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В преддверии принятия в США «Глобального Акта о правах человека имени Магнитского» Россия предпринимает меры по запугиванию российских гражданских активистов

May 18, 2016

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В преддверии принятия в США «Глобального Акта о правах человека имени Магнитского» Россия предпринимает меры по запугиванию российских гражданских активистов

18 мая 2016 года – В преддверии принятия в США «Глобального Акта о правах человека имени Магнитского» Россия предпринимает меры по запугиванию гражданских активистов, которые выступают за закон Магнитского и предусматриваемые им санкции в отношении чиновников-коррупционеров и нарушителей прав человека.

На сегодня на 10 утра в Комитете по международным делам Палаты представителей Конгресса США запланировано слушание по глобальному законопроекту Магнитского, уже прошедшему обсуждение в Сенате США.

За сутки до обсуждения в комитете Конгресса «Глобального Акта Магнитского» прокремлевские СМИ объявили о возбуждении уголовного дела за клевету по заявлению фигуранта списка Магнитского Павла Карпова против Алексея Навального, активного сторонника санкций Магнитского.

«Действия российских властей имеют главной целью — запугать гражданское общество и заставить всех активных людей замолчать в страхе перед террором или покинуть страну. Российские власти делают все для того, чтобы в условиях уже и так практически полной цензуры, голос гражданских активистов не был услышан на Западе, чтобы «зачистить» туда дорогу прокремлевской дезинформации. Мы уверены в том, что Кремлю не удастся запугать всех и сломить стремление гражданского общества к справедливости», — сказал представитель «Справедливость для Сергея Магнитского».

Павел Карпов, подавший заявление о клевете в отношении Алексея Навального, на которое российские правоохранительные органы стремительно отреагировали возбуждением уголовного дела, – бывший следователь ГСУ МВД РФ по г. Москве, в отношении которого Магнитский дал показания о его причастности к мошеннической схеме, по которой были  украдены компании международного фонда Her­mitage и заплаченные ими в бюджет в виде налогов 5,4 миллиардов рублей. Доход многократно превышающий его официальную зарплату Карпов объяснял занятием параллельно с госслужбой в полиции предпринимательской деятельностью, связанной с дизайном и торговлей элитными винами.

В апреле 2013 года правительством США Карпов был включен в санкционный список Магнитского. В апреле 2014 года Карпов был включен в санкционный список Магнитского, одобренный Европарламентом.

Одновременно с атакой на гражданских активистов внутри страны лоббисты и адвокаты сына российского чиновника (№65 в списке богатейших чиновников России по данным «Форбс» Петра Кацыва) Дениса Кацыва, в отношении компаний которого Прокуратурой США подан иск об отмывании на территории США части 5,4 миллиардов рублей, похищенных из бюджета Российской Федерации в рамках мошеннической схемы, вскрытой Сергеем Магнитским, и имущество которого на 14 миллионов долларов заморожено по этому иску, пытаются оказать давление на американских конгрессменов и заставить их исключить имя Сергея Магнитского из наименования глобального законопроекта о правах человека. В рамках этой кампании они распространяют о нем лживую версию российских властей.

Для российского правозащитного сообщества принципиальным в глобальном законопроекте является имя Сергея Магнитского как символа противостояния беззаконию и нарушению прав человека.

В заявлении Людмилы Алексеевой, главы Московской Хельсинкской группы, направленном руководителю Комитета по международным делам Палаты представителей Конгресса, говорится:

«Он [Сергей Магнитский] раскрыл для всех, что сегодняшние нарушители прав человека ценят более всего: деньги, которые они украли у собственного народа. Устранение имени Сергея Магнитского из текста законопроекта было бы предательством всех жертв беззакония во всем мире, которым Сергей Магнитский дал надежду, а также предательством тех самых принципов, за которые он заплатил своей жизнью.»

Программа «Справедливость для Сергея Магнитского»

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Twit­ter: @Billbrowder

German TV Station ZDF Confirmed It Will Not Show Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

May 16, 2016

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Ger­man TV Sta­tion ZDF Con­firmed It Will Not Show Nekrasov’s Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Film

16 May 2016 – ZDF, a Ger­man pub­lic-ser­vice tele­vi­sion broad­cast­er, has con­firmed that they will not show Andrei Nerkrasov’s anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da film. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Sergei Magnitsky’s wid­ow and moth­er expressed their cat­e­gor­i­cal objec­tion to dis­tri­b­u­tion in any form of the Nekrasov’s film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky because of its false and slan­der­ous content.

