[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES IN RUSSIA:
NO END IN SIGHT
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HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 26, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
[CSCE 115-1-1]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via www.csce.gov
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHIELA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Vacant, Department of State
Vacant, Department of Commerce
Vacant, Department of Defense
[ii]
DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES IN RUSSIA:
NO END IN SIGHT
----------
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 1
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe...................................... 3
Hon. Thom Tillis, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 6
Hon. Steve Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 14
Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 19
Hon. John Boozman, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
Hon. Mike Burgess, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe
WITNESSES
Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice-Chairman, Open Russia.................. 4
Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia
Division, Human Rights Watch................................... 9
Dr. Daniel Calingaert, Executive Vice President, Freedom House... 12
[iii]
APPENDICES
Prepared statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker....................... 30
Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin.................... 31
Prepared statement of Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee.................... 32
Prepared statement of Hon. Michael Burgess....................... 33
Prepared statement of Vladimir Kara-Murza........................ 34
Prepared statement of Dr. Daniel Calingaert...................... 36
MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
List of Individuals Recognized as Political Prisoners by the
Memorial Human Rights Center................................... 42
DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN
RIGHTS ABUSES IN RUSSIA:
NO END IN SIGHT
----------
April 26, 2017
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 9:33 a.m. in Room 124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Roger F. Wicker,
Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Chairman,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Benjamin
L. Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Thom Tillis, Commissioner,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Steve
Cohen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe; Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. John Boozman,
Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe;
Hon. Michael Burgess, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe; and Hon. Randy Hultgren, Commissioner,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice-Chairman, Open
Russia; Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and
Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch; and Dr. Daniel
Calingaert, Executive Vice President, Freedom House.
HON. ROGER WICKER, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Wicker. The hearing will come to order.
Good morning, everyone. The 115th Congress has already, in
its very first months, devoted considerable attention to
threats posed by Russia to the states of the former USSR, to
all of Europe and even to the United States through Russia's
interference in our very own elections--a matter that remains
under investigation by multiple U.S. authorities. What we have
not done yet--and this goes well back into the 114th Congress--
is take a long, hard look at the continuing violations of
democratic norms and human rights within Russia itself.
So I'm happy today that my first hearing, as chairman of
the U.S. Helsinki Commission, can focus on this very important
and timely topic. I'm especially glad that we have such an
expert panel of witnesses to testify today on the impact these
abuses have, not only on the people of the Russian Federation
but on the larger international community, by effectively
silencing the voices of the opposition within Russia and giving
Mr. Putin and his regime a free hand to act with impunity
abroad.
We will begin with someone who is no stranger to me, to the
Helsinki Commission, nor to the halls of Congress, thanks to
his tireless work promoting democracy in Russia. Despite the
Putin regime's efforts to silence him, Mr. Vladimir Kara-Murza
is still with us today, and I can't think of anybody in a
better position to tell us about the intense--and too often
lethal--pressure being applied to brave Russians like him who
engage in opposition politics.
We're also very fortunate to have representatives of two of
the top independent organizations promoting human rights and
freedom of expression across the globe, Human Rights Watch and
Freedom House. Rachel Denber will be sharing with us highlights
of her years of work following human rights issues in Russia
for Human Rights Watch, including the shocking stories of
murder and repression in Chechnya that have recently come to
light. Human Rights Watch has been the only international
organization actively following this case. And Daniel
Calingaert is the executive vice president of Freedom House, an
organization that needs no introduction here.
Freedom House's annual publications--Freedom in the World,
Freedom of the Press and Freedom of the Net--have been
invaluable in helping Congress and opponents of freedom of
expression and democracy all of over the world track both
progress and backsliding on these fundamental freedoms around
the globe. In the case of Russia, the trends have not been
positive, and we look forward to hearing much more about that.
Now, a word about the portraits of the people that you will
notice in the room here to my right--and which you'll see in
the room today--these represent several well-known political
prisoners currently behind bars in Russia. We will hear about
many of them during this morning's hearing. The people
portrayed here represent only a fraction of the dozens of
political prisoners held in Russia. Indeed, some groups
following this issue, like the NGO Memorial, estimate the
number is in the hundreds. We wanted to be able to help our
audience see at least a few of the faces behind some of the
names you will hear today, and we will, of course, have much
more information on political prisoners in the material that
will be submitted for the record.
This hearing is intended to accomplish two things. First of
all, we want to draw much needed attention to the ongoing
serious abuses of human rights in Russia to remind all members
of Congress and the American people that the situation in
Russia is grave and could continue to deteriorate. Secondly,
with our witnesses' assistance, we would like to evaluate how
our current approach to human rights abuses in Russia is
working and to consider what we can do to get things back on a
positive trajectory in Russia, for the Russian people
ultimately. A Russia that fully respects all of its citizens'
human rights, that allows for full freedom of expression and
religion and for free and fair elections, will be a place where
all Russians can prosper. Those improvements would also make
Russia a much better neighbor and would go a long way toward
promoting peace and security in the entire Eurasian region. So
we have a lot to discuss.
And, with that, it's my pleasure to yield to my good friend
Senator Cardin for his opening statement. Senator Cardin.
HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, RANKING MEMBER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Cardin. Well, Senator Wicker, thank you very much for
convening this extremely important hearing on democracy and
human rights in Russia.
Democracy and human rights and respect for human rights is
very much in the hearts and minds of Russians, but not in its
leader, Mr. Putin, and it's important that we have this hearing
to underscore our commitment to the Russian people and their
quest to be respected for human rights.
I must tell you, I am extremely impressed by the spirit of
the people in Russia. Under extremely dangerous circumstances,
they are taking to the streets to protest against Mr. Putin's
corruption. We saw the truck drivers' protest against these
corrupt taxes that are being collected from them. The Russian
people are showing tremendous courage under extremely dangerous
circumstances.
So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for this hearing,
and particularly for the posters and for the faces, because
there are millions of people being persecuted in Russia today.
But as we found, without personalizing it, it's difficult to
get the attention that the international community should be
paying to what is happening today in Russia. You and I and
others were able to do that by the Magnitsky Global
Accountability Act, by focusing on the tragedy that occurred to
Sergei Magnitsky, and it not only caused the United States to
act, but the international community also responded when they
saw the outrageous way that one individual was treated by Mr.
Putin in Russia.
We're at the Helsinki Commission, and it's interesting that
if you look at the Helsinki Final Act, in Moscow, the OSCE
participating states explicitly acknowledged that, and I quote,
``Issues relating to human rights, fundamental freedoms,
democracy and the rule of law are of international concern, and
the respect for these rights and freedoms constitutes one of
the foundations of the international order.'' That was the
declaration that was issued in Moscow under the OSCE. So we
have a direct interest and responsibility, every member state,
to challenge when other states are not doing what is required
under the Helsinki Final Act, and Russia clearly is violating
those commitments.
I appreciate all three witnesses that are here, but I want
to particularly acknowledge Vladimir Kara-Murza. And I thank
you very much for your presence, and it's nice to see you here
with your wife.
As Chairman Wicker pointed out, by the posters that we are
displaying here, that by showing the courage of individuals we
can get more action. And Mr. Kara-Murza, you have shown
tremendous courage in standing up for what is right for the
Russian people at the risk of your own life, not once but on
other occasions, and it's good to see you healthier today than
the last time I saw you.
Mr. Chairman, I'm going to read what our witness said when
he testified before Congress--now, it's been almost two years
ago. This is what he said two years ago:
``Our friends in the West often ask how they can be
helpful to the cause of human rights and democracy in
Russia, and the answer is very simple: Please stay true
to your values. We are not asking for your support. It
is our task to fight for democracy and the rule of law
in our country. The only thing we ask from Western
leaders is that they stop supporting Mr. Putin by
treating him as a respectable and worthy partner and by
allowing Mr. Putin's cronies to use Western countries
as havens for their looted wealth.''
That was good advice two years ago, and that advice remains
the same today. Tragically, the numbers are increasing of those
who are at risk. Just a few days ago, a St. Petersburg
journalist succumbed to his injuries after being beaten into a
coma on March the 9th. His case is a reminder that many attacks
have resulted not only in loss of life, but in some cases have
left people maimed and disabled for life.
Mr. Chairman, I also welcome the opportunity to focus on
the political prisoners and others detained in violation of
Principle VII of the Helsinki Final Act: the right of people to
know and act upon their human rights. The cases of these seven
detainees have been well documented by Memorial, the Russian
civil society organization established to document the crimes
of Soviet repression.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to include in the
record Memorial's list of political prisoners, which was
submitted at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in
Warsaw in September.
Mr. Wicker. Without objection.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I regret that
Secretary Tillerson did not meet with independent civil society
groups like Memorial when he visited Moscow--foregoing an
opportunity to communicate U.S. support for an open and
democratic Russia.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I thank
them very much for being here.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Senator Cardin.
And we begin our testimony by recognizing Mr. Kara-Murza.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, VICE CHAIRMAN, OPEN RUSSIA
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Cardin, esteemed members of
the Commission, thank you very much for holding this important
and timely hearing and for the opportunity to testify before
you.
This coming Saturday, April 29th, pro-democracy activists
across Russia will take part in a nationwide campaign organized
by the Open Russia Movement with a single message: enough. They
will hold rallies, and send petitions to the Kremlin calling on
Vladimir Putin to leave the presidency when his current term--
officially the third, in reality the fourth--expires next
spring.
Mr. Putin has been in power for 17 years. There is now an
entire generation of Russians who have no memory of any other
government. This longevity has been the result of a deliberate
suppression of the opposition, independent media and civil
society and of continuous violations of the rights and freedoms
guaranteed to Russian citizens by our own constitution and by
our country's commitments under the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe. Chief among these is the right to
freely elect one's own government. After March of 2000, not a
single national election in Russia, presidential or
parliamentary, was assessed by OSCE monitors as free and fair.
Unequal media access, the removal of opposition candidates
from the ballot and outright fraud have become the unfortunate
norm in Russian elections. The result has been a parliament
devoid of real opposition, not a place for discussion in the
words of its own former speaker. Major media outlets have also
long ceased to be places for discussion. Having taken control
of all national television networks, the main source of news
for Russian citizens, the Kremlin turned them into propaganda
outlets that offer laudatory coverage of the authorities and
portray Mr. Putin's political opponents as a fifth column that
works at the behest of foreign governments. Many of these
opponents are in prison. According to Memorial, Russia's most
respected human rights organization, there are now 115
political prisoners in Russia, a number comparable with the
late Soviet period.
And I'd like to thank the staff members of the Helsinki
Commission for putting up these portraits of some of the ones
who are political prisoners in Vladimir Putin's Russia today.
They include opposition activists and their family members,
such as Sergei Udaltsov, Oleg Navalny and Darya Polyudova,
citizens jailed for taking part in peaceful antigovernment
demonstrations, including construction engineer Ivan
Nepomnyashchikh and history lecturer Dmitry Buchenkov. The
latter was not even present at the rally for which he was
charged. But a little Kafka never stopped the Russian judicial
system. They include Ukrainians arrested after the annexation
of Crimea, such as the filmmaker Oleg Sentsov. And I believe
there will be a special briefing here at the Helsinki
Commission this week focusing on his case. They include Aleksei
Pichugin, the remaining hostage of the Yukos case that saw the
head of Russia's largest oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
imprisoned for more than a decade for having the tenacity to
support opposition parties and expose government corruption.
