob­al, coor­di­nat­ed cam­paign to impose Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions inter­na­tion­al­ly,” said Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP.
Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions are already in place in the Unit­ed States under the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act signed by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma into law in Decem­ber 2012.
In the EU, the Euro­pean par­lia­ment has passed three res­o­lu­tions call­ing on the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters of the EU to imple­ment a sim­i­lar approach. Up to now, the Coun­cil of Min­is­ters has stalled the imple­men­ta­tion of sanc­tions fear­ing Russia’s retal­i­a­tion. Now, with the new inter-par­lia­men­tary ini­tia­tive, the leg­is­la­tors hope to make the Mag­nit­sky Law a real­i­ty in Europe and over­come the resis­tance from the Euro­pean Council.
The Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky Inter-par­lia­men­tary group (IPG, web­site: http://ipg-magnitsky.org/) con­sists of mem­bers of par­lia­ment from 21 coun­tries, includ­ing Kris­ti­ina Oju­land, an Eston­ian MEP, who ini­ti­at­ed the lat­est Mag­nit­sky res­o­lu­tion at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment; Sen­a­tor Jim Walsh, who spear­head­ed the Mag­nit­sky res­o­lu­tion in the Irish Par­lia­ment; Dominic Raab MP, who authored the Mag­nit­sky Motion at the British Par­lia­ment; Bar­bara Lochbih­ler, Ger­man MEP and chair of the Human Rights Sub­com­mit­tee of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment; Marek Migal­s­ki, a Pol­ish MEP, and Jose Igna­cio Sanch­es, a Span­ish MP, who took upon the Mag­nit­sky case in their respec­tive roles. The Mag­nit­sky Inter-Par­lia­men­tary Group also com­pris­es an advi­so­ry board of Russ­ian activists and cam­paign­ers involved in human rights and civ­il advo­ca­cy. It aims to build momen­tum around the ini­tia­tives that devel­oped organ­i­cal­ly in dif­fer­ent coun­tries around the Mag­nit­sky legislation.

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