Two Minute Tribute Song on YouTube to Mark 5^th Anniversary of Sergei Magnitsky’s Murder in Russian Police Custody

November 16, 2014

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To com­mem­o­rate the fifth anniver­sary of Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s death in Russ­ian police cus­tody, please join us by watch­ing a short song on YouTube devot­ed to Sergei’s life and his sac­ri­fice (LINK to Song).

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was a 37-year old Russ­ian anti-cor­rup­tion lawyer who uncov­ered a $230 mil­lion fraud per­pe­trat­ed by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and organ­ised crim­i­nals. After he impli­cat­ed Russ­ian police offi­cers in the crime, he was arrest­ed by the very same offi­cers, tor­tured and bru­tal­ly killed at Matrosskaya Tishi­na pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter in Moscow on 16 Novem­ber 2009.

The Mag­nit­sky music video goes on to show poignant images of Rus­sians protest­ing against the impuni­ty in the Mag­nit­sky case car­ry­ing posters: “Fight­ing Cor­rup­tion Can Kill”; “Putin is not Rus­sia”, “Our Free­dom Can’t Be Tak­en Away”, “I Will Fight for My Rights.”

 

The video con­cludes with a pho­to of Sergei on hol­i­day with his friends and the by-line: “Russ­ian hero.”

While the killing of Sergei Mag­nit­sky has ignit­ed world­wide con­dem­na­tion and lead to numer­ous polit­i­cal and legal calls for jus­tice around the globe, five years on there has still been no jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Rus­sia. Instead, he him­self was posthu­mous­ly pros­e­cut­ed in the first posthu­mous tri­al in the his­to­ry of Rus­sia, with the judge pre­sid­ing at the tri­al imme­di­ate­ly pro­mot­ed by Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin. The Russ­ian author­i­ties also last year closed the inves­ti­ga­tion into his death find­ing “no sign of crime,” and refused all appli­ca­tions from Sergei Magnitsky’s moth­er to reopen the inves­ti­ga­tion into the evi­dence of his tor­ture and murder.

On Fri­day, the US State Depart­ment released a state­ment on the eve of the fifth anniver­sary of Sergei Magnitsky’s death which says:

“Despite wide­ly-pub­li­cized, cred­i­ble evi­dence of crim­i­nal con­duct result­ing in Magnitskiy’s death, Russ­ian author­i­ties have failed to bring to jus­tice those respon­si­ble. We remain con­cerned about impuni­ty for this crime and the atmos­phere of intim­i­da­tion for those who work to uncov­er cor­rup­tion or human rights abus­es in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion. On the fifth anniver­sary of Magnitskiy’s death, we con­tin­ue to call for full account­abil­i­ty for those respon­si­ble for his unjust impris­on­ment and wrong­ful death and we will con­tin­ue to ful­ly sup­port the efforts of those in Rus­sia who seek to bring these indi­vid­u­als to jus­tice, includ­ing through imple­men­ta­tion of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2012.” (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/11/234094.htm)

Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s case and the impuni­ty of the Russ­ian offi­cials involved have become a sym­bol of the cor­rup­tion and fail­ing jus­tice sys­tem in Rus­sia, and of the abuse of the rights of its cit­i­zens who chal­lenge the authorities.

The Sergei Mag­nit­sky trib­ute song was writ­ten by a song­writer Samuel Smith, and record­ed as a result of a request made on www.movements.org, a crowd-sourc­ing plat­form for human rights activists around the world. The video direct­ed by Alexan­dra Agee­va has been cre­at­ed by Russ­ian civic rights activists, includ­ing Pussy Riot, who con­duct­ed a series of one-per­son protest actions around Moscow this summer.

Trib­ute to Sergei Mag­nit­sky five years after his death by Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety activists

Tweet and pass along (LINK to Song)

Soft­ly spo­ken, words bleed the truth
And help dis­cov­er the bro­ken and confused
The fight for jus­tice and the path of one man
Bring new begin­nings and take down cor­rupt plans

Sergei,
You can’t pass away from the peo­ple who know
Sergei,
Your words lead the way for the world to go

You didn’t lose your life in vain
Every­one on Earth will remem­ber the name
Sergei,
Every­one on Earth will remem­ber the name

Jailed for the words that he spoke
His name lives on
In the name of the music and the folks
Who fail to for­get that rulers need
To show respect to the peo­ple they lead

Sergei,
You can’t pass away from the peo­ple who know
Sergei,
Your words lead the way for the world to go

You didn’t lose your life in vain -
Every­one on Earth will remem­ber the name
Sergei,
Every­one on Earth will remem­ber the name
Sergei
Sergei

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