[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.