UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission Calls on the British Government to Urgently Impose Visa Bans and Asset Freezes on Magnitsky Killers and Other Corrupt Officials

July 20, 2012

As the Mag­nit­sky bill moves for­ward in the US Con­gress, the UK Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty’s Human Rights Com­mis­sion has urged the UK For­eign Sec­re­tary to take urgent steps to imple­ment sim­i­lar visa bans and asset freezes on cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials involved in the tor­ture and death of 37-year whis­tle-blow­ing lawyer and in oth­er gross human rights abus­es, and to make pub­lic the names of black­list­ed officials. 

“In recog­ni­tion of the unique posi­tion of Lon­don as a des­ti­na­tion of choice for many senior Russ­ian offi­cials, the gov­ern­ment should take action to intro­duce mea­sures to pub­licly restrict visas and to freeze the assets of Russ­ian offi­cials involved in seri­ous cor­rup­tion and human rights abus­es as soon as pos­si­ble,” said the UK Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty’s Human Rights Com­mis­sion in its July 2012 Report (http://www.conservativehumanrights.com/pdf/CHRC_Violations_against_Professionals.pdf). Read more

Magnitsky’s Mother Challenges Russian Senators Over Posthumous Defamation of Her Son in DC, Russian Senator Leading Delegation to DC is Linked To Organized Crime

July 16, 2012

Today, Natalia Mag­nit­skaya, moth­er of the late Sergei Mag­nit­sky, wrote an open let­ter to Valenti­na Matvienko, head of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil (the upper cham­ber of the Russ­ian Par­lia­ment), demand­ing answers over the defam­a­to­ry remarks made posthu­mous­ly against her dead son in Wash­ing­ton DC last week by Russ­ian mul­ti-mil­lion­naire sen­a­tor Vitaly Malkin, who was pre­vi­ous­ly named as “a mem­ber of a group engag­ing in orga­nized or transna­tion­al crime” by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment in court proceedings. 

“I believe that an attempt to slan­der the good name of my son posthu­mous­ly looks shame­ful and not deserv­ing of the hon­or­able title of peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive,” said Natalia Mag­nit­skaya in her open let­ter to the leader of the Rus­si­a’s Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil (http://russian-untouchables.com/rus/docs/D524.pdf). Read more

Slanderous Russian Federation Council Report on Magnitsky to the U.S. Congress Was Not Approved by the Russian Parliament

July 13, 2012

One day fol­low­ing a major lob­by­ing cam­paign in Wash­ing­ton DC against the Mag­nit­sky Act by four Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil mem­bers who pre­sent­ed a “par­lia­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tion” posthu­mous­ly defam­ing Sergei Mag­nit­sky as their main evi­dence against the leg­is­la­tion, Mikhail Margelov, Chair­man of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil’s For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, dis­avowed the find­ings of their report say­ing they were not part of the par­lia­men­tary investigation. 

“This was not a par­lia­men­tary inves­ti­ga­tion in the com­mon sense of the word..Members of the Russ­ian del­e­ga­tion sum­ma­rized mate­ri­als on Mag­nit­sky case and sub­mit­ted them to U.S. col­leagues in the form of a short report. The main idea of this sum­ma­ry was to urge the U.S. side to move from polit­i­cal to legal aspects of the case of the lawyer,” said Mikhail Margelov (http://www.rbc.ru/fnews.open/20120712200216.shtml). Read more

OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Adopts Tough Resolution Calling on All OSCE Countries to Implement Magnitsky Sanctions

July 10, 2012

OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly Adopts Tough Res­o­lu­tion Call­ing on All OSCE Coun­tries to Imple­ment Mag­nit­sky Sanctions

8 July 2012 – Today, the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on all OSCE mem­ber states to impose visa sanc­tions and asset freezes on peo­ple who are respon­si­ble for the false arrest, tor­ture and mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and the cor­rup­tion he had uncovered.

 The OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly brought togeth­er 320 mem­bers of par­lia­ment from 56 OSCE coun­tries to dis­cuss human rights, con­flict pre­ven­tion and pro­mo­tion of democ­ra­cy through­out OSCE coun­tries. The res­o­lu­tion was approved by an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty. Only 18 deputies vot­ed against it and 11 abstained.</more>

The OSCE PA res­o­lu­tion enti­tled “Rule of Law in Rus­sia: Case of Sergei Mag­nit­sky” says:

“The OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly sup­ports the leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives on the Mag­nit­sky case in the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, and in the nation­al par­lia­ments of the US, UK, Cana­da, Nether­lands, Poland, Italy, Swe­den, Ger­many, France, Esto­nia, Lithua­nia, Czech Repub­lic, Spain, Por­tu­gal and Geor­gia, as well as and the res­o­lu­tions of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment.”