ZDF has now for­mal­ly con­firmed its com­mit­ment to not broad­cast Nekrasov’s film. This fol­lows a sim­i­lar com­mit­ment by the French TV net­work ARTE.

“This film is full of lies and mis­in­for­ma­tion about the Mag­nit­sky case,” said William Brow­der, leader of the glob­al Jus­tice cam­paign for Sergei Mag­nit­sky and author of the New York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy.”

“It is my duty to Sergei’s mem­o­ry and to his fam­i­ly to pre­serve the truth and pro­tect his lega­cy,” con­tin­ued Browder.

Nekrasov’s film con­tains false state­ments about Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which are refut­ed by inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al bod­ies, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing del­e­gates from 47 states, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the US Depart­ment, and the US Con­gress, among others.

Russ­ian human rights activists, includ­ing vet­er­an dis­si­dent and head of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va and Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow human rights com­mis­sion, who inves­ti­gat­ed Magnitsky’s death, spoke out against the attempts by Andrei Nekrasov to spread the lies in this case for the ben­e­fit of those who have been exposed by Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny of involve­ment in the fraud and broad­er cor­rup­tion aris­ing out of Pana­ma Papers, and are being affect­ed by Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions (State­ment by Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html; State­ment by Valery Borschev: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html).

Nekrasov’s anti-Mag­nit­sky film was sched­uled for broad­cast on ARTE, a Fran­co-Ger­man cul­tur­al TV net­work, on 3 May 2016. ARTE has can­celled the sched­uled broad­cast of Nekrasov’s anti-Mag­nit­sky film, and ZDF has now con­firmed that it will not show this film.

The deci­sion not to broad­cast Nekrasov’s film by ZDF and ARTE fol­low the ear­li­er deci­sion not to air the Nekrasov’s film at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment for sim­i­lar rea­sons. The screen­ing of Nekrasov’s film was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled there as a pri­vate ini­tia­tive of Hei­di Hau­ta­la, Andrei Nekrasov’s girl­friend and a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from Finland. 

ZDF is based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palati­nate. It is run as an inde­pen­dent non-prof­it insti­tu­tion, which was found­ed by all fed­er­al states of Germany.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org 

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Magnitsky Sanctions Law Introduced in the Canadian Parliament

May 13, 2016

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Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Law Intro­duced in the Cana­di­an Parliament

13 May 2016 — Yes­ter­day, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty of Cana­da announced the intro­duc­tion of the Jus­tice for Vic­tims of Cor­rupt For­eign Offi­cials (Sergei Mag­nit­sky Law) bill in House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate simultaneously.

The Mag­nit­sky bill was intro­duced by James Bezan MP, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Selkirk-Inter­lake-East­man, in the House of Com­mons, and The Hon. Raynell Andr­ey­chuk, Sen­a­tor for Saskatchewan, in the Senate.

“The pur­pose of the Mag­nit­sky Law is to sanc­tion those who are com­mit­ting seri­ous human rights crimes with­in their coun­tries, or the cor­rupt indi­vid­u­als who are steal­ing the assets of peo­ple,” said Mr Bezan, MP, on the bill introduction.

The Hon Irwin Cotler, for­mer Jus­tice Min­is­ter, and one of the strongest advo­cates of Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion in Cana­da, last year urged Cana­di­an law­mak­ers to adopt the law:

“It is time…for us to treat Russ­ian domes­tic human-rights vio­la­tions as seri­ous­ly as we do vio­la­tions of polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty… Coun­tries that val­ue human rights and the rule of law must use the mea­sures at our dis­pos­al to hold vio­la­tors to account and dis­cour­age future violations.”

The Cana­di­an Mag­nit­sky Law (C‑267) and (S‑226) pro­vides for visa sanc­tions and asset freezes against for­eign nation­als respon­si­ble for gross vio­la­tions of inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized human rights.

Speak­ing about the effect of the Cana­di­an Mag­nit­sky Law, James Bezan, MP said:

“This would pro­vide the tools and mech­a­nisms to the gov­ern­ment to ensure it can put in place the prop­er sanc­tions with respect to the trav­el and eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty of those cor­rupt for­eign offi­cials with­out hav­ing to do it on a case-by-case basis.”

