Museum of Journalism and Free Speech in Washington to Screen US Premiere of Kremlin anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

June 8, 2016

PRESS RELEASE

For Imme­di­ate distribution

Muse­um of Jour­nal­ism and Free Speech in Wash­ing­ton to Screen US Pre­miere of Krem­lin anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Film

8 June 2016 – On Mon­day, 13 June 2016, Nor­we­gian PirayaFilms AS plans to screen the anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da film at the free speech muse­um in Wash­ing­ton, New­se­um, at 6:30 pm.

In an anony­mous email sent yes­ter­day from a “The Mag­nit­sky Act Screen­ing” gmail account:  themagnitskyactscreening@gmail.com to an undis­closed list of recip­i­ents, Piraya Films AS invites to “a spe­cial screen­ing of The Mag­nit­sky Act with recep­tion and Q&A by Direc­tor Andrei Nekrasov mod­er­at­ed by Sey­mour Hersh.”  The event is to take place at the Newseum’s Knight Con­fer­ence Cen­ter, 7^th floor.

Nor­we­gian Piraya Films AS intends for mem­bers of the US Con­gress and their staffers to attend the screen­ing, saying:

“This event com­plies with con­gres­sion­al gift rules so that Mem­bers and staff of the U.S. Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives may attend.”

The atten­dance at the screen­ing is to be tight­ly con­trolled. The guests are told that “pho­to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion will be required for entry into this event as it is by invi­ta­tion only” and that the invi­ta­tion itself is “not trans­ferrable.”

The anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da film, con­tain­ing an entire­ly false and defam­a­to­ry nar­ra­tive of the Russ­ian author­i­ties, was direct­ed by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov, who sup­port­ed Putin’s inva­sion into Ukraine, and pro­duced by a Nor­we­gian film com­pa­ny asso­ci­at­ed with him, called Piraya Film AS.

“The lies pre­sent­ed in the anti-Mag­nit­sky film are not new, and are based on the past nar­ra­tive from the Russ­ian author­i­ties who cov­ered up the mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and the crim­i­nals who stole $230 mil­lion from the Russ­ian peo­ple – the crime Mag­nit­sky exposed,” said William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Mag­nit­sky jus­tice move­ment and author of “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Ene­my.”

“How­ev­er, the grandiose and brazen fal­si­fi­ca­tion in the anti-Mag­nit­sky film because of its scope and the ram­i­fi­ca­tion for inter­na­tion­al pol­i­cy towards Rus­sia is akin to oth­er attempts to re-write his­to­ry and fal­si­fy the truth, seen in the case of Sovi­ets’ deny­ing their involve­ment in the Katyn mas­sacre or claims deny­ing that the Holo­caust exist­ed,” said William Browder.

Russ­ian human rights activists who con­duct­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the Magnitsky’s case have pub­licly denounced the anti-Mag­nit­sky film.

Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, head of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group, and one of the last sur­viv­ing lead­ers of the Sovi­et dis­si­dent move­ment, said on 4 May 2016:

“The high-pro­file expo­sure of cor­rup­tion was start­ed specif­i­cal­ly by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. 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.”

“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),” said Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html).

Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion, an inde­pen­dent pan­el that under Russ­ian law inves­ti­gat­ed Magnitsky’s death since 2009, said on 2 May 2016:

“I state firm­ly: the film does not reflect the true state of affairs in part con­cern­ing the deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky.” (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html).

When the anti-Mag­nit­sky film was first pro­posed in April 2016 for a screen­ing at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment in Brus­sels by Finnish MEP Hei­di Hau­ta­la, the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly made a pub­lic state­ment against any form of dis­tri­b­u­tion of this film because of its false and defam­a­to­ry content.

The Euro­pean par­lia­ment then can­celled the film screen­ing on 27 April 2016. Short­ly after, the French TV net­work ARTE declined to broad­cast the anti-Mag­nit­sky film in May 2016. The Ger­man TV sta­tion ZDF also declined to broad­cast the film in May 2016.

Yes­ter­day, on June 7, 2016, fol­low­ing an appli­ca­tion to the Oslo City Court for an injunc­tion by the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, the Nor­we­gian film fes­ti­val, Kort­film­fes­ti­valen, with­drew the anti-Mag­nit­sky film pro­duced by Piraya Films AS from its pro­gram on June 9 – 10, 2016. Judge Hen­ning Kris­tiansen signed the tran­script of the pro­ceed­ing, which con­firms that the fes­ti­val will not show the film in any version.

“No pub­lic inter­est dic­tates spread­ing of an untrue and gross­ly defam­a­to­ry film of this nature. As pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned, defama­tion in the film includes the “acquit­tal” of Russ­ian author­i­ties for gross cor­rup­tion and seri­ous human rights vio­la­tions in the Mag­nit­sky case. The pub­lic is not well served by dis­in­for­ma­tion,” said the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly in their injunc­tion appli­ca­tion to the Oslo court.

Piraya Films AS is co-owned by Nor­we­gians Bjarte Mørn­er Tveit and Torstein Grude, who also serve as Piraya Films’s CEO and Chair­man respec­tive­ly, with a fur­ther 10% owned by Sobra AS, a real estate com­pa­ny belong­ing to Find Gjede­bo, accord­ing to the Nor­we­gian cor­po­rate registry.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was false­ly arrest­ed, detained for 358 days with­out tri­al, tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37. The events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice”  by William Brow­der and in a series of cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.” Recent­ly, thanks to Pana­ma Papers, pro­ceeds of US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, were traced to Swiss account of a com­pa­ny owned by Sergei Roldug­in, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

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