Sometimes political opponents are dealt with without a
recourse to formal procedures. In October of 2015 at a hearing
of this Commission, I recalled the near-fatal poisoning I had
experienced in Moscow earlier that year. Today, I could take
that statement and repeat it word for word because I have now
experienced it for the second time, also in Moscow, this past
February--an identical picture, poisoning by an undefined
substance leading to multiple organ failure and a coma. Doctors
estimated my chance to survive at 5 percent, so I'm very
fortunate to be sitting here today, certainly very grateful.
Many of our colleagues have not been as fortunate. Several
opposition activists, independent journalists, anticorruption
campaigners and whistleblowers have lost their lives in the
last 17 years.
Two years ago, in the most brazen political assassination
in modern Russia, opposition leader and former Deputy Prime
Minister Boris Nemtsov was murdered on a bridge in front of the
Kremlin. The official investigation into his assassination is
stalling. While the alleged perpetrators, all of them, linked
to the Kremlin-
appointed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, are currently on
trial, the authorities have not pursued those who had ordered
and organized the killing and have refused to even question
potential persons of interest, including Mr. Kadyrov and the
commander of the Russian National Guard, General Viktor
Zolotov.
Under the statutes of the OSCE and contrary to repeated
claims by Kremlin officials, human rights abuses in member
states cannot be dismissed as an internal affair and are, I
quote, ``matters of direct and legitimate concern to all
participating states,'' end of quote. And Senator Cardin has
already referenced this fundamental principle of the OSCE.
It is important that our OSCE partners speak openly and
honestly about what is happening in Russia. It is also
important, since human rights are a matter of international
concern, that there be international accountability for those
who violate them. The United States does have a mechanism for
such accountability in the Magnitsky Act, of which the ranking
member is the lead author and the chairman is one of the
original cosponsors, the act that individually targets human
rights abusers. And it is very important that this law
continues to be implemented to its full extent.
The main responsibility for ensuring respect for human
rights, the rule of law and democratic principles in Russia
lies, of course, with Russian citizens themselves. And I would
respectfully disagree with the subtitle of this hearing, that
there is no end in sight to the abuses. Increasingly, the young
generation in Russia, the very generation that grew up under
Vladimir Putin, is demanding respect and accountability from
those in power.
Last month, protests against government corruption swept
across Russia with tens of thousands of people, mostly young
people, taking to the streets, despite arrests and
intimidation. This movement will continue and these growing
demands for accountability are the best guarantee that Russia
will one day become a country where citizens can exercise the
rights and freedoms to which they are entitled.
I thank you very much, once again, for holding this hearing
and I look forward to any questions you may have during the
question-and-answer round. Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Kara-Murza.
And I'm going to defer my questioning until the end. But
let me just say on behalf of the Commission that you look
great, particularly considering what you've gone through. And
we are just thrilled that you are up and about and healthy and
able to testify today.
At this point, I'm going to yield my time to Mr. Tillis for
a five-minute round, and then Mr. Cardin, and then we'll go in
turn after that. So thank you much.
Senator Tillis.
HON. THOM TILLIS, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Tillis. Thank you. And thank you all for being here.
I was at a Banking Committee hearing about a month ago. And
one of the subjects was Russian sanctions. And there was a
question asked that was, ``How rich is Vladimir Putin?'' And
everybody was coming up with all kinds of calculations. My
response to that, ``he's as rich as he wants to be because he
will take whatever he wants and he will use every device in his
power in what seems to be an unbridled fashion.'' So I wanted
to give you my predisposition on the leadership over there.
It's not a positive one.
I also think it's important for us to make sure that if
someone from Russia happens to watch this on video, this is not
about the Russian people; this is for the Russian people and
the abuses that I think are well-documented. In fact, some of
the attempts on your life, some of the murders look like
they're right out of a Tom Clancy novel or something. It's
almost like you'd think it was fictional, but it's actually
happening. And I don't think, even among the American people,
when you see a Time magazine that has Vladimir Putin on it,
``The Most Powerful Man Alive,'' you could almost conjure that
up as actually respectable leaders who have had that title in
the past.
So has the pace of the acts, like the acts against you, the
murders, do you think that they have escalated or are they more
or less running at the same rate? Where are we now in terms of
Russia and actors in Russia feeling any pressure from our
knowledge that these acts are going on? And I'm happy to have
anyone answer that question.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you very much, Senator Tillis. And I
think you're certainly right to say that Mr. Putin is as rich
as he can be. And it has been said about the people who are
currently in power in Russia that this group of people doesn't
just rule Russia, it also owns it. And I think that's very true
about the nature of the regime we have, the kleptocratic,
oligarchic regime in many ways. And when the Panama Papers came
out about a year ago, that was, of course, just the tiniest tip
of the iceberg, that showed as one of the revelations that
there were $2 billion worth of assets owned by Mr. Putin's
close friend, the cellist Sergei Roldugin. And this presumably
is the way that this money is kept. I mean, presumably it's not
in Mr. Putin's own name, he's more clever than that. It's kind
of stashed away in the names of other people.
And we used to say--we said in Moscow last year that we all
thought that Paul McCartney was the world's richest musician.
Now we know it's Sergei Roldugin who is nobody you probably
ever heard of, but he's the one who has all these assets.
In terms of the pace of the repression, the crackdown, he
certainly began gradually when he came to power 17 years ago.
In fact, I think it could be said that he borrowed Benito
Mussolini's tactic when it came to dismantling the democratic
institutions in Russia. And Mussolini's advice was to--he said
it once, ``pluck the chicken feather by feather to lessen the
squawking,'' so you do it gradually, you do it one by one. So
he went after independent media and he went after the political
opposition. He went after the institutions, like Parliament,
step by step by step. And, of course, the pace of the crackdown
certainly has massively accelerated in the past five years
since the big protests that began in 2011, 2012.
And the number of political prisoners we have in Russia
today, 115 according to Memorial--actually I think it will be
updated today or tomorrow because there was one more person
sentenced yesterday in a political case, a well-known
nationalist, Dmitry Dyomushkin is his name--this number is
really well comparable to what we had in the Andropov-Brezhnev
era. When Andrei Sakharov wrote his Nobel Prize lecture in
1975, he listed 126 political prisoners in the Soviet Union--
we're now up to 115. That wasn't an exhaustive list back then,
probably this one isn't either. And, of course, Russia is much
smaller than the Soviet Union was, so you can compare the
scale.
And in terms of the mortality rate among people who have
crossed the Kremlin's path in one way or another, it certainly
has been abnormally high in defying any kind of statistical
model. And as I mentioned in my prepared testimony, the
assassination of Boris Nemtsov, the leader of the Russian
opposition, two years ago was the most brazen, the most high-
profile political assassination in Russia in decades. And it
basically continues to be surrounded by impunity.
Mr. Tillis. In my remaining time, I did want to get one
other question in. I have a Judiciary Confirmation hearing that
I have to go to. I would like to stay for the entire hearing.
But how would you gauge--the United States is one nation
that really needs to stand against some of the activities that
we're seeing in Russia. How would you rate the international
community in general in terms of their focus and their message
and their level of expressed concern for what we see going on
in Russia?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Well, the U.S. has certainly led in this
because you didn't limit yourselves to words, you went into
action. And four-and-a-half years ago, this Congress passed the
Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act which for the
first time--this was really a groundbreaking principle--for the
first time it introduced sanctions not against a country, not
even against a government, per se, but against specific
individuals responsible for human rights abuse. And this is
absolutely fundamental, because going back to what we were just
talking about, the nature of this regime that we have now is
that these people abuse the rights of their own citizens, but
they themselves want to use all the privileges, including
financial privileges, that the West has to offer for themselves
and for their families. And this double standard has to end and
the U.S. has led in ending this double standard.
And I think it's very important that the Magnitsky law
continues to be implemented in this country to the full extent.
And there are now other countries that are following your
example. Estonia became the first European Union country to
pass a similar measure. The U.K. is now in the process of doing
so. Canada is in the process of doing so. And so I think this
is the most important benchmark and it's important that it
continues to be implemented.
Mr. Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wicker. And thank you, Senator Tillis.
We departed from regular order to accommodate the senator,
who is on his way to another very important hearing. But at
this point we will resume with the testimony of our two other
distinguished panelists, the first being Rachel Denber, deputy
director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human
Rights Watch. She specializes in countries of the former Soviet
Union. Previously, Ms. Denber directed Human Rights Watch's
Moscow office and did field research and advocacy in Russia,
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia,
Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
So, Ms. Denber, we are delighted to have you here and we
welcome your testimony.
RACHEL DENBER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA
DIVISION, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Ms. Denber. Thank you so much, Chairman Wicker.
Thank you, members of the Commission, for inviting me here
today.
And I just want to personally acknowledge Vladimir Kara-
Murza's courage. It's an honor to be testifying together with
you and also together with our colleague from Freedom House.
I have been monitoring human rights in Russia, in the
former Soviet Union, for 25 years now. And I can say that I
want to agree with what Vladimir said, that Russia is today
more repressive than it has ever been in the post-Soviet era. I
think that Vladimir and also you, Chairman Wicker, have talked
about some of the tools that the government is using to try
to--I want to emphasize ``try to''--silence independent
critics. It's using a wide range of tools through tightening
control over free expression, over free assembly, over free
association, over NGOs.
And I want to add two other things about this crackdown on
civil society that has grown increasingly vicious, and that's
the way that the Kremlin-controlled broadcasters have been
portraying Western democracies as working to destabilize Russia
and the rest of the world and how these Kremlin-controlled
broadcasters have--and Kremlin-controlled media or Kremlin-
loyal media--have also been urging Russians to mobilize against
this threat and have branded dissenting voices as paid agents
of the West working against Russia. I think it's really
important to understand how the government has tried to
mobilize the public mood in a very poisonous way.
I want to talk about two things, and one is something that
Chairman Wicker referred to--what's happening in Chechnya
today. And I think it's also very important and relevant in the
context of what you mentioned, Ramzan Kadyrov and his
association with Nemtsov's murder, and with Chechnya.
As you know, there has been a campaign inside Chechnya to
round up and beat, torture men who were believed to be gay in
Chechnya. This is a campaign that has been very rightly
condemned by the U.S. Government, and by members of this
Commission and other members of Congress.
You know, this campaign is targeting these men to try to
get them to hand over the contacts of other men who are
believed to be gay and to, again, mobilize society against
them. When they are released, they are at great risk of
persecution by their own families, of hate crimes, because
Chechnya is a highly traditional society, and being gay in
Chechnya is considered a stain on family honor.
