The NY Times: Inquiry Stalled in Death of Russian Lawyer

April 22, 2010

Two human rights cam­paign­ers said on Thurs­day that despite per­son­al inter­ven­tion by Rus­sia’s pres­i­dent, Dmitri A. Medvedev, offi­cials respon­si­ble for the death of a lawyer last year in pre­tri­al deten­tion are fac­ing no sub­stan­tial punishment.

In Novem­ber, Mr. Medvedev ordered an inquiry into the treat­ment of Sergei L. Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year-old lawyer who died in a prison hos­pi­tal after care­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ing his requests for med­ical care. Amid pub­lic out­rage over the case, Mr. Medvedev dis­missed around 20 prison offi­cials and pros­e­cu­tors opened an inquiry into neg­li­gence and refusal of med­ical care.

But five months have passed and no one has yet been charged with a crime. Lyud­mi­la M. Alex­eye­va, who sits on Mr. Medvedev’s human rights coun­cil, said she will rec­om­mend the body take con­trol of the case, which she said “is not moving.”

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The AmLaw Daily: From Russia With Fear

March 25, 2010

When he opened his law and audit firm Fire­stone Dun­can in Moscow in 1993, Jami­son Fire­stone saw Rus­sia as a land of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Today, he is essen­tial­ly exiled abroad, man­ag­ing his busi­ness from thou­sands of miles away, and afraid of what could hap­pen to him should he return to the city he called home for 17 years.

Fire­stone decamped to Lon­don in Decem­ber after a lawyer from his firm died amid mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances in a Moscow pre­tri­al deten­tion facil­i­ty and in the midst of a long-run­ning inves­ti­ga­tion by Russ­ian author­i­ties into one of his fir­m’s clients, Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Management.

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Radio Free Europe: Is Anarchism Russia’s Solution?

March 22, 2010

A col­umn by Russ­ian TV jour­nal­ist Andrei Loshak is mak­ing waves in Rus­sia, with over 400,000 peo­ple hav­ing read it so far. (Read it in Eng­lish here.)

In the piece, Loshak detects a major change in the pub­lic atti­tude to the state. “Instead of anx­i­ety and apa­thy,” he argues, “wrath comes to the fore.” Fur­ther­more, he answers the two eter­nal, “cursed ques­tions” of Russ­ian think­ing about soci­ety: “Who is guilty?” and “What is to be done?”

Loshak’s answer: the state is to be held respon­si­ble, and the solu­tion, sur­pris­ing­ly enough, is anarchism.

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OpenSpace.ru: Kafka’s Castle is collapsing

March 19, 2010

Kafka’s Cas­tle is collapsing

You can’t rea­son with the absurd, as IKEA found when it tried to build a mod­el busi­ness in Rus­sia. Insti­tu­tion­al cor­rup­tion is out of con­trol. Kafka’s Cas­tle is final­ly col­laps­ing. This is good news, as Rus­sians, ordi­nary Rus­sians are los­ing their fear. Now they’re just angry, says Andrei Loshak.

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The Economist: Cops for hire

March 19, 2010

Reform­ing Russia’s vio­lent and cor­rupt police will not be easy

THEY shoot, beat and tor­ture civil­ians, con­fis­cate busi­ness­es and take hostages. They are feared and dis­trust­ed by two-thirds of the coun­try. But they are not for­eign occu­piers, mer­ce­nar­ies or mafia; they are Russia’s police offi­cers. The few decent cops among them are seen as mould-break­ing heroes and dissidents.

Dai­ly reports of police vio­lence read like wartime bul­letins. Recent cas­es include a ran­dom shoot­ing by a police offi­cer in a Moscow super­mar­ket (sev­en wound­ed, two dead), the grue­some tor­ture and killing of a jour­nal­ist in Tom­sk, and the case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a young lawyer for an Amer­i­can invest­ment fund. He was denied med­ical treat­ment and died in pre-tri­al deten­tion in Moscow hav­ing accused sev­er­al police offi­cers of fraud.

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