[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 958 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 958
Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment and
calling for the immediate release of political prisoners in the Russian
Federation and urging action by the United States Government to impose
sanctions with respect to persons responsible for that form of human
rights abuse.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 8, 2020
Mr. Engel (for himself and Mr. McCaul) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment and
calling for the immediate release of political prisoners in the Russian
Federation and urging action by the United States Government to impose
sanctions with respect to persons responsible for that form of human
rights abuse.
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 has been in pretrial detention since
November 1, 2017, for alleged extortion charges;
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 Human Rights Center's branch in the
Republic of Karelia region of the Russian Federation who has worked to
document mass burial sites from Stalin-era executions, is being held in
pretrial detention on charges of child pornography that Human Rights
Watch has described as ``bogus'' and part of an ongoing ``smear
campaign'';
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, seven activists from Russia's Penza Oblast were
sentenced to terms of six to eighteen 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 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''; and
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'': 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, Igor
Rudnikov, 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.
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