[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEV PONOMAREV AND THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM IN RUSSIA

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HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

of florida

in the house of representatives

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, as President Vladimir Putin
ends his presidency of the Russian Federation and his anointed
successor, Dmitry Medvedev, prepares to take over, I would call the
attention of my colleagues to what I consider an alarming backward step
recently taken by the Kremlin in the area of civil liberties and
freedom of speech.
Last week, we learned that criminal charges have been filed against
human rights activist Lev Ponomarev for allegedly slandering the head
of the Russian prison system, General Yuri Kalinin.
Mr. Ponomarev had charged publicly that so-called ``torture camps''
have been established in certain penal colonies under General Kalinin's
jurisdiction. If taken to court and convicted, Mr. Ponomarev could be
fined, or even imprisoned for as much as 3 years.
Mr. Ponomarev, the leader of the Moscow-based organization ``For
Human Rights,'' is a veteran human rights campaigner, going back to the
Soviet era. He recently met with the staff of the Helsinki Commission,
of which I am honored to serve as chairman, to share his concerns about
what he feels is a pattern of systematic abuse and violence in Russia's
penal system. The slander charges were filed when he returned to
Moscow.
Madam Speaker, I make no judgment about the substance of Mr.
Ponomarev's contentions. Nevertheless, I would point out that much of
what he stated has already been publicized in the Russian media and by
the office of the Russian State Duma's human rights ombudsman. It would
appear that Mr. Ponomarev is being prosecuted not for any genuine
crimes he may have committed, but for his prominent and long-time human
rights activity. If this is indeed the case, he joins a growing number
of Russian citizens who have been subjected to questionable legal
procedures by authorities as a result of their political activities.
Unfortunately, this situation is symbolic of larger problems in
Russia that are recounted very well in a February 25th editorial by
Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl entitled, ``Holding Medvedev to
His Words.''
I would like to submit this article for the Record and I urge my
colleagues to read it to better understand the challenges faced by
Russian citizens who work for human rights and civil society in today's
Russia.

[From the Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2008]

Holding Medvedev to His Words

(By Jackson Diehl)

Dmitry Medvedev, the man Vladimir Putin has appointed to be
elected as Russia's president next Sunday, is so slavishly
devoted to his patron that he has begun imitating his
physical quirks. That includes ``how he lays his hands on the
table or how he stresses key words in speeches,'' not to
mention walking with ``fast and abrupt steps,'' according to
the Reuters journalist Oleg Shchedrov.
Medvedev presumably won't be exercising his power as
president to dismiss the prime minister--the position Putin
is about to assume--anytime soon. Yet the diminutive 42-year-
old former law professor has been making some interesting
statements the past couple of weeks. For example: ``Russia is
a country of legal nihilism. No European country can boast
such a universal disregard for the rule of law.''
Or: ``Freedom is inseparable from the actual recognition by
the people of the power of law. The supremacy of the law
should become one of our basic values.'' Or: ``One of the key
elements of our work in the next four years will be ensuring
the independence of our legal system from the executive and
legislative branches of power.''
It's hard to believe that Medvedev could mean this. After
all, the man he is to succeed has, according to estimates by
Russian and Western analysts, accumulated a $40 billion
fortune while in office, ranging from shares in Russian
energy companies to an apartment in Paris. On his watch, 14
journalists--almost all of them Kremlin critics--have been
murdered, but none of the killers has been brought to
justice. Relations with Britain are icy, thanks to Putin's
refusal to act on Scotland Yard's case against the former KGB
agent it says poisoned a Putin critic in London.
But criminality isn't limited to the Kremlin; it may be
Russia's single greatest problem. Average citizens are
frustrated by everything from the bribes necessary to obtain
simple services to the extortion practiced by police and the
susceptibility of judges to payoffs, as well as political
orders. Promising the rule of law--even if he doesn't apply
it to Putin and his circle--may be the juiciest pre-election
promise Medvedev can make.
In any case, his pledge was seized upon by Lev Ponomarev,
the courageous and pragmatic leader of the Russian movement
For Human Rights, which is fighting an uphill battle to
retard the country's return to Soviet-style lawlessness.
Ponomarev was in Washington this month to lobby the Bush
administration and the presidential campaigns; as he
explained it, Russia's presidential transition offers a rare
opportunity for outsiders to press Moscow to adhere to basic
international standards.
``I don't have any big illusions,'' Ponomarev told me. ``I
think Mr. Medvedev is just another face of Mr. Putin. On the
other hand it provides an opportunity to follow up on the
rhetoric about the rule of law. If Mr. Medvedev says A, maybe
it is possible to pressure him to say B. What can B be? It
can be specific steps for restoring and enforcing legal
norms.''
Ponomarev said that President Bush and his successor can
start by pushing Medvedev to stop using the law as an
instrument of political repression. That would mean ending
such practices as the prosecution of liberal academics on
bogus espionage charges; the involuntary commitment of
opposition activists to psychiatric wards, or their draft
into the military; and the campaigns against human rights and
other civil society groups based on supposed tax violations
or breaches of local ordinances.
Next comes what Ponomarev called ``the torture camps'': a
re-emerging gulag of some 50 prison colonies, closed to the
outside world, where prisoners are subjected to systematic
violence and abuse. Ponomarev's group has documented these
practices in photographs and videos smuggled out of the
camps, many of which are controlled by the same officials or
clans that managed them in the Soviet era.
Finally, there is the legal persecution of those who report
such truths. On Friday, state prosecutors brought criminal
charges against Ponomarev himself, claiming that he had
slandered Gen. Yuri Kalinin, the head of the prison camp
system. Ponomarev's travel documents were also revoked; his
lawyers believe he is being punished for speaking out in the
United States.
``It seems to me that a country that is a member of the G-
8,'' the group of rich democracies that Russia was allowed
into a decade ago, ``cannot afford to have political
prisoners and to have torture in its prison camps,''
Ponomarev said to me. It also shouldn't be allowed to
prosecute human rights activists who try to promote the rule
of law. Medvedev ought to be asked by President Bush and
other Western leaders to explain how his talk of ending
``legal nihilism'' squares with the charges against
Ponomarev--before the new president gets his first invitation
to a G-8 summit.

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