I think that as a result of the pressure that has been
mobilized by the United States Government, by governments all
over Europe and by international organizations, Putin
eventually did discuss the allegations of these roundups with
Ramzan Kadyrov, who owes his political career to Vladimir
Putin. You know, of course, Kadyrov denied that these roundups
were happening, that this torture was happening, but the facts
are there. The facts are there. Human Rights Watch has done our
own interviews. We've confirmed the roundups. We've confirmed
the forced outings to families. And we've also confirmed the
very visceral threats that Chechen officials have issued
against the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, that made these
allegations public for the first time.
The second thing I wanted to address was the broader issues
of political prisoners in Russia. I'm very happy to see the
posters and these faces. That's incredibly important to
actually see these faces and realize that they're actual people
with actual families. Human Rights Watch, we don't have our own
comprehensive list of politically motivated arrests. We also
follow and pay great attention and liaise with the Memorial
Human Rights Center, which keeps this comprehensive list.
I think it would be an overstatement to say that the
Russian Government systematically arrests and imprisons
dissidents, political-opposition activists and government
critics. I think that the government for now doesn't need to
engage in mass arrests. It has other tools in the toolbox,
tools that induce self-censorship. People who they want to
intimidate are people who are online, who are active on the
Internet, or people who might participate in protests.
Vladimir already set out the main groups of people who are
targets of intimidation and who are targets of arrests. They
include protesters, not only from four years ago, the Bolotnaya
case, but also the people who marched last month against
corruption. A second group is other people who are targeted
with arbitrary cases of extremism; these include people who are
imprisoned for sharing or for posting something on the Internet
having to do with government--their criticism of Russia's
actions in Syria, also having to do with religious insults. And
I can give a couple of examples in question and answer.
Probably the largest category of new cases of politically
motivated arrests have to do with Ukraine, either Ukrainian
citizens who have been arrested on a range of charges--and I
especially want to point out Oleg Sentsov, as Vladimir had, and
to point out also that the third anniversary of his arrest is
coming up May 10th. I wish I could be here for tomorrow's
briefing on that. So they're either Ukrainian citizens or they
are people who have spoken out against Russia's actions in
Ukraine, whether it's the young woman, Darya Polyudova, who did
nothing more than make a harmless post on her VKontakte
account, to a very small closed group, or others who criticize
Russia's occupation of Crimea.
There's even a librarian, Natalia Sharina, who's currently
under house arrest because of suspicion that some of the books
in the Ukrainian-language library in Moscow, where she is the
librarian, that there were a couple of dozen books that the
government has said are extremist materials. And also there's a
large group of Crimean Tatars who have been arrested or who are
facing criminal charges.
And I would also say that there's a fifth group, and that's
people who simply face political retribution by the regime. And
that's either people like Oleg Navalny, the opposition leader
Alexei Navalny,s brother--I'm very glad to see his photograph
up here--and also people inside Chechnya who have criticized
Ramzan Kadyrov, who are in jail now and facing completely false
drug charges.
I'm really glad that you asked what it is that the United
States could be doing. I would put forth four recommendations.
One is specifically about the anti-gay campaign in
Chechnya. It's to stay strongly focused on this, to continue to
bring pressure on the Kremlin to stop these purges and to
insist that the Kremlin ensure that they never happen again. I
think that the criticism that's been brought forward so far is
the only reason why Putin raised this issue with Kadyrov in the
first place.
The second thing the United States can do is to actually
understand that men from Chechnya who are gay or believed to be
gay have absolutely nowhere to go, and they will be targeted.
They will continue to be targeted, whether it's by the regime
or by their families, and that the U.S. should do whatever it
can to help these men find safe sanctuary, especially in the
United States.
The other two recommendations are quite general, and that's
to continue full support for outlets like Radio Free Europe,
Radio Liberty, Voice of America. These are incredibly important
sources--important and high-quality sources of information in
Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.
And then, finally, I'm so glad you mentioned that when
Secretary Tillerson went to Moscow, he did not meet with
Memorial. We were quite surprised that Secretary Tillerson,
during his trip to Moscow, met with no civil-society leaders.
It's not that every single time a secretary of state travels to
Russia that they must meet civil-
society leaders. But on his first trip, I would have expected
Secretary Tillerson to meet with them.
And I think we need to make sure that when high-level U.S.
VIPs travel to Russia, they should meet with civil-society
leaders--not only to show support, but also to listen to what
they have to say, because their analysis of what's going on in
Russia is incredibly important--and also to find ways to raise
those issues in meetings that they have with Russian officials
and to show that meeting with civil-society leaders is a normal
thing to do in a strong democracy.
I think that I will stop there. Thank you very much for
inviting me to speak today.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you very much, Ms. Denber.
Dr. Daniel Calingaert is executive vice president at
Freedom House. He oversees Freedom House's contributions to
policy debate on democracy and human rights issues and outreach
to the U.S. Congress, foreign governments, media, and Freedom
House supporters. He previously supervised Freedom House's
civil society and media programs worldwide.
He has taught at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins University,
also at the American University School of Public Affairs. And
it's worth noting that he graduated with highest honors in
international relations from Tufts University and earned both a
Master's in Philosophy and a Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford
University.
Dr. Calingaert, we're delighted to have you with us.
DR. DANIEL CALINGAERT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, FREEDOM HOUSE
Dr. Calingaert. Thank you, Chairman Wicker.
And thank you, honorable members of the Commission, for the
opportunity to testify.
I ask that my full written statement be submitted for the
record.
Mr. Wicker. Without objection.
Dr. Calingaert. Thank you.
Repression in Russia echoes across Eurasia and beyond.
President Putin was the primary author of what we call the
modern authoritarian's playbook. And it's a playbook that he
developed starting in the early 2000s and refined over time.
And this, in essence, is the facade of pluralism that really
masks political control. Other dictators have picked up the
playbook and used it.
A key component of the playbook is suppressing civil
society. We heard earlier about restrictive NGO laws, criticism
of foreign support for local civil society. And these are
methods that we've seen replicated not only in neighboring
countries, but even as far afield as Ethiopia and Venezuela.
In 2012, Russia passed its foreign-agent law. And we've
seen similar legislation enacted in Kazakhstan. It was debated
but ultimately rejected in Kyrgyzstan; and most recently there
are reports that foreign-agent legislation is being drafted in
Hungary, which I'd note used to be held up as an example of
democratic transition and progress.
The foreign-agent bill not only stifles civil society but
fuels a poisonous narrative of civil society as paid foreign
agents who are trying to impose alien agendas. And this is
really a distraction. It's a way for President Putin and other
dictators to shift attention from the real issue, which is
their efforts to deny citizens' fundamental freedoms.
The foreign-agent bills and other restrictions on civil
society are echoed in Eurasia and other places. If you look at
Russia's manipulation of the media, that is directly affecting
countries in the neighborhood and further on. And when I say
media manipulation, I'm talking about really a sophisticated
form of influence that is designed to undermine trust in
democratic institutions. And this is a combination of facts,
distortions and outright fabrications designed to shape public
opinion. It often relies on social media to amplify rumors,
blatant falsehoods, and reach a significant audience. And in
some cases the buzz on social media causes coverage in
mainstream media, as we saw in the French elections with rumors
about the candidate Emmanuel Macron.
Russian television has extensive reach and influences
public perceptions. According to a Gallup poll, residents in
most of Eurasia find that the Russian media's coverage of the
situation in Ukraine and Crimea is more reliable than Western
media coverage. The large reach of Russian TV can shape public
discourse in other countries. For instance, the whole debate in
Kyrgyzstan on foreign funding for civil society was really
driven by Russian TV.
And even where the reach is limited, it can gain traction.
To cite other examples, in Germany there was a false report of
a 13-year-old Russian-German girl supposedly raped by migrants.
Again, it was fueled by social media. And even in the U.S.
elections last year, there are certain stories that sort of
gained traction through, you know, dubious websites and social
media accounts likely connected to Russia.
Russia is seeking to undercut the ability of international
organizations to protect human rights and democratic standards;
for instance, impeding this election of a new OSCE
representative on freedom of the media. This obstruction is
part of a broader effort to revise the European order. A key
component obviously is the Helsinki Final Act, which in essence
was a grand bargain whereby the U.S. and Western Europe
accepted existing borders, and the Soviet Union and its allies
recognized the human dimension of security. As is evident from
Russia's intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea,
Russia doesn't respect human rights nor existing borders.
Unless the U.S. actively defends the European order, Russia
will continue to erode it and Europe will grow less stable. The
expansion of Russian influence is likely to reduce support for
the transatlantic alliance and weaken resistance to Russia's
violations of territorial integrity.
The spread of democracy serves U.S. economic interests as
well. Corruption and weak rule of law put U.S. businesses at a
disadvantage. And restrictions on media limit access of
American companies, as was seen by Russia's decision to block
LinkedIn.
When the U.S. defends human rights, it is not imposing its
values on other countries. It is holding other governments to
account for failing to follow their own laws and international
human-rights commitments. The United States lives up to its
international commitments. It's only fair that we expect Russia
and others to do the same.
I have several recommendations to counter the spread of
Russia's repressive practices and media manipulation.
First is to staunchly defend the norms that are established
by the OSCE and other international conventions and respond
firmly and vocally to violations.
Second, the U.S. should lead democratic countries in
publicly criticizing and diplomatically pushing back on
initiatives to replicate Russia's repressive practices; for
instance, the introduction of the foreign-agent law in Hungary.
We call on the Congress to push for full enforcement of the
Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act and the Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and specifically
urge the President to add more senior Russian officials to the
Russia sanctions list and to impose sanctions on officials
under the Global Magnitsky Act.
We support robust continued funding for U.S. foreign
broadcasting--RFE/RL, VOA--even mindful of the current budget
environment and likely reductions in federal spending. We think
it's critical to support independent Russian-language media,
and also to continue assistance for human-rights and civil-
society activists, following their lead on what forms of
assistance are most helpful.
A firm U.S. response to the spread of Russia's repressive
practices is critical to defend American values, protect the
European order and advance U.S. security and economic interests
in Europe and beyond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you very much. Thank you, all three, for
your testimony.
And before I go to Representative Cohen, who is next on the
list, I want to take a matter of personal privilege and ask
Orest Deychakiwsky to stand. [Applause.] Now, just remain
standing for a moment. [Laughter.]
Orest has faithfully served the Helsinki Commission for 35
years. And this is not only his last hearing, but actually his
last day of service for the Commission. So I want to thank you
and ask unanimous consent that, when this hearing adjourns
today, that we adjourn in honor of Orest Deychakiwsky and his
35 years of service. Without objection. [Applause.]
And I might mention that Representative Dr. Burgess has not
been able to stay with us, but asked that a statement be
included in the record. And, without objection, that will be
done.
Mr. Cohen, you are recognized to question these witnesses.
HON. STEVE COHEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Senator Wicker. And thank you for
holding this important hearing at this time.
Firstly, I have to admit I was a bit remiss at preparing.
And so, Mr. Kara-Murza, I was surprised to see you here. I
didn't realize you were going to be a witness. And I've kept up
with your travels. I can recommend a new path of travel and a
new travel adviser. But I'm so pleased that you're here and in
good health. I was very concerned about you and read all the
articles. You're a brave man.
