US Students Launch Campaign and New Movie to Support Magnitsky Act

May 17, 2012

A group of US stu­dents is launch­ing a cam­paign across U.S. cam­pus­es in sup­port of the bill enti­tled: “Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act” in both cham­bers of the US Con­gress (H.R.4405; S.1039) that would impose U.S. visa bans and asset freezes on the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials involved in the tor­ture and mur­der of 37-year old, whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, as well as oth­er gross human rights abusers. Over 3 mil­lion stu­dents rep­re­sent­ed by the Col­lege-100, a net­work of stu­dent body pres­i­dents from top U.S. uni­ver­si­ties, are expect­ed to join in the “Sergei’s Law” campaign.

“The Mag­nit­sky Act is an ini­tia­tive reflect­ing the core val­ues of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy and impor­tant­ly, it is some­thing that Russ­ian peo­ple want, even if the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment oppos­es it. It’s impor­tant for US politi­cians to know that,” said Zachary Todd, the founder of the College-100.

The “Sergei’s Law” cam­paign was launched this week by The Col­lege-100, with the unveil­ing of a Youtube video (http://youtu.be/FOaT0dpwmZk) fea­tur­ing lead­ing Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety activists advo­cat­ing for the Mag­nit­sky Act to be passed. The Col­lege-100 is launch­ing a world­wide cam­paign to get sig­na­tures for the peti­tion post­ed on the ded­i­cat­ed web­site, ‘Sergei’s Law’ http://www.sergeislaw.org/, urg­ing the U.S. Con­gress to pass the Mag­nit­sky Act in light of the impuni­ty of Magnitsky’s killers in Rus­sia. It also calls on oth­er world par­lia­ments to do the same.
The cam­paign and the sub­se­quent movie came about as a back­lash by Amer­i­can stu­dents against Russ­ian state pro­pa­gan­da. In 2010, a group of select­ed Amer­i­can stu­dent body pres­i­dents vis­it­ed Rus­sia at the invi­ta­tion of the deputy head of Russ­ian pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion, Vladislav Surkov. The trip was aimed at con­vinc­ing them to accept the objec­tives of the cur­rent Russ­ian polit­i­cal regime. The inten­tions of the Russ­ian author­i­ties back­fired, how­ev­er, as sev­er­al stu­dents went on to learn about the work of Russ­ian rights activists and oppo­si­tion lead­ers. Some of these stu­dents would go on to found the Col­lege-100. One of the first projects of the Col­lege-100 was to sup­port the Russ­ian activists and their call for adopt­ing sanc­tions against cor­rupt Russ­ian officials.
The sev­en-minute movie, “Sergei’s Law”, is the out­come of their col­lab­o­ra­tion show­ing a col­lec­tion of short inter­views with lead­ing Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety figures. 

The movie dis­pels two myths. One is that Rus­sians do not sup­port the Mag­nit­sky Act sanc­tions. Four­teen mem­bers of the Russ­ian oppo­si­tion and protest move­ment fea­tured in the movie, includ­ing Boris Nemtsov, Alek­sei Naval­ny, Ilya Pono­marev, Vladimir Milov, and Ilya Yashin, all strong­ly sup­port the Mag­nit­sky Act and say that its adop­tion will be in Russia’s true nation­al interest. 

“Pun­ish­ing cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials is good for the Russ­ian peo­ple. The fact that cur­rent­ly they feel invin­ci­ble here is hurt­ing Rus­sia and its nation­al inter­est,” says Ilya Yashin, a Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader.

“The bill is not anti-Russ­ian. These offi­cials steal and kill Russ­ian cit­i­zens in Rus­sia, and then they invest their mon­ey abroad,” says Alex­ei Naval­ny, a leader of the cur­rent protest move­ment on the streets in Moscow.

The sec­ond myth is that the sanc­tions won’t be effec­tive. Russ­ian activists clear­ly artic­u­late that the Mag­nit­sky Act will serve as deter­rent for cor­rup­tion and will bring pos­i­tive results. They stress that it is nec­es­sary for the cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials to face con­se­quences abroad. 

“This bill will have a lot of influ­ence. Pre­vi­ous­ly these offi­cials did not fear any poten­tial jus­tice,” says Vladimir Milov, an oppo­si­tion leader.
“The pos­si­bil­i­ty for these Russ­ian bureau­crats that their mon­ey will be seen in the West as ille­git­i­mate is the scari­est thing in the world,” says Kseniya Sobchak, a Russ­ian TV per­son­al­i­ty and jour­nal­ist who recent­ly joined the protest movement.

“We can’t pun­ish these mur­der­ers here, let some­one else pun­ish them,” says Iri­na Voro­bie­va, jour­nal­ist for an inde­pen­dent Russ­ian radio sta­tion, Echo of Moscow.

“Use banks, not tanks. Hit them in their wal­lets because that is what they [cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials] care about,” urges Gar­ry Kas­parov, a Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader and for­mer World Chess champion.

Saumi­tra Thakur, a par­tic­i­pant on the 2010 trip to Rus­sia and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Col­lege-100 says:
“The U.S. stu­dent body is one of the most impor­tant places for grass­roots advo­ca­cy. Ours are the insti­tu­tions that train lead­ers in the US and abroad so it becomes our respon­si­bil­i­ty to mobi­lize stu­dent voic­es against such injus­tice; stu­dent protests have changed the world before, from putting pres­sure on Apartheid South Africa to sig­nalling to the Russ­ian lead­ers now that a gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­cans dis­ap­proves of their conduct.”
A pub­lic opin­ion poll con­duct­ed by the inde­pen­dent Lev­a­da Cen­ter last year, showed that the Mag­nit­sky Act enjoyed over­whelm­ing sup­port among the Russ­ian peo­ple, with 60 per­cent of Russ­ian respon­dents sup­port­ing the impo­si­tion of visa bans and asset freezes by the US and the EU on the Russ­ian offi­cials impli­cat­ed in the Mag­nit­sky case.

The Col­lege-100 (C‑100) is a net­work of elite stu­dent body pres­i­dent; Rhodes, Tru­man, and Gates schol­ars; Olympians; and oth­er dis­tin­guished young peo­ple. The C‑100 launch­es and incu­bates sev­er­al projects, includ­ing this and oth­er issues. C‑100’s pres­i­dents alone rep­re­sent over 3 mil­lion young peo­ple from top uni­ver­si­ties in the Unit­ed States. 

Vis­it Sergei’s Law web­site and sign peti­tion: http://www.sergeislaw.org/
Watch ‘Sergei’s Law’ in Eng­lish: http://youtu.be/FOaT0dpwmZk
in Russ­ian: http://youtu.be/AyaYL9ewF6A?hd=1

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