[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 958 Engrossed in House (EH)]
<DOC>
H. Res. 958
In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
December 3, 2020.
Whereas the right to liberty and security of a person and the protection from
arbitrary imprisonment are among the principal human rights guaranteed
by Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, Article 23 of the Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting of
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Article 5 of
the European Convention on Human Rights;
Whereas the Russian Federation, as member of the United Nations, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the
Council of Europe, is bound by international commitments with regard to
human rights and the rule of law;
Whereas, on October 3, 2012, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
adopted Resolution 1900 (2012) which defined anyone whose ``detention
has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set
out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols'' and
``is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and . . .
appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities'' as a
political prisoner;
Whereas based on the criteria of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe Resolution 1900 (2012), the Memorial Human Rights Center, a
Russian nongovernmental organization, estimates that there are currently
more than 300 political prisoners in the Russian Federation, a six-fold
increase since 2015;
Whereas the Memorial Human Rights Center list of Russian political prisoners
includes journalists, civil society activists, human rights advocates,
participants of peaceful organizations, and Ukrainian citizens from
illegally annexed Crimea;
Whereas the Russian Federation's longest-detained political prisoner, Alexey
Pichugin, has been incarcerated since June 19, 2003, in violation of two
rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the opinion by the
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
Whereas investigative journalist and former editor of the independent newspaper
Noviye Kolyosa, Igor Rudnikov was held in pretrial detention from
November 1, 2017, until June 17, 2019, on alleged extortion charges,
which were later dropped by the court;
Whereas Igor Rudnikov's detention and charges were criticized by the OSCE
Representative on Freedom of the Media and Reporters without Borders,
calling them ``clearly trumped-up'' and ``an act of political revenge'',
respectively;
Whereas opposition activist Konstantin Kotov was sentenced to 1.5 years
imprisonment on April 20, 2020, for participating in peaceful
demonstrations, in a ruling Amnesty International has described as ``a
profound injustice'';
Whereas Anastasia Shevchenko, an activist in the Open Russia movement, has been
held under house arrest since January 23, 2019, on the charge of
belonging to an ``undesirable'' organization and has been designated by
Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience;
Whereas Yuri Dmitriev, a leader of Memorial Society's branch in the Republic of
Karelia region of the Russian Federation who has worked to document mass
burial sites from Stalin-era executions, has been held in detention
since June 28, 2018, on charges of child pornography that Human Rights
Watch has described as ``bogus'' and part of an ongoing ``smear
campaign'', and was sentenced to 13 years in prison on September 29,
2020;
Whereas Dennis Christensen, a Jehovah's Witness and a Danish citizen, was
sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment on February 6, 2019, in a decision
condemned by the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom as part of the broader pattern of the Russian Government
``engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom'';
Whereas, on February 10, 2020, 7 activists from Russia's Penza Oblast were
sentenced to terms of 6 to 18 years for alleged membership in a
terrorist group following a detention marked by torture, ill-treatment
to extract confessions, and periods held incommunicado;
Whereas Human Rights Watch described the case as an example of the Russian
authorities ``abusing counterterrorism laws to silence critics and deny
fundamental human rights'';
Whereas, on August 6, 2020, a court in Moscow sentenced seven activists to
between four years suspended and sevem years in prison for participating
in an alleged extremist organization, ``The New Greatness'', after an
investigation marked by the use of provocateurs, torture, ill-treatment,
and forced confessions, in what the Memorial Human Rights Center and the
Moscow Helsinki Group have described as a ``politically motivated case''
aimed at ``suppressing the freedom of expression'';
Whereas, on June 18, 2019, the Department of State affirmed that ``the United
States is deeply concerned by the growing number of individuals . . .
identified by credible human rights organizations as political and
religious prisoners held by the Government of the Russian Federation''
and called on the Government of the Russian Federation ``to release all
those identified as political or religious prisoners immediately and
cease its use of the legal system to suppress dissent and peaceful
religious practice'';
Whereas, on January 28, 2020, 43 parliamentarians from 16 European countries
introduced a Resolution in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe to appoint a rapporteur ``to examine the growing crisis with
politically motivated imprisonments in the Russian Federation''; and
Whereas, on June 29, 2020, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's
Legal Affairs Committee appointed Icelandic lawmaker Thorhildur Sunna
Aevarsdottir to serve as the rapporteur on political prisoners in
Russia: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) condemns the practice of politically motivated imprisonment in
the Russian Federation that violates the country's international
obligations on human rights and the rule of law and expresses its
solidarity with all those unjustly imprisoned in the Russian Federation;
(2) calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to immediately
release individuals designated by the Memorial Human Rights Center as
political prisoners under the criteria of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe Resolution 1900 (2012), including Alexey Pichugin,
Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri Dmitriev, and Dennis
Christensen;
(3) urges the United States Government, in all its interactions with
the Government of the Russian Federation, to raise individual cases of
Russian political prisoners and advocate for their release; and
(4) calls on the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the
Treasury to use their authority under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law
Accountability Act of 2012 (title IV of Public Law 112-208), the Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of title XII of
Public Law 114-328), and other applicable United States statutory
authorities to designate officials of the Government of the Russian
Federation who are responsible for human rights abuses in the form of
politically motivated imprisonment.
Attest:
Clerk.