I care about human rights greatly, and that's why I'm on
this Commission. But I do want to ask you--and anybody who
would like to help if they have any answers--do you have any
knowledge about any involvement of Russia in our elections? Do
you have people that you had contact with in Russia that have
advised you or given you opinions about what Russia might have
done to manipulate, through the media, our elections, or to
hack our elections or to be involved, or people they may have
had contact with?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you for your
kind words. I hope you were surprised in a good way to see me.
Mr. Cohen. A very good way.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cohen. A very good way.
Mr. Kara-Murza. On election interference, I certainly don't
have any inside information. As you can imagine, I don't have
too many interlocutors in the current Kremlin administration.
[Laughter.] But the Putin regime has been known to interfere in
elections in other countries for many years. So when this talk
began, there was nothing surprising, frankly, or new about
this. They've tried to interfere and did interfere in elections
in Ukraine, in Georgia, in Moldova, and all these other
countries. And if they were able to do all of that over seven
years, basically without any significant reaction from the
international community, you know, why not try to upgrade a
little bit?
So I don't have any specific inside information, but it
certainly would not come as a surprise if there were any facts
on this particular issue. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen. Do any of the other witnesses have any opinions
to offer?
Dr. Calingaert. I don't have information beyond what's in
the public record.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
The killing of your friend, Mr. Nemtsov--it's alleged that
these two or three guys were Chechens or agents of Ramzan. They
haven't spoken? Do they think they're innocent? Or what's their
story?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you, Congressman. This is a very
important question. And as you can appreciate, it's a very
personally difficult issue for all of us. But in terms of the
investigation, there's currently a trial ongoing. There are
five defendants, all of them Chechens, all of them directly
linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of
Chechnya.
And at the moment of the assassination on February 27,
2015, the alleged gunman, a man by the name of Zaur Dadaev, was
actually a serving officer of the interior ministry of the
Russian Federation. This is why the trial is going on in a
military court, as opposed to a civilian court, because he was
a serving officer.
And so I don't want to say anything definitively before
there's a verdict. The verdict is expected at the end of May,
from what we believe. But this is only the lowest level of
people who are on trial. Investigations have been unable or
unwilling to go beyond this unspoken glass ceiling, to go to
any of the higher-ranking people.
For example, there were reports last year in RBK, an
independent Russian newspaper, that General Alexander
Bastrykin, who is head of the Russian investigative committee,
who's also now on the U.S. Magnitsky list for human-rights
abuses, has personally vetoed attempts by lower-level
investigators to question a man named Ruslan Geremeyev, one of
the key persons in Kadyrov's entourage, to name him as an
organizer in the assassination. Bastrykin personally vetoed
this twice.
And despite the numerous requests by lawyers acting for
Boris Nemtsov's family to question Kadyrov himself; to question
Adam Delimkhanov, who is a member of the Russian State Duma,
the right-hand man of Kadyrov; to question General Viktor
Zolotov, who is now the commander of the National Guard of the
Russian Federation, who was previously commander of the
interior forces of the interior ministry--he was actually
officially the superior of Dadaev, who is the accused gunman--
but again, both investigators and courts have refused to even
question these people.
So we're seeing this glass ceiling on the investigation.
They're unable or unwilling to go higher than the lowest level
of alleged perpetrators. And this is why we think it is very
important to have international attention and international
mechanisms, to the extent we can, involved in this
investigation. We have been able--and this is thanks to the
efforts of Zhanna Nemtsov, Boris Nemtsov's daughter, and her
lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, who have been able to push for a
decision by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe, of which, of course, Russia is a member--to have a
special rapporteur appointed to oversee this investigation.
Unfortunately, there's really nothing that can replace a
national investigation of this case, unless the country itself,
the government of the country itself, requests it--like, for
instance, the Lebanese did with the Hariri case, or Pakistan
did with Benazir Bhutto's case at the U.N. Security Council.
Needless to say, Mr. Putin's regime is not going to do that.
So the only thing we can do in the absence of an
international mechanism for investigation is to have
international attention, an international oversight of the
investigation. So we would urge our partner countries in the
OSCE also, including the United States, to raise this issue, to
talk about this, to ask questions in OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly settings and elsewhere, in bilateral contacts, when
U.S. officials go to Moscow or when Russian officials come
here. And there are bilateral meetings. It's important to raise
this issue, not to let them sweep it under the carpet and
forget.
And there's one more issue I would like to mention in the
context of your question. They haven't just killed Boris
Nemtsov himself. They're also trying to kill his memory. They
have rejected--by they, I mean Russian authorities--have
rejected numerous petitions and initiatives for any kind of
commemoration of his name. They wouldn't even let us put up a
small sign, a street name, nothing.
They actually come and steal flowers from the bridge.
People still bring flowers to the spot where he was killed.
Every night, Moscow police come in and they steal the flowers.
You should see the videos--it's mind-boggling--of these grown
men in uniforms running around like thieves in the night and
stealing flowers from the bridge.
So it's very important--while we cannot do anything to
commemorate him in Russia, for obvious reasons, it is important
to commemorate him where it is possible to do so, which is
outside of Russia. And there's actually a congressional bill of
which Chairman Wicker is a cosponsor--it's S. 459 in the
Senate; it's H.R. 1863 in the House--that would re-designate
the address of the Russian embassy in Washington, D.C. as 1
Boris Nemtsov Plaza. And this is very important, I can tell
you, not just for Boris's family, but for many friends and
colleagues back in Russia. So, if that were to happen--I know
it sounds small and symbolic, but it is really, really
important.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you for what you're doing to preserve his
memory. And I know you've done much work, and that's why you
went back to Russia. And I'm a co-sponsor of that bill in the
House. When I saw it, I had to take a second look. I thought
that is a pretty effective way of continuing his memory.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you very much for that.
Mr. Cohen. It's a remembrance, which is so important.
Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day in the United States. And
it's important that we never forget atrocities and we never
forget the people who stand up for freedom. Your friend, Boris
Nemtsov, was one.
Now, I've read somewhere the idea that these folks who
killed him acted on a directive from Chechnya as a gift to
Putin, never saying that Putin might have called his buddy and
said help me. What is your speculation as far as the level of
involvement? Does it just go to Chechnya and Kadyrov, or does
it go back to Putin?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Well, first of all, political
responsibility for this assassination lies squarely with
Vladimir Putin and his regime. When the leader of the
opposition, of the national opposition, is assassinated,
especially in such a place, in front of the Kremlin, it is the
government that bears responsibility. It is the government that
bears responsibility for the campaign of hate and attacks and
slander against opponents of Mr. Putin in general, but
specifically against Boris Nemtsov.
For years he was vilified on Russian state TV. My
colleagues mentioned the role, the nefarious role, that state-
controlled broadcasting in Russia today plays in this regime
and its propaganda. It is absolutely vicious. They've described
him as an American agent, as a traitor, as part of a fifth
column. They said he would have welcomed Nazi troops if he was
alive in 1941 in Moscow. I'm not making this up. These are all
direct quotes that were reported day after day after day for
years.
So this atmosphere of hatred and intimidation didn't just
come out of nowhere. The atmosphere that made it possible to
assassinate the leader of the opposition in front of the
Kremlin was created by those propaganda outlets that are
directly controlled by Mr. Putin and his regime.
And, of course, the impunity and the lack of any kind of
real investigation when it concerns the organizers and
masterminds of the assassination are also a direct
responsibility of the current regime, because it's they who are
doing it.
So, of course, I don't have any specific information as to
how it was done. I very much hope--in fact, I am certain--that
one day we will know the truth and that one day those people
who did this to him will face justice, according to the law in
our own country. Until that day comes, we need to make sure
people remember and we need to make sure people pay attention.
Mr. Cohen. There does seem to be a trend in Russia. There
was the former parliamentary member who was assassinated on the
23rd of March? I guess that's what Putin wants to send, a
signal to those who oppose him. He is unbelievable.
Tell me something about the oil company they kind of took
from the multibillionaire oligarch who I think was
incarcerated. Is he dead now? The gentleman that created that
oil empire, gas empire that was taken over by----
Mr. Kara-Murza. Right. I think you're referring Mikhail
Khodorkovsky----
Mr. Cohen. Yes.
Mr. Kara-Murza. ----who was the CEO of Yukos, which was
Russia's largest oil company; he was also the richest man in
Russia when he was arrested in 2003 in October for daring to
behave independently of the Kremlin. He supported opposition
parties. He supported civil society projects. He openly exposed
government corruption in a televised meeting directly with
Putin sitting across from him like I'm now sitting across from
you.
He spent more than 10 years in prison. He was pardoned and
released at the end of 2013 as part of this mini thaw that came
before the Sochi Olympics. And he was not just released, he was
basically kicked out of the country because they only removed
the police and prison escort from him when he was put on a
plane belonging to a former foreign minister of Germany, the
plane that took him to Germany.
He's now based in the United Kingdom and he's actually the
founder of the Open Russia movement of which I have the honor
of being the vice chairman. So he's now back to the work of
supporting civil society, supporting pro-democracy activists in
Russia with a main focus on helping and empowering and training
the young generation of democratic activists across Russia.
Those are the very people that we're seeing now rise up in the
tens of thousands across the country to protest against
authoritarianism and corruption. So after spending more than 10
years in jail, he's now very much free, thankfully, and very
much involved in what's happening in Russia.
Mr. Cohen. Well, I've read about him. I am happy to know
he's alive. I didn't know, you know, where he was now. The
company, which they basically just stole from him, is
apparently the company that apparently Putin might have an
interest in now. And much of their future earnings would be
based on their relationship with ExxonMobil and drilling in the
Arctic. Is that accurate?
Mr. Kara-Murza. The company that--well, let me put it in
the most diplomatic way I can. The company that ended up having
most of the assets that were stolen from Mr. Khodorkovsky and
Yukos is a company called Rosneft, which is a majority state-
owned oil company which is headed by Mr. Putin's longtime and
very close, personal friend, a man by the name of Igor Sechin,
also from the KGB, as most of them are. And yes, Rosneft does
have a very active international life, as it were, and
international partnerships. And yes, it does have several
partnerships with Western oil and gas companies.
There are also many lawsuits, international lawsuits,
including at the Arbitration Court in The Hague, filed by
former Yukos shareholders. I have to say, Mr. Khodorkovsky is
not one of them because he sold all of his shares while he was
still in prison, so he's not involved in any of these legal
processes. But other former Yukos shareholders are actively
pursuing legal avenues obviously outside of Russia on the
international stage because, as you well understand, it's
impossible to do it in the current judicial system in Russia
against Rosneft and against the people who basically stole and
plundered this company. So you're exactly right in that.
Mr. Cohen. Putin has gotten himself pretty involved with
the church and that's politically wise for him, I guess. And
the church has gone along with it. And I think that may be one
of the reasons why Pussy Riot was arrested and treated like
they were because it was a church-Kremlin relationship, and so
it made for a perfect opportunity to punish somebody. That
continues, I guess. And how are other religions? How are Jews
treated in Russia this day? Is there freedom of religion for
Christians and other minority religions?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Well, of course, the situation with freedom
of religion is definitely much better than it was in Soviet
times. I think that's one area where things haven't
deteriorated as badly as they have in other areas. Although, I
must say there are also cases that go against the principle of
freedom of religion. I mean, just recently the Russian supreme
court banned the Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance, as an
extremist group.
Mr. Cohen. Right. I saw it was illegal to be a Jehovah's
Witness, isn't it?
Mr. Kara-Murza. They said these are extremist views, so
they have been banned for that reason.
As far as all the major religions go, the so-called major
traditional religions, which is Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism
and Islam, those are the four traditional religions recognized
in Russia, there is freedom of religion for worship, needless
to say. And I think it would be fair to say, as you mentioned,
that there is this close relationship between the people who
are currently in power and the leaders or the hierarchy I
should say of basically all of those major organized religions.
I mean, Mr. Putin regularly has meetings obviously with Russian
Orthodox church leadership, but also with the leaders of the
Jewish religion in Russia, with Islam and Buddhism.
But I wouldn't equate the leadership and the hierarchy with
believers and even with the clergy. There are different views
among the clergy; for instance, I know very well this Russian
Orthodox priest whose name is Father Georgy Edelstein. He's a
member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the oldest human
rights organizations in Russia; he's also a serving Russian
Orthodox priest, and there are others who are not afraid to
state their opinions which may be, in many cases, different
from what the government wants them to believe and say.
So, in general, I think you're right to say that there is
this close relationship between the current regime and the
hierarchy of religious organizations. But generally, I think,
on the level of people, of citizens, freedom of religion,
that's an area where things are a little better than in other
areas, such as freedom of the media certainly, or freedom of
political opposition.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Mr. Wicker. The congressman has no time to yield back.
[Laughter.] But we've had a good discussion.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Forgive me, that was probably me rather
than him.
Mr. Wicker. No, it was the chair.
Ms. Jackson Lee.
HON. SHIRLEY JACKSON LEE, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
And I welcome all the witnesses here. I am a new member of
the Commission and delighted to be here. I am also the ranking
member of the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations. Their hearing
is going on as we speak, and so I will ask my questions and beg
your pardon for my leaving the hearing early.
But I do want to mention, as my colleagues have done,
yesterday was the Holocaust memorial and want to again take
note of that heinous and horrific and violent and singular act
of barbarism.
I do want to take note of the fact of where we are as it
relates to Russia, because when the Soviet Union was broken up,
I know there was a great deal of hope and aspirations and
inspiration because we had believed we could not change
Russians' political infrastructure; it's a communist country.
But when I say ``could not change,'' we had hoped that the
various voices would be allowed to speak freely and the
people's will could then be directed according to those voices
of the Russian people.
So I do want to say to you, Mr. Kara-Murza, you are a
living miracle and testament to the fortitude of the Russian
people, who have a great history and whom many of us admire.
And we want that kind of, how should I say, seeding of
democracy to be able to thrive. You have survived. You have
been under threat of death; and therefore, it certainly is an
example of not what we want to have happen, but that we must
now fight even harder.
So I want to ask unanimous consent that my statement be
submitted into the record----
Mr. Wicker. Without objection.
Ms. Jackson Lee. ----and just make these points. Thank you.
Russia has not had a free and fair election since March
2000. It shocks the American conscious to grapple with the
somber realities that opposition activists like yourself, Mr.
Kara-Murza, are routinely assaulted or even murdered, giving
rise to a new term, the ``sudden Kremlin death syndrome,''
which I'm going to pursue in questions.
Political prisoner numbers now match those of the late
Soviet era, which is shocking. And on March 26th, tens of
thousands of people in cities across 11 time zones protested
widespread government corruption with more than a thousand
arrested.
So this question will go to all three witnesses. And we'll
start with Mr. Kara-Murza, but all of you will answer. First,
give me your sense of the ``sudden Kremlin death syndrome.''
There may be others that are not as well-known that have
mysteriously lost their lives because they dared to oppose the
regime--that's under the umbrella of human rights, that you
have a right to express your opposition and to live.
The other question would be, your comments on this issue of
prisoners, political prisoners without counsel, without being
able to see family members. And everyone knows that when
America begins to raise the question, someone will point out
the high number of people we have incarcerated. I happen to be
heavily engaged in reforming our criminal justice system. But I
think we can match point for point in a more superior stance of
our constitutional privileges and processes that we see every
day.
And so I really want to get into the weeds of how this is
intertwined, the ``sudden Kremlin death syndrome'' and the
issue of human rights and the incarceration of anyone that may
offer themselves as an opponent or just simply want to express
their rights for expression that oppose, in particular, Mr.
Putin and his administration. And I certainly want to make sure
that I said it right, the ``sudden Kremlin death syndrome.''
Mr. Kara-Murza?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Thank you very much for the questions,
Congresswoman. As far as the deaths go, there are about 30
people, who were prominent either in the political opposition
or who were independent journalists and who were engaged in
anticorruption campaigns and who were whistleblowers, who have
lost their lives in one way or another since Vladimir Putin
came to power 17 years ago. These were sometimes suspicious
suicides or plane crashes or strange and very rare diseases.
But in many cases, it was just plain and open assassination,
like what happened to the leader of the Russian opposition,
Boris Nemtsov, when they put five bullets in his back when he
was walking home over the bridge in front of the Kremlin.
And there certainly seems to be a very high mortality rate
among the people who oppose Vladimir Putin, a mortality rate
that defies any kind of normal statistical model. And the
latest case of this was just a couple of days ago when a
journalist in St. Petersburg, Nikolai Andrushchenko, who also
engaged in anticorruption investigations, died after being
beaten up by quote-unquote, ``unknown assailants.'' So, you
know, I think there is no more horrible human rights violation
than a violation of the right to life. And that right has been
violated repeatedly since Mr. Putin came to power. And not only
has it been violated, but it has been violated with impunity
because not in a single case of those political assassinations
were their organizers and masterminds brought to justice.
In some of the cases the lower-level perpetrators were
convicted, like in the case of Anna Politkovskaya, who was a
journalist for Novaya Gazeta, who was assassinated almost 11
years ago. There are alleged perpetrators who are on trial now
in the case of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, but never
have the authorities pursued the higher-ups, those who
organized those killings and those who masterminded them, not
in a single case. So this impunity, needless to say, creates
the conditions for these things to continue. And it's very
important to pay attention to it and not to let them forget and
hush up and sweep under the carpet.
And as far as the political prisoners go, the Memorial
Human Rights Centre, which is the most respected human rights
organization in Russia today, which monitors the situation with
political prisoners, it has a very high standard of defining
what political prisoners are. So their estimate, it's actually
based on the Council of Europe definition, and so it's pretty
conservative. And even by that conservative estimate, there are
115 people in Russian prisons today who are imprisoned on
politically motivated charges.
And you can see some of those people on the posters here.
And these are opposition activists, these are journalists,
these are people who took part in peaceful antigovernment
demonstrations. These are people connected with the Yukos case
that we mentioned, and many, many, many others. And it is very,
very important to raise their cases, to talk about them,
including in international fora, because we don't have the law
protecting us in Russia. We don't have the rule of law under
the current regime in Russia. The only thing that can serve as
any kind of protection in these cases is international
attention, international public opinion.
And these people are not just imprisoned. They're also very
often beaten, tortured. Ildar Dadin, who was an opposition
activist, was thankfully released recently after a massive
campaign, including an international campaign for his release.
He was the first person in Russia to be imprisoned under a new
law that was a specially passed law to target people who stage
one-man pickets, one-man opposition pickets. So there's one
person standing with a poster. And he was given a two-year
prison sentence for that. He was released earlier. But while he
was imprisoned, he was tortured and he had the courage to talk
about it and to pass this information to the outside, so this
became known. And the campaign for his release really took off
and he was released, so this really does work and it's
important to talk about this.
And Ivan Nepomnyashchik, who is one of the people on this
poster, who was imprisoned as part of the Bolotnaya case. This
was a big anti-Putin opposition rally in Moscow in May of 2012.
And there are people still in prison today for taking part in
that rally, including him. He's only 27 years old. He was 22 at
the time of the rally. And just a few days ago, he was severely
beaten as well in the penal colony where he is held in the
Yaroslavl region, not too far from Moscow. And as we know, as
we've heard, they're now not even allowing his defenders, his
lawyers to go and see him. So it is very, very important to
continue to keep these issues and these cases and these
specific individuals in the eye of public attention. And it's
very important to raise those cases as well during bilateral
talks.
My colleagues mentioned the recent visit of the new U.S.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow. I think it was
regrettable that he did not find time to meet with civil
society representatives or to talk about human rights. I think
it's very important to do so. And there's been a long
bipartisan tradition of U.S. Government and U.S.
administrations and U.S. secretaries of state to meet with
civil society representatives and to talk about human rights
and to raise specific issues of political prisoners, before in
the Soviet Union and now in Russia. And Carter did it, Reagan
did it, Bush did it; it's important to continue to do this.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
The other witnesses, if you can add a point or two, thank
you.
Ms. Denber. That was so comprehensive.
Ms. Jackson Lee. If you can just focus on the human rights,
political prisoners----
Ms. Denber. I just want to give a little bit of detail
about what it is that some of these other people are actually
accused of.
Mr. Wicker. Let's do that.
And thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee, for giving us that opening.
We've had these portraits up here the entire hearing. So,
in response to Ms. Jackson Lee's question, I think that would
be a nice segue for our witnesses.
Ms. Denber. So let's look at Darya Poliudova. She's serving
a two-year prison sentence. What do you think someone would
have to do to merit a two-year prison sentence? What Darya
Poliudova did was, she has a page on VKontakte, which is kind
of the Russian version of Facebook, and she had three posts
that came under scrutiny. One was a comment that she made, a
satirical comment on what was happening in Ukraine. I won't get
into the details. And she also posted a photograph of herself
holding a poster that said, ``No war in Ukraine, but revolution
in Russia,'' and another poster that said ``We need a
Maidan''--which is a reference to the revolt, the public revolt
that ousted Ukraine's former president back in 2014--``We need
Maidan in Russia.''
And those posts were visible to a very small group, you
know, her 35 followers. She had 35 followers. And these were
the posts that came under scrutiny. These are the posts that
ended up landing her in prison. And she got a two-year prison
term. It's absurd.
You already talked about Dmitry Buchenkov. Dmitry Buchenkov
is accused of, I think, assaulting a police officer during the
2012 public protests that were just on the eve of Vladimir
Putin's inauguration when he returned to the presidency. This
is a case that the government has milked as much as it possibly
can. It's called the Bolotnaya case because the protests
happened on a place called Bolotnaya Square. It started out
peacefully, police interfered and there were some scuffles
between a very small number of the protesters and police. And
as a result, more than a dozen people served prison terms, some
of them quite long prison terms. And even though this happened
in 2012, the government continues to pursue people who they
accuse of being involved in violence against police during the
protests. And Dmitry Buchenkov is one of them.
He was arrested last year. And the thing is that he claims
he wasn't even there. He has alibis testifying to the fact that
he wasn't in Moscow at the time. If you look at his photographs
and the photographs of the person the police are pursuing,
because he allegedly beat a cop, you can see that these are not
the same; it's not the same person.
But nonetheless, he's spent actually more than a year in
pre-trial custody and only a month ago and only after a really
dedicated battle by Memorial and others did they finally
release him to house arrest. So that's Dmitry Buchenkov.
Oleg Sentsov, who was already mentioned, and maybe I'll
only mention him briefly now because there is going to be a
briefing devoted to his case tomorrow--I really encourage
people to attend. Oleg Sentsov last night was honored by the
PEN America Center at their annual gala. Oleg Sentsov is a
filmmaker. He's actually a Ukrainian citizen, who lived in
Crimea until he was arrested. And he was arrested together with
a colleague, Mr. Kolchenko. The Russian Government has accused
him of terrorism. The thing is that at the time when the little
green men were creating the annexation of Crimea and shortly
thereafter there were a couple of arson attempts on a couple of
buildings in Crimea, and one of them was the building where
Russia's main political party, Yedinaya Rossiya, United Russia,
had its headquarters. There was an arson attempt. No one was
hurt.
Kolchenko is accused of carrying out these arson attempts.
And because he's friends with Sentsov and because Sentsov spoke
out a lot against the occupation of Crimea and actually, I
think, tried to help Ukrainian soldiers at a time when things
were very tense during the annexation, during the actual
seizure of Crimea, the government really went after Sentsov.
And they've sentenced him to 20 years in prison on charges of
terrorism, for being in league together with Kolchenko in these
arson attempts. There's no evidence against Sentsov whatsoever.
And you just wonder, what it is that the Russian Government
might be waiting for? What do they expect? Do they really
expect to hold him for 20 years? Are they going to release him
if there is enough pressure, like they released Nadiya
Savchenko last year, another Ukrainian citizen who was a member
of the Ukrainian armed forces and was arrested on wrongful
charges?
I don't want to go through every single one of these
people, but I did want to highlight those cases. There are
other cases like them in each one of the categories that we
mentioned. And I think that the key point is why it is that
there can be ``sudden Kremlin death syndrome,'' why it is that
there can be people who are prosecuted because of political
motives. How can that happen? It can happen because there's
impunity and it can happen because the courts are not
independent. It can happen because the government manipulates
justice. And precisely because these cases are politically
motivated, it means that there needs to be political pressure
in order to end the injustice.
Mr. Wicker. Well, thank you.
Who mentioned public diplomacy? Who mentioned RFE and RL?
Let me just ask both you, Ms. Denber, and you, Dr. Calingaert,
to comment about the disparity in terms of the effectiveness
and quality of propaganda coming from the Putin side of the
equation and I guess what we would like to call the public
diplomacy or information coming from our side.
Is it a fair fight at all? And what should the United
States be doing in that regard? Who would like to go first?
Dr. Calingaert.
Dr. Calingaert. Yes. You know, the scale of investment in
Russian propaganda is really impressive. And also, the
sophistication of it. And I will tell you, when I was teaching
at Georgetown, I'd have my class look at clips from RT and
basically have to answer the question, what is wrong with this
picture? And think of it, even graduate students at one of the
top universities would really have to think hard about how
their view of a certain issue is being manipulated and
sometimes would even miss key details. I mean, it really is
that sophisticated.
I think, in some ways, by its nature it's an uneven fight.
I mean, what we are trying to encourage is fact-based news, a
somber view of what's happening in the world, balance--and
conspiracy theories are just more entertaining. I mean, it
often comes down to that. But I think at the very least, we
need to try to--I'm not sure if we could ever match the scale
of investment that we give to RFE or RL and VOA and others
compared to RT and Sputnik. But I think we can do and need to
do a lot better in investing more and just trying to operate on
the same scale.
I also think that the U.S. foreign broadcasting is only
part of the answer. There is some very high-quality Russian
media, like Meduza, based outside of the country. And I think
they have quite extensive reach. And it's important that their
independence be maintained and their credibility. But if there
are ways that we can encourage more of that, I think there is
an appetite for real investigation, investigative reporting,
coverage of anticorruption issues, news that Russian citizens
can use that speaks to the problems in their daily lives, that
that will, over time, reduce the appeal of the sensationalism,
the conspiracy theories and the mind-bending that Russian
propaganda is trying to carry out.
Mr. Wicker. Ms. Denber.
Ms. Denber. I would agree with everything Dr. Calingaert
just said. I would also say that I think that what the Kremlin
broadcast media tries to do and particularly the Kremlin
foreign broadcasting, like RT and Sputnik, what they're trying
to do is undermine the very notion that there can be or should
be objectivity in media reporting. So their assumption--and
some of their leaders have actually said this--is that, oh,
come on, there really is no objectivity, you know, and look at
these mistakes that all of these outlets make, and so they're
fake news.
So, of course, every reporter might come to a story with a
bias, but there's a great difference between the things that
you do to overcome that bias on the one hand, and on the other
hand the complete perversion of objectivity in media reporting
that we see in some of the Kremlin broadcast institutions.
So they are trying to exhaust the reader and the viewer, to
sort of shower you with so many----
Mr. Wicker. Bombard the viewer.
Ms. Denber. Exactly, to bombard the reader, to dull your
senses, to sort of put you into a haze where you say, yeah,
yeah, that's all, it's just too hard to figure out so I'm not
even going to bother to try, and to make the viewer sort of
disengage from even the search or the hunger for the truth.
I think it's doesn't work. I think that it fails. I think
that after a while people distrust those outlets just as much
as they might have distrusted at some point other outlets. And
I think the answer is to continue supporting outlets like Radio
Liberty and Voice of America, but the answer is also to ensure
that they maintain a high level of quality journalism. There
needs to be a fair fight, but I think that outlets like Radio
Liberty need to keep to reporting facts, need to keep to
looking at all sides of the story. They should not feel that
they can sink to the level of what has become fake news.
Mr. Wicker. But, Mr. Kara-Murza, as a resident of Russia,
it's actually the mainstream media, the everyday programming,
is it not, that contains the exact message that the Putin
regime wishes to be disseminated?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. And this has been
going on for years. And this has been going on aggressively. In
fact, the first thing--the first thing--Mr. Putin did when he
came to power back in the early 2000s was to silence the voices
of independent television. It was in his first three years in
power he shut down or took over three nationwide independent
television networks. And now, all the state media in Russia are
propaganda outlets for the government and nothing else, who
will tell you that everything the authorities do is perfect and
who will tell you that those who oppose Mr. Putin are traitors,
enemies and foreign agents.
Mr. Wicker. And the regular programming, the regular
entertainment comes right along with that very broadcast.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Of course, it's intermixed, so you'd watch
movies, you know, you'd watch a TV series, many of which are
done with very high quality and there's certainly no shortage
of investments going into state media, domestic state media.
And then, of course, that would be intermixed with those,
quote-unquote, ``news messages'' and so-called discussion
programs or you would never really get any differing points of
view. You would just get bombarded, to use the term that you
used, with the propaganda messages.
And propaganda, sometimes people dismiss it as just
something of second-tier importance. But propaganda can be very
powerful. Propaganda can kill, as we discussed recently.
Mr. Wicker. It works.
Mr. Kara-Murza. Absolutely. And if I could just say a
couple of words on the foreign broadcasting aspect, I think the
only effective way to counter the lies and the propaganda is
with objective information. And for now, I don't think there's
a level playing field in terms of this foreign broadcasting.
I'm quoting these figures from memory, but I think if I'm
correct, the White House budget request for both RFE, RL and
Voice of America services in the Russian language for the
current fiscal year is 15 million U.S. dollars. The annual
budget of RT is 300 million U.S. dollars, so it's a factor of
20. So I think it's very important to maintain something at
least close to a level playing field here.
Mr. Wicker. Well, let me then get back to the idea of an
expanded Magnitsky list. Do any of you have specific
suggestions, either in open testimony today or for the record,
about names that should be added?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Can I start? There are now 44 people
sanctioned on the U.S. Magnitsky list. And I have to say that
in the early years since the law was passed, the administration
was very timid in implementing it in terms of putting the
actual names on the list. And the highest-profile people were
put on this list just this year, in January of this year, in
the last two weeks of the former administration when they put
in, for example, Andrei Lugovoi, who is a member of the Russian
parliament, who was found by a British public inquiry to have
been responsible for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in
London in 2006.
And as we discussed earlier in this hearing, they put
General Alexander Bastrykin, who is a top law enforcement
officer in the Putin regime, the guy who's responsible for all
these politically motivated prosecutions, who is responsible
for the Yukos case, who once personally took a leading
independent journalist to a forest near Moscow and said, ``if
you continue with your investigations I'm going to kill you,
I'm going to bury you here and, by the way, I'm going to be in
charge of the investigation, ha, ha.'' So that person is
finally on the Magnitsky list and he's the most high-profile
Putin official to be there.
But, of course, there are many, many more who deserve to be
put on that list. Of course, there is a complex and fundamental
process that accompanies the way these people are screened
before being put on a list. But if you're asking for specific
suggestions, well, certainly Ramzan Kadyrov was mentioned
several times during this hearing. In the various aspects of
human rights abuses that he's been involved in, he certainly
belongs--I mean, we've heard, we've seen reports in the U.S.
media, all the leaks, all the sources saying that he is on the
classified section. Of course, there is no way we could know
that, whether that's true or not. Even if he is, I think that
one of the main purposes of the law is public naming and
shaming of these human rights abusers.
Mr. Wicker. This is Mr. Putin's man in Chechnya.
Mr. Kara-Murza. He's Vladimir Putin's man in Chechnya and
he's responsible for the countless human rights abuses there.
Even by the standards of the Putin regime, Chechnya is a
particular black hole when it comes to human rights. They have
torture, they have killings, they have disappearances.
Opponents and enemies of Mr. Kadyrov have ended up dead not
just in Chechnya, but in Moscow and Dubai and in Vienna,
Austria. So that guy certainly does merit belonging to the
Magnitsky list.
There are many others. Yury Chaika is another person that
comes to mind, the current prosecutor general, who is also
responsible for countless politically motivated prosecutions.
Mr. Wicker. It is a fact that our ambassador to the United
Nations has specifically spoken out against these violations in
Chechnya and the attacks. Is that correct, Mr. Kara-Murza?
Mr. Kara-Murza. Yes, you are right.
Mr. Wicker. And also, I would note that Senators Rubio and
Cardin have been particularly outspoken in this regard.
There's going to be a vote soon on the Senate floor.
Mr. Cohen, do you have other questions?
Mr. Cohen. Just one, thank you.
I was in Russia and we visited a couple of times, but one
time we had Steven Seagal join our CODEL. And he seemed to have
a fascination with the Chechen muscle man. He also, I think,
wanted to sell some Kalashnikov rifles over here. What is his
status and how close is he to Putin and to Ramzan?
Mr. Kara-Murza. How close is Ramzan to Putin?
Mr. Cohen. No, to Steven Seagal. And is he still--does he
have dual citizenship now?
Mr. Kara-Murza. No, Gerard Depardieu does, the French
actor, he is a dual citizen. He was given a Russian passport.
Mr. Cohen. Yeah, I knew he did, but Seagal, see, he was
telling us that he had some type of Mongolian heritage and he
claimed to be----
Mr. Kara-Murza. I'm afraid I have to excuse myself, I'm not
a very big expert on Steven Seagal, but we certainly have seen
him paraded on Russian state media sitting with Mr. Putin, at a
stadium during a sports event. He certainly does come to Russia
a lot and goes to meet with all these officials. But frankly, I
hope I'm not offending anyone, I don't think he's taken too
seriously by most people in Russia.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you. That's good news. [Laughter.]
Mr. Wicker. Well, we could go on and on. Let me say this
about Boris Nemtsov. I hope the House and Senate can get this
legislation through to name an important open area for Mr.
Nemtsov here in the United States. I was a member of a
delegation led by Representative Curt Weldon back in 1998.
Steny Hoyer, the current minority leader of the House of
Representatives, was the ranking Democrat on this relatively
large, bipartisan delegation to Moscow. And we had the
opportunity to meet with this young, energetic, bright deputy
prime minister serving under Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and
President Yeltsin. And I'll tell you, he was no apologist for
the West. He was giving us the Russian point of view in every
respect, up to and including urging the United States not to
support NATO expansion. He felt that it would be bad for the
status quo, bad for his own country and recommended it as being
bad for the West. And I disagreed with him and I think I'd
probably still disagree with him.
But the point is, this was a loyal Russian official, a
bright, young, up-and-comer that had the opportunity to be
deputy prime minister for a time. And he loved his country and
he wanted his country to be free and open and the citizens
there to be free. That was the difference. And when it became
obvious in the Duma that President Putin intended to move
basically toward one-party authoritarianism, Boris Nemtsov
called it what he saw it, a coming dictatorship. And that was
the beginning of Boris Nemtsov's fall out of favor.
And I just have to say that it is the very least we could
do to honor this brave individual who spoke out and led those
oppressed dissidents in Russia. And so I hope we can double our
efforts, Representative Cohen, to get this legislation passed,
to have the Boris Nemtsov Plaza.
I would also, before we adjourn, ask unanimous consent that
we include in the record of this hearing the photographs and
one-paragraph descriptions of the individuals [Russian
prisoners] who are on display here. And without objection, that
is so ordered.
And at this point, if there's nothing else, this hearing
will stand adjourned with the thanks of the chair and in honor
of Orest here. [Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 11:12 a.m., the hearing ended.]
A P P E N D I C E S
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Commission will come to order, and good morning to everybody.
The 115th Congress has already, in its very first months, devoted
considerable attention to threats posed by Russia--to the states of the
former USSR, to all of Europe, and even to the United States through
Russia's interference in our very own elections, a matter that remains
under investigation by multiple U.S. authorities.
What we have not yet done, and this goes well back into the 114th
Congress, is take a long hard look at the continuing violations of
democratic norms and human rights within Russia itself, so I am happy
that my first hearing as Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission can
focus on this very important and timely topic.
I am especially glad that we have such an expert panel of witnesses
to testify today on the impact these abuses have, not only on the
people of the Russian Federation, but on the larger international
community by effectively silencing the voices of the opposition within
Russia and giving the Putin regime a free hand to act with impunity
abroad.
We will begin with somebody who is no stranger to me, to the
Helsinki Commission, nor to the halls of Congress thanks to his
tireless work promoting democracy in Russia. Despite the Putin regime's
efforts to silence him through two poisonings, Mr. Vladimir Kara-Murza
is still with us today, and I can't think of anybody in a better
position to tell us about the intense--and all too often lethal--
pressure being applied to brave Russians like him who engage in
opposition politics. Vladimir, thank you for joining us and for your
courage and that of your family in facing the hardships that
unfortunately befall critics of the Putin regime.
We are also very fortunate to have representatives of two of the
top independent organizations promoting human rights and freedom of
expression across the globe--Human Rights Watch and Freedom House.
Rachel Denber will be sharing with us highlights of her years of work
following human rights issues in Russia for Human Rights Watch,
including the shocking stories of murder and repression in Chechnya
that have recently come to light. Human Rights Watch has been the only
international organization actively following that case.
Daniel Calingaert is the Executive Vice President of Freedom House,
an organization that needs no introduction here. Freedom House's annual
publications, Freedom in the World, Freedom of the Press and Freedom of
the Net, have been invaluable in helping Congress and proponents of the
freedom of expression and democracy all over the world track both
progress and backsliding on these fundamental freedoms around the
globe. In the case of Russia, the trends have not been positive, and we
look forward to hearing much more about that.
Let me offer a word about the portraits of people you may have
noticed on your way in, and which you will also see here at the front
of the room. These represent several well-known political prisoners
currently behind bars in Russia; we will hear about many of them during
this morning's hearing. Let me stress that the people portrayed here
represent only a fraction of the dozens of political prisoners held in
Russia--indeed, some groups following this issue, like the NGO
``Memorial,'' estimate the number is in the hundreds. We wanted to be
able to help our audience see at least a few of the faces behind some
of the names you will hear today and, we will of course have much more
information on political prisoners in the material that will be
submitted for the written record.
We hope to accomplish two things at today's hearing. First of all,
we want to draw much-needed attention to the ongoing serious abuses of
human rights in Russia, to remind all members of Congress and the
American public that the situation in Russia is grave and could
continue to deteriorate. Secondly, with our witnesses' assistance, we
would like to evaluate how our current approach to human rights abuses
in Russia is working, and to consider what we can do to get things back
on a positive trajectory in Russia. Ultimately, a Russia that fully
respects all of its citizen's human rights, that allows for full
freedom of expression and religion and for free and fair elections will
be a place where all Russians can prosper. Those improvements would
also make Russia a much better neighbor, and would go a long way
towards promoting peace and security in the entire Eurasian region.
We have a lot to discuss, so I'd like to now yield to Senator
Cardin.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing on
Russia and particularly the opportunity to focus on violations of
fundamental freedoms and the repression of democracy, the rule of law,
independence of the judiciary, and free and fair elections. These
abuses are directly related to the acts of aggression that have been
the focus of so much congressional inquiry this year already.
A few weeks ago, we saw Russian citizens demonstrate across the
length and breadth of the Russian Federation in an effort to end the
systemic corruption that corrodes the everyday lives of people from all
walks of life. Remarkably, an estimated 30,000 truckers in 60 cities
are continuing to protest a road tax collected by a private firm with
ties to President Putin. In a country where peaceful protests in
Bolotnaya Square were so severely punished a few years ago, these are
striking manifestations against corruption and for the rule of law,
independent institutions of accountability, and human dignity.
These Russians ask no less of Russia than what Russia itself
committed to in the Helsinki Final Act. In fact, it was in Moscow that
the OSCE participating States explicitly acknowledged that ``issues
relating to human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule
of law are of international concern, as respect for these rights and
freedoms constitutes one of the foundations of the international order.
They categorically and irrevocably declare that the commitments
undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the [OSCE] are
matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States
and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State
concerned.''
I am particularly heartened that Vladimir Kara-Murza can be with us
here today.
When Mr. Kara-Murza testified before Congress in June 2015, he
said,
Our friends in the West often ask how they can be helpful to
the cause of human rights and democracy in Russia and the
answer to this is very simple. Please stay true to your values.
We are not asking for your support. It is our task to fight for
democracy and rule of law in our country.
The only thing we ask from Western leaders is that they stop
supporting Mr. Putin by treating him as a respectable and worthy
partner and by allowing Mr. Putin's cronies to use Western countries as
havens for their looted wealth.
Vladimir, your courage and commitment is an inspiration and we are
grateful that you are here to speak for others who have fallen in the
struggle to speak truth to power.
Tragically, those numbers continue to increase. Just a few days
ago, a St. Petersburg journalist succumbed to his injuries after being
beaten into a coma on
March 9. His case is a reminder that many attacks have resulted in not
only the loss of life, but in some cases have left people maimed or
disabled for life.
I also hope our witnesses will speak to the alarming reports we
have received of large-scale and brutal attacks, some resulting in
murder, targeting gay men in Chechnya. These attacks seem to reflect a
horrific intersection of the government's hostility against LGBT people
and the symbiotic relationship between President Putin and Chechnya's
most notorious thug, Ramzan Kadyrov. I am also concerned for the safety
of the two journalists, Elena Milashina and Irina Gordienko, who broke
the story of this wave of violence and have been threatened for their
courageous reporting.
Mr. Chairman, I also welcome the opportunity to focus on the
political prisoners and others detained in violation of Principal VII
of the Helsinki Final Act--the right of people to know and act upon
their human rights. The cases of these ``P-VII Detainees'' have been
well documented by Memorial, the Russian civil society organization
established to document the crimes of Soviet repression. If I may, Mr.
Chairman, I would like to include in the record Memorial's list of
political prisoners which was submitted at the OSCE's Human Dimension
Implementation Meeting in Warsaw in September. I regret that Secretary
Tillerson did not meet with independent civil society groups like
Memorial when he visited Moscow, forgoing an opportunity to communicate
U.S. support for an open and democratic Russia.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our witnesses for
being here today.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Commissioner, Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Good morning Chairmen Wicker and Smith, and Ranking Members Cardin
and Hastings and thank you for holding this hearing before the Helsinki
Commission to discuss the grim state of human rights abuses and
democracy in the Russian Federation.
Russia's overt external aggression against countries such as
Ukraine, its support for the Assad regime in Syria, and its efforts to
disrupt western democracies are made possible by the internal
repression of its own people.
For example, Russia has not had a free and fair election since
March 2000.
It shocks the American conscience to grapple with the somber
realities that opposition activists like witness Vladimir Kara-Murza
are routinely assaulted or even murdered, giving rise to a new term:
``Sudden Kremlin Death Syndrome.''
Political prisoner numbers now match those of the late Soviet era,
and on
March 26, tens of thousands of people in cities across 11 time zones
protested widespread government corruption, with more than 1,000
arrested.
And more nationwide protests are expected on June 12th, the
national holiday of the Russian Federation.
The Kremlin's crackdown on civil society, media, and the Internet
took a more sinister turn in 2015 as the government further intensified
harassment and persecution of independent critics.
For the fourth year in a row, parliament has adopted laws and
authorities engaged in repressive practices that increasingly isolated
the country.
Against the backdrop of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and
sanctions against Russia over Crimea, anti-Western hysteria has been at
its peak since the end of the Cold War.
This hearing will examine the grim state of human rights and
democracy in the Russian Federation.
