Russian Human Rights Defenders Slam Nekrasov and US Network NBC for Their Roles in Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Campaign

May 5, 2016

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Russ­ian Human Rights Defend­ers Slam Nekrasov and US Net­work NBC for Their Roles in Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Campaign

5 May 2016 – Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers have spo­ken out against Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov and NBC reporter Ken Dilan­ian for their anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign in Europe and the US.

Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Head of Moscow Helsin­ki Group

In a pub­lic let­ter pub­lished by ‘Novaya Gaze­ta’ news­pa­per, Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va rebuked their mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Mag­nit­sky case, saying:

“I have no idea who specif­i­cal­ly is behind this [Andrei Nekrasov’s] film and who hired the author, I have no idea. But one thing is clear – these are the peo­ple who are very inter­est­ed to dis­avow the evi­dence of cor­rup­tion, which start­ed to emerge first with the case of Mag­nit­sky (and thanks to Mag­nit­sky), and con­tin­ues to emerge, but on a glob­al scale (such as the Pana­ma leaks ).”

“The high-pro­file expo­sure of cor­rup­tion was start­ed specif­i­cal­ly by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, — said Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va. — That is why it is so impor­tant for the peo­ple com­plic­it in the con­spir­a­cy to defame Mag­nit­sky and the evi­dence which he made pub­lic. As a result, this film appeared…  To try to show that every­thing — what Mag­nit­sky first said, then the Pana­ma leaks – are non­sense. What they want is to revoke sanc­tions. They decid­ed to start with the dis­avow­ing of the Mag­nit­sky list.”

A vet­er­an Russ­ian human rights defend­er, Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, is one of the lead­ing voic­es in Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety advo­cat­ing for West­ern Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions as a tool to address the impuni­ty in Rus­sia of those respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der in detention.

Valery Borschev

Valery Borschev, anoth­er lead­ing Russ­ian human rights advo­cate and head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Commission,an inde­pen­dent pan­el that inves­ti­gat­ed Mag­nit­sky’s death since 2009, spoke out to quash the pho­ny claims in Andrei Nekrasov’s film.

“The film [by film­mak­er Nerkasov] tries to con­tra­dict every­thing that has been con­clud­ed by our Com­mis­sion. …We  looked at con­di­tions of deten­tion, tor­ture, non-pro­vi­sion of med­ical care, vio­lence which led to murder.…I state firm­ly: the film does not reflect the true state of affairs in part con­cern­ing the deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky,” said Valery Borschev.

Russ­ian human rights activists cas­ti­gat­ed the false claims in Nekrasov’s film that Mag­nit­sky was not beat­en in cus­tody, did not tes­ti­fy against cor­rupt police offi­cers, and that Mag­nit­sky him­self com­mit­ted the crime he had uncov­ered. These claims are con­tra­dict­ed by evi­dence of Magnitsky’s beat­ing from both the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, his inves­ti­ga­tion into the fraud and com­plaints filed three weeks before the US$230 mil­lion were stolen, offi­cial writ­ten records of his tes­ti­mo­ny, and con­clu­sions reached by Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies who con­duct­ed inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions. These false claims have pre­vi­ous­ly been refut­ed on numer­ous occa­sions, but are now being rekin­dled by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov in his anti-Mag­nit­sky film in Europe, and echoed by Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air cor­re­spon­dent in the Unit­ed States.

In his writ­ten ques­tions to the ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ cam­paign last week, reporter Ken Dilan­ian claimed that he and his team at NBC found “no evi­dence” of Sergei’s Magnitsky’s beat­ing before he died, despite pub­licly avail­able records, inde­pen­dent reports and pho­tographs from Magnitsky’s autop­sy. Dilan­ian also claimed he found “no evi­dence” of Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny against police before his arrest. This is despite Mag­nit­sky nam­ing in tes­ti­mo­ny before his arrest offi­cers Kuznetsov and Kar­pov 14 times and 13 times respectively.

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian filmmaker

Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air reporter

Accord­ing to the NBC News web­site, pri­or to sud­den­ly tak­ing on the Mag­nit­sky sto­ry, Ken Dilan­ian had nev­er report­ed on Russ­ian affairs or human rights.

Mr. Dilan­ian joined NBC News as off-air cor­re­spon­dent at the end of 2015. In his pre­vi­ous job with the Los Ange­les Times, he was com­pro­mised for per­mit­ting his close rela­tion­ships with sources to influ­ence his reporting.

