U.S. Senate Unanimously Passes the Global Magnitsky Act

December 18, 2015

U.S. Sen­ate Unan­i­mous­ly Pass­es the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Act

18 Decem­ber 2015 –  In a ground-break­ing move, Unit­ed States Sen­ate unan­i­mous­ly passed the Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill. The bill offi­cial­ly called, “S.284 – Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Human Rights Account­abil­i­ty Act”, directs the Pres­i­dent to sanc­tion human rights vio­la­tors from any­where around the world. The spe­cif­ic sanc­tions are visa bans, asset freezes, and pub­lic place­ment on the US Trea­sury’s OFAC registry.

“This is the new tech­nol­o­gy for fight­ing human rights abuse and an impor­tant lega­cy for Sergei Mag­nit­sky who gave up his life fight­ing for the truth in Rus­sia,” said Bill Brow­der, author of “Red Notice”, a book ded­i­cat­ed to Sergei Magnitsky.

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopt­ed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which impos­es visa and finan­cial sanc­tions on vio­la­tors of rights of human rights defend­ers in Russia.

The bill is named after Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a Russ­ian lawyer, who uncov­ered the largest pub­licly-known cor­rup­tion case in Rus­sia involv­ing the theft of $230 mil­lion. Sergei Mag­nit­sky tes­ti­fied about it nam­ing com­plic­it Russ­ian offi­cials. He was arrest­ed by some of the impli­cat­ed offi­cials, held in pre-tri­al deten­tion for 358 days, and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody on 16 Novem­ber 2009.  After Sergei Magnitsky’s death, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed and hon­oured offi­cials involved in his deten­tion and death.

The Glob­al Mag­nit­sky bill was spon­sored in the Sen­ate by U.S. Sen­a­tor Ben Cardin, and had 10 co-spon­sors:

Sen Blu­men­thal, Richard [CT] — 1/28/2015

Sen Coons, Christo­pher A. [DE] — 7/23/2015

Sen Cruz, Ted [TX] — 2/25/2015

Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Kirk, Mark Steven [IL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Markey, Edward J. [MA] — 1/28/2015

Sen McCain, John [AZ] — 1/28/2015

Sen Rubio, Mar­co [FL] — 1/28/2015

Sen Sha­heen, Jeanne [NH] — 1/28/2015

Sen Wick­er, Roger F. [MS] — 1/28/2015

The next step is for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to con­sid­er the bill.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact: 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

www.billbrowder.com

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