“More impor­tant­ly, it also pro­vides both the House of Com­mons and the Sen­ate for­eign affairs com­mit­tees with the abil­i­ty to look at who is on the dif­fer­ent lists for sanc­tions around the world on an annu­al basis and report that back to the House.”

Before last year’s elec­tion, the Lib­er­al Par­ty of Cana­da, along with oth­er polit­i­cal par­ties, promised to enact Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions if they won. In par­tic­u­lar, the Lib­er­al Par­ty said that a Lib­er­al Gov­ern­ment would intro­duce leg­is­la­tion, mod­elled on the US Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, because of the belief that, “by impos­ing sanc­tions, we can impose mean­ing­ful penal­ties on human rights vio­la­tors and deter future vio­la­tions.”

Yet, after com­ing to pow­er in Novem­ber 2015, Canada’s new Prime Min­is­ter 44-years old Justin Trudeau reneged on his par­ty’s elec­tion promise, sud­den­ly changed course and decid­ed to “re-engage” with Rus­sia instead.

“This is a betray­al by Justin Trudeau of the prin­ci­ples that Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Mag­nit­sky stood for and who gave their lives in the fight with cor­rup­tion and human rights abuse,” said William Brow­der, leader of Glob­al Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice campaign.

In 2012, Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader Boris Nemtsov trav­elled to Cana­da to call on the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and politi­cians to adopt the Mag­nit­sky Act. He was sub­se­quent­ly assas­si­nat­ed in front of the Kremlin.

Address­ing a Cana­di­an audi­ence in Ottawa, three years before his mur­der, Boris Nemtsov said:

“Mag­nit­sky was killed by pros­e­cu­tors and prison man­age­ment… Putin gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed the mur­der­ers. The idea of the [Mag­nit­sky] Act is to imple­ment sanc­tions against cor­rupt offi­cials and oth­ers who are respon­si­ble for killing Mag­nit­sky.” (See Full speech by Boris Nemtsov in Cana­da in 2012, start­ing after intro­duc­tion at 4^th min: http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/03/02/when-nemtsov-came-to-ottawa/ )

“As a coun­try with the low lev­el of cor­rup­tion and rule of law, Cana­da has to fight against crim­i­nals and against cor­rup­tion. You are not against Rus­sia, you are against cor­rup­tion, against crim­i­nals. It will be very painful for Russ­ian cor­rupt bureau­cra­cy to get such kind of law from Cana­da. Very painful. Because cor­rupt sys­tem in Rus­sia means that they have prop­er­ty out­side of the coun­try, they relax out­side the coun­try, they send their kids to get edu­ca­tion out­side,” said Boris Nemtsov, urg­ing Cana­di­an law­mak­ers and the Cana­di­an Gov­ern­ment to adopt Mag­nit­sky law four years ago.

The US became the first coun­try to enact the Mag­nit­sky Legislation.

In Decem­ber 2012, the US Con­gress adopt­ed the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act which impos­es tar­get­ed visa bans and asset freezes on per­sons involved in Sergei Mag­nit­sky mis­treat­ment, death, cov­er up and the crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy he had uncovered.

In Jan­u­ary 2014, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing 47 states, called for the intro­duc­tion of Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions by mem­ber states in case of fail­ure by Russ­ian author­i­ties to respond to the rec­om­men­da­tions of its res­o­lu­tion, “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”, to which Rus­sia has failed to com­ply since.

In April 2014, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment adopt­ed the Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions Res­o­lu­tion, list­ing 32 per­sons involved in Mag­nit­sky case and urg­ing the EU Coun­cil to adopt EU-wide sanctions.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

French TV Station ARTE Permanently Cancels Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

May 9, 2016

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French TV Sta­tion ARTE Per­ma­nent­ly Can­cels Nekrasov’s Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Film

9 May 2016 – The French TV sta­tion, ARTE, has per­ma­nent­ly can­celled the anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da film by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov.

French lawyer Safya Ako­r­ri who rep­re­sents the wid­ow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and William Brow­der, the leader of the inter­na­tion­al jus­tice cam­paign for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, wrote to ARTE, sub­mit­ting a list of false alle­ga­tions made in Nekrasov’s film and pre­sent­ing the evi­dence of their falsity.

ARTE has since can­celled the show sched­uled for release on 3 May 2016 and offi­cial­ly informed their lawyers that they had no inten­tion to show it at any point in the future.