In an open let­ter to Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Uni­ver­sal, pub­lished in the Russ­ian news­pa­per ‘Novaya Gaze­ta’, Valery Borschev con­demned the false claims, cit­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which he chaired imme­di­ate­ly after the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and as part of the work­ing group of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council.

“The inves­ti­ga­tion of doc­u­ments, sub­mit­ted by law enforce­ment bod­ies to the work­ing group, led mem­bers of the Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion to the con­vic­tion that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was sub­ject­ed to vio­lence before his death… There is a doc­u­ment, dat­ed 16.11.2009, signed by deputy head of deten­tion cen­ter Markin, and eye wit­ness­es Borovkov and Lar­in, which said: “rub­ber baton was applied,” “hand­cuffs were applied,” – ie he was beat­en while hand­cuffed by rub­ber baton,” said Valery­Borschev­in­hislet­ter­to­CEOofN­BCU­ni­ver­sal Steve Burke.

The Russ­ian state-spon­sored anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da began after Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin adopt­ed a for­eign pol­i­cy decree in May 2011, instruct­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies to fight US sanc­tions. It then esca­lat­ed after a Decem­ber 2012 press con­fer­ence by Vladimir Putin, in which he was asked about Sergei Mag­nit­sky numer­ous times, and where he denied that Mag­nit­sky had died from tor­ture and promised to “delve deep­er” into the case. The new esca­la­tion of pro­pa­gan­da fol­lows a press con­fer­ence ear­li­er this year, in which Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov implied new rev­e­la­tions on the Mag­nit­sky case to fight the US Mag­nit­sky Act.

On 27 April 2016, Andrei Nekrasov planned an anti-Mag­nit­sky event at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Brus­sels to show his new defam­a­to­ry film with help from his girl­friend, Finnish MEP Hei­di Hautala.

It is under­stood that Ken Dilan­ian planned his sto­ry with NBC News for the same day, 27 April 2016.

On 27 April 2016, the wid­ow and moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky wrote to mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment, stat­ing their cat­e­gor­i­cal protest against any demon­stra­tion of the defam­a­to­ry and false film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky any­where, and espe­cial­ly in the Euro­pean Parliament.

“Through this let­ter, Sergei’s fam­i­ly express­es its high­ly neg­a­tive reac­tion to the movie, its protest against uncon­scionable attempts to black­en the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. We are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly against the pub­lic demon­stra­tion of the film by Andrei Nekrasov, against the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the film in any way,” said the Mag­nit­sky family.

The film “pre­miere” at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment was cancelled.

ARTE, Euro­pean cul­ture net­work, who planned to air the anti-Mag­nit­sky film on 3 May 2016, can­celled it as well.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers who con­duct­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of Mag­nit­sky case, have spo­ken out against the new wave of anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da and its enablers.

State­ment by Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Head of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group and Chair of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council’s Work­ing Group on the inves­ti­ga­tion of death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 3 May 2016: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html

State­ment by Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which inves­ti­gat­ed the cir­cum­stances of death in deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 2 May 2016: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html

Results of search for Dilan­ian and “human rights” on NBC News web­site for 2016:

“Dilan­ian” and “human rights” pro­duces two sto­ries in 2016

Trump Needs His ‘Own Damn Buck­et’ to Water­board: Ex-CIA Chief …

Feb 22, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian .… Lau­ra Pit­ter, senior nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­sel for Human Rights Watch, says it’s wor­ri­some that major GOP can­di­dates are …

www.nbcnews.com/…/trump-needs-his-own-damn-bucket-waterboard-ex-cia ‑chief-n523576

Spy Kid: A Young CIA Offi­cer Breaks Cov­er and Spills Secrets — NBC …

Apr 1, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian … the bat­tle­field,” in the CIA’s euphemistic phrase for killing human tar­gets with .… “And this is me going, ‘You’re right, I wasn’t.

www.nbcnews.com/…/spy-kid-young-cia-officer-breaks-cover-spills-secrets- n548846

Pre­vi­ous post by Andrei Nekrasov with pro-Putin and anti-Amer­i­can sen­ti­ments pub­lished on Echo of Moscow blog, 21 March 2014: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/andnekrasov/1283896-echo/

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian film­mak­er turned anti-Mag­nit­sky cam­paign­er, pre­vi­ous­ly claimed:

• “Amer­i­cans and Com­pa­ny” vio­late inter­na­tion­al law and that “this is not Kremlin-Kiselyov’s pro­pa­gan­da, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”
•  “Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing pow­er.”
• “In the opin­ion of aggriev­ed Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest mem­o­ran­dum.”

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