Barred.

In the news...Russia's reaction to the US Senate passing of the Magnitsky Bill.

On November 16, 2009, an auditor affiliated with a UK-based investment firm Hermitage Capital Management, died in the infamous Moscow Morskaya Tishina (‘Sea Silence’) prison. He had been held just a few days short of a year (when he would have been freed if the case was not taken to court), in connection with one of the biggest tax fraud cases in Russian history. The previous year Sergei Magnitsky had disclosed that Russian officials with connections to the mafia have re-claimed $230m dollars (5.4b roubles) in tax rebates previously paid by Hermitage’s Russian subsidiaries.  Hermitage’s owner, Bill Browder, was expelled from Russia in 2005 after his own probes into state corruption; Hermitage offices were raided in 2007 and the company accused of tax fraud. Magnitsky was hired to investigate these allegations and uncovered the illegal transfer of Hermitage's subsidiary companies to new owners, and the shocking, even by Russian standards, theft. Refusing to withdraw his testimony, Magnitsky was tortured, denied medical care for his heart condition and pancreatitis and, already critically ill, beaten to death with rubber truncheons. He was 37 years old.

Brutality in Russian prisons is not news. But, in this rare case, Magnitsky’s death became an international cause for justice, mainly thanks to Mr. Browder’s lobbying. Magnitsky’s prison diaries became a symbol of honour and courage in the face of total injustice, and he posthumously received the Transparency International award in 2010. President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation into the murder in 2009, and a number of cases have been opened by the prosecution since. Apart of the ex-vice head of one of the three prisons Magnitsky was held in, whose case has been submitted to court a few weeks ago, no one has been brought to trial, or even close to a courtroom.

In the West, however, repercussions have been more appropriately severe. In 2011, Britain, US and Holland have barred 60 Russian officials from the so-called Magnitsky List from entry. In July 2012, an OSCE committee agreed on a resolution to introduce further sanctions against those officials on the Magnitsky list, barring them from entry into the European Union and freezing their assets. On July 18, 2012 the US Senate Finance Committee replaced the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Bill that denied favourable trade agreements to communist countries that hindered freedom of immigration, with the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Bill. The new version of the Magnitsky Bill, spearheaded by Senators John McCain and Ben Cardin, extends not only to those directly involved in the Magnitsky murder, but to officials who are responsible for human rights and democracy abuses, worldwide. The Jackson-Vanik has been viewed by many as outdated, and prevented PNTR (permanent normal trade relations) that negatively affected the US on the eve of Russia’s entry into the WTO this month. The Obama administration lobbied against the broader version of the Magnitsky Bill, thankfully unsuccessfully.

The new version of the bill has been a prickly issue in Russia. A delegation of parliamentarians visited Washington in early July to lobby against the passing of the legislation. They have provided documents containing testimony that alleges that Sergei Magnitsky was an active member of the criminal organisation that conducted the 2007 fraud, and that his detention was lawful. (To add insult to injury, a Moscow court announced in February that it is ready to resume the case against Magnitsky and Bowder, for the first time in legal history – posthumously.) According to Vitaly Malkin, who headed the delegation, Magnitsky had not received proper medical attention, citing ‘slovenliness’: ‘Magnitsky was 37 years old. When a man his age complains of stomach aches, no one takes it seriously. He drank, was not a sporty man. The doctor did not notice that he had pancreatitis. The committee finding show that there were bruises, but he died of pancreatitis.’ The findings of the Moscow Public Observer Committee that conducted the investigation into the death on Medvedev’s orders and has produced a report that detailed the physical and mental abuse endured by Magnitsky on a daily basis, were dismissed. Fortunately, so were the parliamentarians.

