Russia responded angrily on Thursday to a proposal that would deny European visas to a list of 60 officials who have been implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in pretrial detention in Moscow last year.
Chairman of the Russian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev condemned the proposed ban as “Bolshevik tactics” and said Russia might be forced to “very harshly retaliate” if the proposal went forward. He said such pressure “could have extremely negative consequences for the entire relationship between Russia and the European Union.”
The Foreign Ministry called the move “direct interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state and open pressure on the judicial system of the Russian Federation.”
While the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee voted to add the recommendation to its human rights report, the proposal remains far from becoming policy.
First, it must be approved by the full European Parliament next month. Then it would be up to the EU’s member states to decide whether to adopt sanctions against the 60 officials, said Heidi Hautala, a member of the Finnish delegation, who sponsored the proposal.
“What it represents is a strong concern in the European Union that it’s time to give justice to Magnitsky, who certainly looks like a victim of the Russian judicial system,” she said.
The 60 names include highly placed officials in the Russian Interior Ministry, prosecutorial investigative committee and prison administration, as well as 12 judges. The proposal recommends denying them visas and freezing assets and bank accounts held overseas.
The committee’s vote follows a recommendation by US Senator Benjamin Cardin in April that the US State Department deny visas to the officials.
Magnitsky died on Nov. 16 last year, after being held for more than 11 months on suspicion of tax fraud. At the time of his arrest, Magnitsky was working as counsel for Hermitage Capital Management, whose founder, William Browder, was involved in a bitter feud with the Russian authorities.
KATYN
In other developments, Russia’s lower house of parliament passed a statement yesterday saying the World War II Katyn massacres were committed on the direct order of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
The 1940 massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens in western Russia by Soviet secret police has long soured relations between the two countries.
Soviet propaganda for decades blamed the killings on the Nazis, but post-Soviet Russia previously acknowledged they were carried out by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs — Stalin’s much feared secret police.
The text was agreed at an unusually stormy Duma session that featured virulent opposition from the minority Communist Party, some of whose officials still insist the massacre was carried out by the Nazis.
The statement comes ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Poland next month.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese