[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 524 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 524
Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment, 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 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 2, 2020
Mr. Cardin (for himself, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Coons, Mr. Johnson, and Mrs.
Shaheen) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment, 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 a member of the United Nations, the
Organization for Security and Co-operation 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) that 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'' or ``is
the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to
be connected with political motives of the authorities'' as a political
prisoner;
Whereas, on July 2, 2014, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted the Baku
Declaration in which it ``endorses the adoption by the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe of a resolution confirming the
definition of political prisoners'' and ``strongly urges participating
states to co-operate with international institutions like the OSCE, to
help ensure that . . . there will be no political prisoners in the OSCE
area'';
Whereas, based on the criteria of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe Resolution 1900 (2012), the Memorial Human Rights Center, one of
the most respected nongovernmental organizations in the Russian
Federation, estimates that there are currently more than 300 political
prisoners in the Russian Federation;
Whereas the list of Russian political prisoners designated by the Memorial Human
Rights Center includes journalists, civil society activists, human
rights advocates, participants of peaceful demonstrations, adherents of
prohibited religious groups, members of ``undesirable'' organizations,
and Ukrainian citizens from the illegally annexed Crimea;
Whereas the longest-serving political prisoner in the Russian Federation, Alexey
Pichugin, has been incarcerated since June 19, 2003, in violation of 2
rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the opinion by the
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
Whereas opposition activist Konstantin Kotov was sentenced to 4 years'
imprisonment on September 5, 2019, for participating in peaceful
demonstrations, in a ruling Human Rights Watch has described as ``an
outrageous violation of the right to peaceful protest'';
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 historian and the leader of the Memorial Human Rights
Center's branch in the Republic of Karelia 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 citizen of Denmark, 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 Government of the Russian
Federation ``engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious
freedom'';
Whereas, on February 10, 2020, a court in Penza sentenced 7 activists to prison
terms ranging from 6 to 18 years for participation in what authorities
alleged was a terrorist organization called ``Network'' after a trial
marked by incommunicado detention, torture, and other ill treatment to
extract confessions, in what Human Rights Watch has described as an
example of the Russian authorities ``abusing counterterrorism laws to
silence critics and deny fundamental human rights'';
Whereas, on June 18, 2018, 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 calling for the appointment of a rapporteur ``to examine the
growing crisis with politically motivated imprisonments in the Russian
Federation''; and
Whereas, according to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the number of political
prisoners in the Russian Federation has increased more than 6-fold since
2015: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) expresses support for those unjustly imprisoned in the
Russian Federation;
(2) condemns the practice of politically motivated
imprisonment in the Russian Federation, which violates the
commitments of the Russian Federation to international
obligations with respect to human rights and the rule of law;
(3) calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to
immediately release political prisoners, including Alexey
Pichugin, Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri
Dmitriev, and Dennis Christensen;
(4) urges the United States Government, in all its
interactions with the Government of the Russian Federation, to
raise individual cases of political prisoners held by the
Russian Federation and to press for their release; and
(5) urges 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; 22 U.S.C. 5811 note), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights
Accountability Act (subtitle F of title XII of Public Law 114-
328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note), and other applicable provisions of
law to designate for the imposition of sanctions 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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