As I have previously written, Alexei Navalny – the blogger behind the internet corruption exposure website RosPil has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights following a decision by a Moscow court to assign Navalny a fine of 100,000 roubles for his ‘libellous’ exposure of two officials allegedly connected to the Magnitsky case in a video on his website. Navalny had testified before the Senate Committee, and has displayed yet another video that exposes the details of the fraud case last month. According to the 18-minute long reel, Dmitry Kluyev, who has been accused by Magnitsky as the man behind the illegal transfer of Hermitage’s subsidiaries and tax rebates, and his associates have embezzled a further $400 million from the budget between 2009-2010, bringing the overall sum to a staggering $800million, as disclosed in an investigation by the Financial Times and Novaya Gazeta. These men and women have earned a title of ‘untouchables’ in the Russian blogger-sphere, for a good reason.

Now, in a new twist, the Washington bureau chief of RTVi, an independent channel that hosts the video service for Echo Moscow, has been fired. Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is also a member of the Solidarnost Movement, claims that his dismissal is a direct result of his support for the new version of the Magnitsky Bill, which he had actively lobbied in Washington. In an interview he claims that while the 2010 version of the bill only focussed on the officials directly responsible for the death of Magnitsky, the current edition encompasses those responsible for electoral fraud and other human rights abuses, and this has proven a step too far for the Kremlin. After a brief silence, it was disclosed by Boris Nemtsov – a well-known opposition leader, that the call for the dismissal came from Putin’s administration and, for the first time in recent history, encompasses a ban for Kara-Murza to work in any Russian media. The incident came to light when Kara-Murza was denied access to the staff area of the Russian embassy in Washington, as he is no longer an accredited journalist.

Vladimir Gussinski, the former owner of NTV who fled Russia after raids on the independent TV network in 2001, had sold RTVi in March 2012. The new owner is Ruslan Sokolov, previously head of the media conglomerate ‘Zvezda’, which was formed in 2005 by the Ministry of Defense, which holds 100% of its shares. Sokolov protests that the takeover has anything to do with the Kremlin, citing personal ambitions – all $10 million of them. In an interview to TV Rain, he claimed that Kara-Murza was a freelancer, and that the channel simply decided to stop buying his services starting September. He said he was personally shocked by these ridiculous, false accusations. 

This news story broke at a sensitive time. Prior to the Senate hearing, the Putin administration threatened ‘mirror counter-measures’ to the Magnitsky Bill, and so far enforced a no-entry policy for 11 US citizens – for the 11 Russian officials barred from entry into the US under the current legislation. On July 21^st, President Putin signed the law that equates foreign-funded NGOs to ‘foreign agents’. Under this new legislation, all non-government organisations that receive part or all of their finding from abroad must be entered into a special registry within the next 90 days, will be subject to annual audits, must file expenditure reports every six months, and any publication or mention in the media has to refer to their foreign-agent status. Failure to do so will result in either a fine of one million roubles, or up to four years in prison. (This is according to the 1TV website – details of the penalties vary for different sources.) On July 18^th just five days after the parliament approved the NGOs law, a member of the United Russia party has entered a proposition into the Duma to extend the law to foreign-funded media outlets. 

On July 10^th, Russia’s Wikipedia site went on strike in response to the Duma’s discussion of the new internet information law, veiled as ‘protection of children from information that harms their development and health’. (This is very similar to the anti-paedophilia and homosexuality law that I wrote about earlier. Russian children are becoming the best-protected children in the world.) Under this new law, if passed, all sites with content on child pornography, suicide advice and information on drugs will be blacklisted, and will have 24 hours to close down. Human rights activists claim that the vagueness of the law can effectively be used to close down any site the government deems ‘dangerous’.

Just three days before Putin’s inauguration, followed by mass protests, he signed the law enforcing tougher punishments for misconduct during public demonstrations. The fine starts with 10-20,000 roubles, increasing to 300,000 in case of damaged property or personal injury, and reaches 600,000 for organisers, with 1,000,000 for officials. Given that the average monthly salary in Russia is around 20,000 roubles, this legislation was clearly aimed at dissuading mass demonstrations, so far with limited results.