“The OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly calls on nation­al par­lia­ments to take action to impose visa sanc­tions and freezes on per­sons respon­si­ble for the false arrest, tor­ture, denial of med­ical care and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, for the con­spir­a­cy to defraud the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion of tax­es on cor­po­rate prof­its through fraud­u­lent trans­ac­tions and law­suit against legit­i­mate busi­ness­es; to take action against those offi­cials who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cov­er-up of all the above men­tioned crimes and for oth­er gross vio­la­tions of human rights in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion,” says the resolution.

In the res­o­lu­tion, the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly stat­ed that the harass­ment and tor­ture of Sergei Mag­nit­sky in cus­tody was and remains polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. The OSCE res­o­lu­tion expressed “regret” that the Russ­ian author­i­ties exon­er­at­ed offi­cials involved and deplored the posthu­mous pros­e­cu­tion launched against Mag­nit­sky by the Russ­ian government.

At the dis­cus­sion of the res­o­lu­tion, U.S. Sen­a­tor John McCain addressed the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly call­ing upon OSCE assem­bly to speak with one voice and express their sup­port for Sergei Magnitsky’s ideals of jus­tice and human free­dom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YncIqP7IWZg).

“Let us align this Assem­bly to the aspi­ra­tions of the Russ­ian peo­ple and for Sergei’s aspi­ra­tions for jus­tice, for equal dig­ni­ty under the law, and for the indomitable spir­it of human free­dom,” said U.S. sen­a­tor John McCain.

“The res­o­lu­tion rep­re­sents the future that most Russ­ian want for them­selves and their coun­try,” said U.S. sen­a­tor McCain.

“I believe that sup­port­ing the rule of law is pro-Rus­sia, defend­ing the inno­cent and pun­ish­ing the guilty is pro Rus­sia, and ulti­mate­ly I believe that the virtues that Sergei Mag­nit­sky embod­ied – integri­ty, fair deal­ing, fideli­ty to truth and jus­tice, and the deep­est love of the coun­try, is pro Rus­sia,” added sen­a­tor McCain.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a 37-year old Russ­ian lawyer who was inves­ti­gat­ing the ser­i­al thefts from the Russ­ian trea­sury, was false­ly arrest­ed by the same police offi­cers he had accused, tor­tured and killed in police cus­tody two and a half years ago. His killers have not been brought to jus­tice in Russia.

“The Mag­nit­sky Files,” a 18-minute movie pre­miered in Wash­ing­ton by U.S. Sen­a­tor John McCain and Free­dom House’ David Kramer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL9b5LP4Ubc)/, shows close links between Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and per­sons involved in the thefts.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

Her­mitage Capital

Phone:             +44 207 440 17 77

E‑mail:             info@lawandorderinrussia.org

Web­site:          http://lawandorderinrussia.org

Face­book:        http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI

Twit­ter:           @KatieFisher__

Live­jour­nal:     http://hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

Press Con­tact for OSCE PA:

Neil Simon

Direc­tor of Communications

OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assembly

+45 60 10 83 80

neil@oscepa.dk

www.oscepa.org

‘The Magnitsky Files’ to be screened at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Monaco marking its European Premiere

July 4, 2012

“The Mag­nit­sky Files,” an 18-minute doc­u­men­tary show­cas­ing the links between the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and organ­ised crime, will be pre­miered at the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly in Mona­co on Thurs­day, 5 June 2012 at 12:30 pm. 

The event enti­tled “Rule of Law and the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Case” has been orga­nized by mem­bers of nation­al par­lia­ments from a num­ber of OSCE coun­tries includ­ing: Joao Soares (Por­tu­gal), Wal­bur­ga Hab­s­burg-Dou­glas (Swe­den), Mat­teo Mecac­ci (Italy), Tony Lloyd (UK), Hedy Fry (Cana­da), Doris Bar­nett (Ger­many) and Oleh Bilorus (Ukraine). Read more

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