ARTE’s deci­sion fol­lows the deci­sion at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on 27 April 2016 not to air the Nekrasov’s film for sim­i­lar rea­sons. The screen­ing of Nekrasov’s film was sched­uled as a per­son­al ini­tia­tive of Nekrasov’s girl­friend, Hei­di Hau­ta­la, a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from the Green Par­ty in Finland.

Speak­ing about the deci­sion by ARTE to can­cel the film, William Brow­der, leader of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign, said:

“There are many peo­ple who wish to avoid fac­ing jus­tice for Magnitsky’s death and the crimes he exposed by try­ing to destroy his mem­o­ry and lega­cy. It is our duty to make sure this does­n’t hap­pen.”

Andrei Nekrasov’s film on Sergei Mag­nit­sky was pre­pared for release on ARTE’s Euro­pean cul­tur­al chan­nel on May 3, 2016 ignor­ing the fact that Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s moth­er did not con­sent to the use of video footage of her.

“We are out­raged that Mr. Nekrasov pre­tend­ed that he sym­pa­thized with our grief,” said Nataliya Magnitskaya.

Nekrasov’s film, which claims to be a “doc­u­men­tary”, con­tains numer­ous false alle­ga­tions against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which had been reviewed and refut­ed by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing del­e­gates from 47 states, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, the US Depart­ment, and the US Con­gress, among others.

The let­ter from Magnitsky’s moth­er and wid­ow denounced any form of dis­tri­b­u­tion of Nekrasov’s film which, they believe, used com­pro­mised meth­ods char­ac­ter­is­tic of Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da films:

“Mr. Nekrasov is not unique, such mis­lead­ing movies and pro­grams are demon­strat­ed in Rus­sia on a reg­u­lar basis to drag Sergei Magnitsky’s name through the mud and to jus­ti­fy the per­sons respon­si­ble for his death. Direc­tors use frag­ments of inter­views which are often tak­en by deceit, sin­gle sen­tences or even words are tak­en out of the con­text of the doc­u­ments, cer­tain phras­es are turned inside out and acquire the oppo­site mean­ing, frag­ments of speech­es are com­bined in a way nec­es­sary to manip­u­la­tive indi­vid­u­als, accord­ing to the order.”

When the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly learned about Nekrasov’s film, they issued a let­ter of protest against this lat­est anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da ini­tia­tive. The Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly said:

“We think that the film by Andrei Nekrasov, which is based on his con­coc­tions but not on the doc­u­ments  and facts, degrades the dig­ni­ty of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrades the deceased per­son who is unable to defend himself.” 

“This movie is made in the inter­ests of those who are scared of the truth uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky,”

said Magnitsky’s moth­er and widow.

Fol­low­ing the rev­e­la­tion of Nekrasov’s turn-around on Mag­nit­sky case, ques­tions have been raised as to what could explain it.

Andrei Nekrasov was pre­vi­ous­ly known for films, includ­ing about poi­son­ing of Alexan­der Litvi­nenko, which were pro­duced by his wife, Olga Kon­skaya, who passed away in Ger­many in 2009. Andrei Nekrasov’s pub­lic stance on Putin’s Rus­sia changed since at least March 2014 — the time of Pres­i­dent Putin’s inva­sion in Ukraine.

In Andrei Nekrasov’s blog post of 21 March 2014 avail­able on the web­site of ‘Echo of Moscow,’ Russ­ian radio sta­tion, he expressed a strong anti-Amer­i­can sen­ti­ment, jus­ti­fy­ing Putin’s actions, saying:

“Why Amer­i­ca (and allies) can vio­late inter­na­tion­al law, and Rus­sia — not? Amer­i­cans and Co vio­late it, and this is not Kremlin-Kiselev’s pro­pa­gan­da, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tion­al community;”

“Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing power…;”

“In the opin­ion of aggriev­ed Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest memorandum.”

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Russian Human Rights Defenders Slam Nekrasov and US Network NBC for Their Roles in Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Campaign

May 5, 2016

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Russ­ian Human Rights Defend­ers Slam Nekrasov and US Net­work NBC for Their Roles in Anti-Mag­nit­sky Pro­pa­gan­da Campaign

5 May 2016 – Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers have spo­ken out against Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov and NBC reporter Ken Dilan­ian for their anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign in Europe and the US.

Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Head of Moscow Helsin­ki Group

In a pub­lic let­ter pub­lished by ‘Novaya Gaze­ta’ news­pa­per, Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va rebuked their mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Mag­nit­sky case, saying:

“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 ).”

“The high-pro­file expo­sure of cor­rup­tion was start­ed specif­i­cal­ly by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, — said Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va. — 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.”

A vet­er­an Russ­ian human rights defend­er, Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, is one of the lead­ing voic­es in Russ­ian civ­il soci­ety advo­cat­ing for West­ern Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions as a tool to address the impuni­ty in Rus­sia of those respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s tor­ture and mur­der in detention.

Valery Borschev

Valery Borschev, anoth­er lead­ing Russ­ian human rights advo­cate and head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Commission,an inde­pen­dent pan­el that inves­ti­gat­ed Mag­nit­sky’s death since 2009, spoke out to quash the pho­ny claims in Andrei Nekrasov’s film.

“The film [by film­mak­er Nerkasov] tries to con­tra­dict every­thing that has been con­clud­ed by our Com­mis­sion. …We  looked at con­di­tions of deten­tion, tor­ture, non-pro­vi­sion of med­ical care, vio­lence which led to murder.…I state firm­ly: the film does not reflect the true state of affairs in part con­cern­ing the deten­tion of Mag­nit­sky,” said Valery Borschev.

Russ­ian human rights activists cas­ti­gat­ed the false claims in Nekrasov’s film that Mag­nit­sky was not beat­en in cus­tody, did not tes­ti­fy against cor­rupt police offi­cers, and that Mag­nit­sky him­self com­mit­ted the crime he had uncov­ered. These claims are con­tra­dict­ed by evi­dence of Magnitsky’s beat­ing from both the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment and the Mag­nit­sky fam­i­ly, his inves­ti­ga­tion into the fraud and com­plaints filed three weeks before the US$230 mil­lion were stolen, offi­cial writ­ten records of his tes­ti­mo­ny, and con­clu­sions reached by Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies who con­duct­ed inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions. These false claims have pre­vi­ous­ly been refut­ed on numer­ous occa­sions, but are now being rekin­dled by Russ­ian film­mak­er Andrei Nekrasov in his anti-Mag­nit­sky film in Europe, and echoed by Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air cor­re­spon­dent in the Unit­ed States.

In his writ­ten ques­tions to the ‘Jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’ cam­paign last week, reporter Ken Dilan­ian claimed that he and his team at NBC found “no evi­dence” of Sergei’s Magnitsky’s beat­ing before he died, despite pub­licly avail­able records, inde­pen­dent reports and pho­tographs from Magnitsky’s autop­sy. Dilan­ian also claimed he found “no evi­dence” of Magnitsky’s tes­ti­mo­ny against police before his arrest. This is despite Mag­nit­sky nam­ing in tes­ti­mo­ny before his arrest offi­cers Kuznetsov and Kar­pov 14 times and 13 times respectively.

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian filmmaker

Ken Dilan­ian, NBC News off-air reporter

Accord­ing to the NBC News web­site, pri­or to sud­den­ly tak­ing on the Mag­nit­sky sto­ry, Ken Dilan­ian had nev­er report­ed on Russ­ian affairs or human rights.

Mr. Dilan­ian joined NBC News as off-air cor­re­spon­dent at the end of 2015. In his pre­vi­ous job with the Los Ange­les Times, he was com­pro­mised for per­mit­ting his close rela­tion­ships with sources to influ­ence his reporting.

In an open let­ter to Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Uni­ver­sal, pub­lished in the Russ­ian news­pa­per ‘Novaya Gaze­ta’, Valery Borschev con­demned the false claims, cit­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which he chaired imme­di­ate­ly after the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and as part of the work­ing group of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council.

“The inves­ti­ga­tion of doc­u­ments, sub­mit­ted by law enforce­ment bod­ies to the work­ing group, led mem­bers of the Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion to the con­vic­tion that Sergei Mag­nit­sky was sub­ject­ed to vio­lence before his death… There is a doc­u­ment, dat­ed 16.11.2009, signed by deputy head of deten­tion cen­ter Markin, and eye wit­ness­es Borovkov and Lar­in, which said: “rub­ber baton was applied,” “hand­cuffs were applied,” – ie he was beat­en while hand­cuffed by rub­ber baton,” said Valery­Borschev­in­hislet­ter­to­CEOofN­BCU­ni­ver­sal Steve Burke.