These measures are hailed as infringements on democracy in Russia, producing world-wide criticisms. Fair enough. But in a country where an honest man, doing his job is subjected to a slow, painful death with no repercussions, where three young girls, two of them with young children, are held without trial for a punk-song stunt (Pussy Riot’s detention has been extended for further six months) and face a seven-year jail sentence, where the head of the investigative committee threatens a journalist with murder, it seems that democracy is not being infringed on – its very existence is in question. Commentators suggest that President Obama will not sign the Magnitsky Bill in its current version, fearing an unfavourable deterioration of US-Russian trade relations. I hope he does, as right now it seems the only way to force Russian lawlessness into some kind of retribution.

The Morning After

In the news...opposition leaders are called in for interrogation after raids on their homes and offices, while the head of the Investigative Committee threatens a journalist.

To those commentators who have been talking about Putin 2.0 and looking forward to the Russian President’s renewed approach to power, the events in Moscow over the last few days must come as an unpleasant set back. To me, they come as an expected shock, but a shock nonetheless. The raids against the opposition leaders conducted on Monday before the rally scheduled for Russia’s Independence Day on June 12^th is, unfortunately, only part of the story. The scandal involving Novaya Gazeta’s Sergei Sokolov and the head of the Russian Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bystirkin exposes a much more sinister side of power in the country, in which free press is not only under pressure, but direct attack.

Today, the editor-in-chief of Novaya, Dmitri Muratov, published an open letter to Bystirkin, calling for guarantees of safety for his staff, following the publication by lifenews.ru website of the conversation between Sokolov and Bystirkin that allegedly took place on June 4 this year. In this short excerpt recoded by the journalist, he begins with an apology for his emotional accusation of Bystirkin’s patronage of a man responsible for destroying evidence concerning the deaths of twelve members of a criminal gang in November 2010. Instead of a two year sentence, the ex United Russia deputy was fined 150,000 roubles. According to Muratov, on a way back from a trip, Sokolov was driven to a forest, Bystirkin appearing shortly. The head of the IC dismissed the security officers and took Sokolov into the woods, expressing his dissatisfaction with Novaya Gazeta, including the activities of the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (Her own experience in Chechnya, when she was abducted by the Russian Federal Forces, driven to a secluded spot and put through a mock execution for her critical coverage of the Russian crimes against the Chechen population is well known. Her actual murder remains unsolved.) Bystirkin is heard saying that such accusations of affiliation with the mafia caused in the good old days. He then, allegedly, threatened not only Sokolov, but also his family, if the paper refused to publish a redress. Careful not to make a bad situation worse, Muratov claims that he believes that this was merely an emotional breakdown on the part of the official, and would like an apology so that both sides can get over the heated argument without any tragic consequences. Meanwhile, Sokolov and his family had left Russia, fearing for their safety.

Now, today is not 1993, and this is not some distant province of Russia. Aside of being the head of the Investigative Committee, Bystirkin holds a doctorate in law, and is a university professor with many distinguished publications to his name. He is a colonel- general of the judiciary, decorated with two state medals. He also studied with Putin. The corruption and crime in the law enforcement forces is nothing new – it even makes it on the pro-government Channel One news. But if this man, who is responsible for the highest law authority in the country, has the power to threaten an opponent, and then suggest, only half jokingly, that he himself will be in charge of the murder case, crosses all boundaries. No, let me correct myself: there is no more visible legal boundaries remaining. Amen. Suffices to say that today, five Echo Moscow journalists were detained outside the offices of the Investigative Committee before they even began the protest in support of Novaya’s position. They were sitting on the pavement, writing on the banners they brought alone, when they were led away by the police. Luckily, all five were released without charge. So far.

The situation surrounding the opposition figureheads has received coverage in the West, even provoking censure from the US State Department and the European Union. Here is why: on Monday morning the blogger Alexei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak – an infamous It-girl turned avid anti-government protestor awoke to the sound of armed men knocking down their doors. Navalny wrote today that all electronic equipment was taken from his flat, including his children’s’ photo cameras and some old pagers he hadn’t used since 1994 and kept as a souvenir. The search continued the next day after Navalny spent six hours answering questions at the, you guessed it, Investigative Committee offices, in his RosPil office, which has been sealed until further notice. The blogger claims that his apartment door has been practically sawed in two. 

