Swedish Parliament Calls on the Swedish Prime Minister to Impose EU-Wide Visa Sanctions on the Magnitsky Killers

March 12, 2012

59 Swedish mem­bers of the Par­lia­ment from sev­en of the eight polit­i­cal par­ties signed a par­lia­men­tary peti­tion to Swedish Prime Min­is­ter, Fredrik Rein­feldt, call­ing on him to impose EU-wide visa sanc­tions on Russ­ian offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case. The par­lia­men­tar­i­ans stress it is a mat­ter of inter­na­tion­al impor­tance giv­en Russia’s mem­ber­ship in the Coun­cil of Europe and WTO. 

In the par­lia­men­tary peti­tion, Swedish MPs said:
“Law and jus­tice in Rus­sia – and last­ly jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky – is a ques­tion that con­cerns the entire cir­cle of mem­ber states in the Coun­cil of Europe and the WTO, of which Rus­sia is a mem­ber. The out­come of this case will estab­lish the country’s stand­ing as a state gov­erned by law.”

Swedish law­mak­ers urged the Swedish gov­ern­ment to work at the EU lev­el “for the pur­pose of com­ing to an agree­ment among the EU’s mem­ber states on the sub­ject of sanc­tions against the offenders.”

The peti­tion was ini­ti­at­ed by Mats Johans­son, from the rul­ing Mod­er­ates par­ty, along with Olle Thorell, a for­eign affairs spokesper­son from Social Democ­rats par­ty, and Ker­stin Lund­gren, from the Cen­tre Party.

“As mem­bers of the Human Rights Group of the Swedish Par­lia­ment we often deal with cas­es like this. But if Rus­sia wants to be a mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Europe, it can­not act like any oth­er total­i­tar­i­an state but must respect the rules of the club. Impuni­ty for the per­pe­tra­tors in the Mag­nit­sky case is not in line with these rules,” says Mats Johans­son, who is also a stand­ing Rap­por­teur on media free­dom of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe.

The Swedish par­lia­men­tary action is a result of the impuni­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials who false­ly arrest­ed, tor­tured and killed 37-year old Sergei Mag­nit­sky. These offi­cials have since opened a posthu­mous pro­ceed­ing against him, an unprece­dent­ed act in Russ­ian legal history.

The peti­tion to the Swedish Prime Min­is­ter point­ed out the absur­di­ty of the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion by saying:

“He (Sergey Mag­nit­sky) was mur­dered in prison because of his defense of the law and jus­tice in the pro­ceed­ing against offi­cials who had stolen com­pa­nies owned by the for­eign invest­ment com­pa­ny Her­mitage. No one respon­si­ble has been pun­ished so far. Quite the oppo­site — the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has recent­ly tak­en the unusu­al step of pros­e­cut­ing Mag­nit­sky posthu­mous­ly, a prac­tice that hasn’t been fol­lowed in 500 years.”

The Swedish ini­tia­tive fol­lows a num­ber of actions by par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in Europe. 

Coskun Coruz, Human Rights Rap­por­teur for the OSCE’s Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly, said last week that “Russia’s law­less­ness in this case is absolute­ly not fit­ting into OSCE’s val­ues” and vowed to do every­thing in his pow­er so that Russ­ian author­i­ties pros­e­cute Magnitsky’s killers.

On Octo­ber 4, 2011, Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly del­e­gates from 29 coun­tries of the Coun­cil of Europe signed the Mag­nit­sky Dec­la­ra­tion (http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc11/EDOC12744.htm), call­ing upon the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment to cease the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion of Mr Mag­nit­sky and the intim­i­da­tion of his fam­i­ly and to allow the fam­i­ly to car­ry out an inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion, which Russ­ian author­i­ties con­tin­ue to refuse.

On 28 Feb­ru­ary 2012, the Euro­pean Parliament’s Del­e­ga­tion to EU-Rus­sia Par­lia­men­tary Coop­er­a­tion Com­mit­tee urged EU mem­ber coun­tries “to start imme­di­ate­ly pro­ce­dures to enact mea­sures such as an EU-wide trav­el ban and a freeze on the finan­cial assets of those believed to be guilty of the tor­ture and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky as well as of those cov­er­ing up the case.”

On 7 March 2012, a motion was unan­i­mous­ly passed in the British House of Com­mons call­ing for visa and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the orig­i­nal crimes uncov­ered by Mr Mag­nit­sky and the cov­er-up since his death.

Mats Johans­son, MP:
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_MemberDetails.asp?MemberID=6647

Olle Thorell, MP: http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Start/Sok/?sok=olle+thorell&rm=&typ=&titel=&bet=&tempbet=&datum=&tom=&nr=&org=&iid=&parti=&katid=&sort=rel&a=

Ker­stin Lund­gren, MP:
http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/ALMemberDetails.asp?MemberID=5859

See Swedish Par­lia­men­tary Peti­tion on Sergei Mag­nit­sky case
http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D398.pdf

Comments

• Link