The Russ­ian state-spon­sored anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da began after Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin adopt­ed a for­eign pol­i­cy decree in May 2011, instruct­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment bod­ies to fight US sanc­tions. It then esca­lat­ed after a Decem­ber 2012 press con­fer­ence by Vladimir Putin, in which he was asked about Sergei Mag­nit­sky numer­ous times, and where he denied that Mag­nit­sky had died from tor­ture and promised to “delve deep­er” into the case. The new esca­la­tion of pro­pa­gan­da fol­lows a press con­fer­ence ear­li­er this year, in which Russ­ian For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Sergei Lavrov implied new rev­e­la­tions on the Mag­nit­sky case to fight the US Mag­nit­sky Act.

On 27 April 2016, Andrei Nekrasov planned an anti-Mag­nit­sky event at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment in Brus­sels to show his new defam­a­to­ry film with help from his girl­friend, Finnish MEP Hei­di Hautala.

It is under­stood that Ken Dilan­ian planned his sto­ry with NBC News for the same day, 27 April 2016.

On 27 April 2016, the wid­ow and moth­er of Sergei Mag­nit­sky wrote to mem­bers of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment, stat­ing their cat­e­gor­i­cal protest against any demon­stra­tion of the defam­a­to­ry and false film about Sergei Mag­nit­sky any­where, and espe­cial­ly in the Euro­pean Parliament.

“Through this let­ter, Sergei’s fam­i­ly express­es its high­ly neg­a­tive reac­tion to the movie, its protest against uncon­scionable attempts to black­en the name of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. We are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly against the pub­lic demon­stra­tion of the film by Andrei Nekrasov, against the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the film in any way,” said the Mag­nit­sky family.

The film “pre­miere” at the Euro­pean par­lia­ment was cancelled.

ARTE, Euro­pean cul­ture net­work, who planned to air the anti-Mag­nit­sky film on 3 May 2016, can­celled it as well.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

www.facebook.com/russianuntouchables

Promi­nent Russ­ian human rights defend­ers who con­duct­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of Mag­nit­sky case, have spo­ken out against the new wave of anti-Mag­nit­sky pro­pa­gan­da and its enablers.

State­ment by Lud­mi­la Alex­ee­va, Head of the Moscow Helsin­ki Group and Chair of the Russ­ian President’s Human Rights Council’s Work­ing Group on the inves­ti­ga­tion of death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 3 May 2016: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72940.html

State­ment by Valery Borschev, head of the Moscow Pub­lic Over­sight Com­mis­sion which inves­ti­gat­ed the cir­cum­stances of death in deten­tion of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, 2 May 2016: http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72931.html

Results of search for Dilan­ian and “human rights” on NBC News web­site for 2016:

“Dilan­ian” and “human rights” pro­duces two sto­ries in 2016

Trump Needs His ‘Own Damn Buck­et’ to Water­board: Ex-CIA Chief …

Feb 22, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian .… Lau­ra Pit­ter, senior nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­sel for Human Rights Watch, says it’s wor­ri­some that major GOP can­di­dates are …

www.nbcnews.com/…/trump-needs-his-own-damn-bucket-waterboard-ex-cia ‑chief-n523576

Spy Kid: A Young CIA Offi­cer Breaks Cov­er and Spills Secrets — NBC …

Apr 1, 2016 … by Ken Dilan­ian … the bat­tle­field,” in the CIA’s euphemistic phrase for killing human tar­gets with .… “And this is me going, ‘You’re right, I wasn’t.

www.nbcnews.com/…/spy-kid-young-cia-officer-breaks-cover-spills-secrets- n548846

Pre­vi­ous post by Andrei Nekrasov with pro-Putin and anti-Amer­i­can sen­ti­ments pub­lished on Echo of Moscow blog, 21 March 2014: http://echo.msk.ru/blog/andnekrasov/1283896-echo/

Andrei Nekrasov, Russ­ian film­mak­er turned anti-Mag­nit­sky cam­paign­er, pre­vi­ous­ly claimed:

• “Amer­i­cans and Com­pa­ny” vio­late inter­na­tion­al law and that “this is not Kremlin-Kiselyov’s pro­pa­gan­da, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”
•  “Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing pow­er.”
• “In the opin­ion of aggriev­ed Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest mem­o­ran­dum.”

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