Canada’s Senate Adopts Magnitsky Sanctions Resolution

May 6, 2015

6 May 2015 – The Cana­di­an Sen­ate has adopt­ed the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions motion and con­demned those involved in the cov­er up of the $230 mil­lion cor­rup­tion exposed by Sergei Magnitsky.

“Join­ing with par­lia­ments around the world, the Senate’s adop­tion of this motion express­es our com­mit­ment to account­abil­i­ty for for­eign nation­als who com­mit the most seri­ous vio­la­tions of human rights,” said Sen­a­tor Andr­ey­chuk, who intro­duced the motion in the Sen­ate of Canada.

The Cana­di­an res­o­lu­tion con­demns the unprece­dent­ed posthu­mous tri­al of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in Rus­sia, and those who have been involved in cov­er­ing up the crimes he exposed. 

The Res­o­lu­tion encour­ages sanc­tions against any for­eign nation­als who were respon­si­ble for the deten­tion, tor­ture or death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, or who have been involved in cov­er­ing up the crimes he exposed.

Com­pa­ra­ble res­o­lu­tions, motions and acts have been adopt­ed by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the British House of Com­mons, the Dutch Par­lia­ment, the Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe and others.

Sen­a­tor Lin­da Frum, sup­port­ing the Sen­ate motion, said:
“We in Cana­da and oth­er coun­tries where jus­tice and the rule of law pre­vail must always speak up and take action when pos­si­ble against for­eign nation­als who com­mit crimes and vio­late human rights, and then attempt to cov­er them up. Sergei Magnitsky’s courage, which led to his tor­ture and death, should be rec­og­nized and applaud­ed everywhere.” 

The Senate’s Mag­nit­sky Motion fur­ther calls upon the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to explore sanc­tions against any for­eign nation­als respon­si­ble for vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights in a for­eign coun­try, when author­i­ties in that coun­try are unable or unwill­ing to con­duct a thor­ough, inde­pen­dent and objec­tive inves­ti­ga­tion of the violations.

A sim­i­lar motion was adopt­ed unan­i­mous­ly by all par­ties in the House of Com­mons on March 25, 2015. 

“The adop­tion in the Cana­di­an par­lia­ment of the Mag­nit­sky motion is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in bring­ing account­abil­i­ty and con­se­quences for the tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the glob­al fight against Russ­ian impuni­ty,” said William Brow­der, leader of the Mag­nisky Jus­tice cam­paign and author of best-sell­ing book ‘Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s Num­ber One Ene­my,’ released in nine lan­guages and thir­teen coun­tries (www.billbrowder.com).

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign
+44 2074401777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org
Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

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