It probably doesn’t help his case that today, Navalny filed a formal complaint with the European Court of Justice regarding claim of 5.4 billion roubles government theft investigated by his team. In 2010, European Parliament agreed on sanctions that prohibited travel for Russian officials that were listed in the so-called Magnitsy File. (If you remember, the lawyer who alleged tax-fraud sanctioned by numerous Russian officials in 2007, died in police custody just days before the one year limit he could be held without trial expired.) In October 2011, a Moscow court ordered Navalny to pay 100,000 roubles to Vladelen Stepanov and his wife, both mentioned in the Magnitsky list, and to retract the video posted on the RosPil website with details of their crimes. Navalny’s countersuit was declined in December 2011. So this is his next step. Brave? I think so.

The situation with Ksenia would have been amusing, given her celebrity status, had it not had such sinister possible consequences. The ‘Russian Paris Hilton’ has been active in the Millions March movement that started in December, and apparently the search in her apartment was provoked by the fact that another opposition figure, Ilya Yashin, suspected of organising mass protests under Article 212 of the Russian Federal Law (maximum sentence of ten years, nonetheless), is living on the premises. The TV-presenter, still in her nightdress, watched fifteen armed men ransack her home. But what was aimed as an act of intimidation turned nasty when over a million Euros were found stuffed into 100 separate envelopes in the safe. Unable to produce a viable explanation for where she has gotten all this money from – her lawyer was not allowed onto the premises – Sobchak now faces an unfavourable scenario: either the money is hers – after all, her deceased father, Anatoly Sobchak, the powerful mayor of St. Petersburg who took Putin under his wing in the 1990s, was a very wealthy man. But tax evasion is prosecuted in Russia when needs be, and a criminal sentence can be brought if the offender refuses to pay the fine. What is worse, given the way the money was distributed, is that it could have been indeed meant as sponsorship of the protests, which would make her liable under Article 212. Ksenia has already been dismissed as a host for a popular MTV-style show the previous month, as she claims, for her political activity. Now, she has spent hours answering 56 questions along with Yashin and Navalny and the IC, her passport confiscated. And this is Putin’s goddaughter – keep that in mind.

The protests went on without them, regardless. Thousands of people came out into the streets of Moscow – as the political analyst Gleb Pavlovky thinks, at least 15-20% spurred by the raids against the opposition leaders. There were no clashes, and the dreaded OMON kept its distance, and even, according to a Moskovky Komsomolets journalist, was even polite. The mood in the crows was perceptively different from the previous ‘walks’ – more tense, more political. Sergei Udaltsov, who refused to show up for interrogation scheduled an hour before the start of the rallies, unveiled a united opposition Manifesto, in which he called again for the release of political prisoners, concrete political reform, parliamentary and presidential re-elections, adding that ‘Russia will be free!’ to mass cheers. Boris Nemtsov, writing in his blog, said that he could not have imagined that 22 years after he helped vote Russia’s Declaration of Independence into law, he would witness a search in his home and offices. Udaltsov eventually left to be interrogated, and his parents’ flat was searched, along with Navalny’s in-laws home, where his wife’s 85 year-old grandmother was frightened into a stutter by threats to break down the door she refused to open to strangers.

The acute feeling of a bad hangover one gets reading these stories is only part of this narrative. The excitement the country felt when Putin replaced the ever-drunk, slurring Boris Yeltsin is long over and there are no idealistic illusions left. But this arrogance, this disrespect for the Russian people is a hefty mistake. If the Tandem had listened to the opposition from the start, maybe showed some even pretend interest in their claims, maybe this storm would have blown over. But now, with such direct aggression and shameless, personal abuse of power, the people are getting angry. Parallels to Stalin’s 1937 purges are trending all over the internet. And the story where a corrupt government violates basic human rights – to freedom of expression, to a decent education, to minimum wages, to affordable healthcare, to a fair justice system and an ability to choose leaders – rarely ends well. For everybody.