I look forward to hearing from the following witnesses scheduled to
testify here today:
1) Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice Chairman, Open Russia;
2) Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia
Division, Human Rights Watch; and
3) Daniel Calingaert, Executive Vice President, Freedom House
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael Burgess, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The invasion of Crimea was the realization of Russia, particularly
Vladimir Putin's, dissatisfaction with the current European order and
paranoia of a second collapse of the Russian regime. Putin wants NATO
to fracture and international organizations, such as the Helsinki
Commission, to weaken in order to create the necessity of a new order
that is not predicated primarily on Western influence. To achieve these
objectives, he has implemented an authoritarian regime that erodes
democracy in Russia and regularly commits violations of non-
intervention and human rights principles agreed to by Helsinki
Commission participating states.
Russia has been engaging in overt and covert subversive action in
the media, in cyberspace, and across international borders in order to
further Putin's aggressive international agenda. He is rebuilding
Russia's national identity through military action and a strategy of
compiling and disseminating comprising information, or blackmail. This
activity is hurting the basic freedoms and human rights of Russian
citizens.
Putin's political legitimacy is largely rooted in the performance
of Russia's economy. Increased military spending, western sanctions,
and low energy prices coupled with corruption are hurting the Russian
people, but they are also helping to fuel their frustration. Just
recently, tens of thousands of people protested corruption among
Russia's elite, and the government reacted by arresting 800 people--
brutally beating many of those.
But this isn't the first, or likely the last, time that challenges
have been met with violence and human rights violations. Last year,
over 250 journalists were jailed, with some being beaten and killed,
141 independent organizations were designated as foreign agents without
evidence, and at least eight prominent Russians have died or been
poisoned under suspicious circumstances, including one of our witnesses
today.
In addition, Russia's example of aggressive suppression has led to
the arrest, torture, and often killing of at least 100 gay men in
Chechnya.
The most blatant demonstration of Russia's lack of respect for
democracy and human rights is its 2014 annexation of the Crimean
peninsula. Despite an official ceasefire, known as Minsk II, the
conflict in eastern Ukraine has remained frozen without any prospect of
resolution. This status quo serves Russian interests by limiting the
possibility of further European integration, undermining rule of law,
and preserving a point of leverage for potential negotiations with the
West on other international issues.
When Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 was downed over separatist-held
territory by a Russian missile, killing all passengers, Russia denied
involvement and denounced the Dutch-led investigation as politically
motivated, claiming Russia was the only country that provided credible
information. Air operations were ceased in the Donbas region in
September 2014, but the threat of this ongoing conflict has not
dissipated. It has attracted foreign fighters, including Syrians, to an
easily accessible and often untraceable arms market.
In addition, two days ago an American paramedic serving on the
OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine was killed when his
vehicle struck an explosive in separatist-held territory. This death
was entirely preventable. It is indefensible to allow Russia to
perpetuate a frozen international conflict that has killed thousands of
people from Ukraine, Russia, and the West.
Vladimir Putin is able to engage in international and domestic
bouts of aggression and suppression under the guise of protecting
traditional values and the Russian homeland, all at the expense of the
prosperity and freedom of his own people. This must stop.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about their
experiences and how we can work to promote democracy and end violations
of human rights in Russia.
Prepared Statement of Vladimir Kara-Murza
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Cardin, Ranking
Member Hastings, Members of the Commission, thank you for holding this
important hearing and for the opportunity to testify.
This coming Saturday, April 29, pro-democracy activists across
Russia will take part in a nationwide campaign organized by the Open
Russia movement with a single message: ``Enough.'' They will hold
rallies and send petitions calling on Vladimir Putin to leave the
Kremlin when his current term--officially third, in reality fourth--
expires next spring. Mr. Putin has been in power for seventeen years.
There is now an entire generation of Russians who have no memory of any
other government.
This longevity has been the result of a deliberate suppression of
the opposition, independent media and civil society, and continuous
violations of the rights and freedoms guaranteed to Russian citizens by
our Constitution and by our country's commitments under the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Chief among these
is the right to freely elect one's own government. After March 2000,
not a single national election in Russia--presidential or
parliamentary--was assessed by OSCE observers as free and fair. \1\
Unequal media access, the removal of opposition candidates from the
ballot, and outright fraud have become the unfortunate norm in Russian
elections. The result has been a parliament devoid of real opposition--
``not a place for discussion,'' in the words of its own former speaker.
\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Elections in Russia. OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights. http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/russia
\2\ ``Parliament is not a place for discussion.'' Kommersant.
December 12, 2011 (In Russian) http://kommersant.ru/doc/1838005
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major media outlets have also ceased to be places for discussion.
Having taken control of all national television networks--the main
source of news for Russian citizens--the Kremlin turned them into
propaganda outlets that provide laudatory coverage of the authorities
and portray Mr. Putin's opponents as a ``fifth column'' that works at
the behest of foreign governments. Many of these opponents are in
prison. According to Memorial, Russia's most respected human rights
organization, there are now 115 political prisoners in Russia--a number
comparable with the late Soviet period. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Current list of political prisoners. Memorial Human Rights
Center (in Russian) http://memohrc.org/pzk-list
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
They include opposition activists and their family members, such as
Sergei Udaltsov, Oleg Navalny, and Daria Polydova; citizens jailed for
taking part in antigovernment demonstrations, including construction
engineer Ivan Nepomnyashchikh and history lecturer Dmitri Buchenkov
(the latter was not even present at the rally for which he was
charged--but a little Kafka never stopped the Russian judicial system);
Ukrainians arrested after the annexation of Crimea, including the
filmmaker Oleg Sentsov; and Allexei Pichugin, the remaining hostage of
the ``Yukos case'' that saw the head of Russia's largest oil company,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, imprisoned for more than a decade for having the
tenacity to support opposition parties and expose government
corruption.
Sometimes political opponents are dealt with without a recourse to
formal procedures. In October 2015, at a hearing of this Commission, I
recalled a near-fatal poisoning I had experienced in Moscow earlier
that year. \4\ Today I could repeat that statement word for word,
because I have now experienced this for the second time, also in
Moscow, this past February. An identical picture: poisoning by an
``undefined substance'' leading to multiple organ failure and a coma.
Doctors estimated the chance of survival at five percent, so I am very
fortunate to be sitting here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ ``Russian Violations of the Rule of Law; How Should the U.S.
Respond?'' U.S. Helsinki Commission Hearing. October 21, 2015.
Testimony by Vladimir Kara-Murza. https://www.csce.gov/sites/
helsinkicommission.house.gov/files/vkm-csce-testimony-21oct2015.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many of our colleagues have not been as fortunate. Several
opposition activists, independent journalists, anticorruption
campaigners, and whistleblowers have lost lives in the last seventeen
years. Two years ago, in the most brazen political assassination in
modern Russia, opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Boris
Nemstov was murdered on a bridge in front of the Kremlin. The official
investigation is stalling: while the alleged perpetrators--all of them
linked to the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov--are
on trial, the authorities have not pursued those who had ordered and
organized the killing, and have refused to question potential persons
of interest, including Mr. Kadyrov and the commander of the Russian
National Guard, General Viktor Zolotov. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Court refuses to call Kadyrov for questioning in Nemstov
murder case.'' RBC. December 6, 2016 (in Russian) http://www.rbc.ru/
rbcfreenews/5846a3689a7947446ca6289e ``Court rejects complaint in Boris
Nemstov murder case on the refusal to question Viktor Zolotov.''
Kommersant. May 30, 2016 (in Russian) https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/
3000683
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under the statutes of the OSCE--and contrary to repeated claims by
Kremlin officials--human rights abuses in member states cannot be
dismissed as an ``internal affair'' and are ``matters of direct and
legitimate concern to all participating States.'' \6\ It is important
that our OSCE partners speak openly and honestly about what is
happening in Russia. It is also important--since human rights are a
matter of international concern--that there be international
accountability for those who violate them. The U.S. does have a
mechanism for such accountability in the Magnitsky Act that provides
for targeted sanctions on human rights abusers. This law should
continue to be implemented to its full extent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ CSCE/OSCE Moscow Document http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/
14310?download=true
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main responsibility for ensuring the respect for human rights,
the rule of law. and democratic principles in Russia lies, of course,
with Russian citizens. And I would respectfully disagree with the
subtitle of this hearing that there is ``no end in sight'' to the
abuses. Increasingly, the young generation in Russia--the very
generation that grew up under Vladimir Putin--is demanding respect and
accountability from those in power. Last month, protests against
government corruption swept across Russia, with tens of thousands of
people--mostly young peole--taking to the streets despite arrests and
intimidation. \7\ This movement will continue. And these growing
demands for accountability are the best guarantee that Russia will one
day become a country where citizens can exercise the rights and
freedoms to which they are entitled.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ ``A map of the protests.'' Meduza. March 27, 2017 (in Russian)
https://meduza.io/feature/2017/03/27/skolko-lyudey-vyshli-na-ulitsy-26-
marta-i-skolko-zaderzhali-karta-protesta
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prepared Statement of Dr. Daniel Calingaert
Introduction
Thank you Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, and Members of the
Commission. It is an honor to testify before you today. I ask that my
full written statement be submitted for the record.
Repression in Russia echoes strongly across Eurasia and beyond.
President Vladimir Putin was the primary author of the modern
authoritarian's playbook, which has guided strategies of political
control since the early 2000s. His methods for suppressing civil
society and political opposition have inspired other dictators, and his
media manipulation has impacted most of Eurasia directly and extended
to Europe and the United States. The spread of Russia's repressive
practices is amplified by the global assault on democratic values,
which Putin has spearheaded.
Democracy has continued to deteriorate in Eurasia. Among the 12
former Soviet states (excluding the Baltic states), nine suffered
declines in the past year, according to the most recent edition of
Freedom House's annual report Nations in Transit. And Eurasia already
is the second most repressive region in the world, only slightly better
than the Middle East and North Africa. 1A\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Freedom in the World 2017: https://freedomhouse.org/report/
freedom-world/freedom-world-2017
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. leadership is critical to counteract the spread of Russia's
repressive practices and media manipulation and thereby defend American
values and interests.
Modern authoritarian playbook
Modern authoritarians like Putin create a facade of pluralism that
masks state control over political outcomes, as detailed in a
forthcoming Freedom House report. \2\ Independent news outlets survive
with small audiences while pro-government outlets dominate the media,
particularly television, where most people get their news. Non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) that mimic the government line or
carry out innocuous work like public health can operate freely, while
groups focused on political reform or human rights are highly
restricted. Opposition parties compete in regular elections but are cut
down to size if they start to gain substantial public support.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Arch Puddington, Breaking Down Democracy: The Goals,
Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians, Freedom House,
forthcoming.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When election day comes, modern authoritarians rarely face a
significant challenge. By then, they have dominated the political
narrative through their control of the media, muzzled their critics,
and blocked the political opposition from organizing on a large scale.
They also provide or deny access to state resources, including allow
oligarchs to accumulate vast wealth unencumbered, to ensure loyalty to
the regime.
Putin pioneered the modern authoritarian playbook in the early
2000s and refined it over the course of his rule. Other dictators have
replicated it. They have followed Russia's example and adopted specific
methods of repression introduced by Putin.
Suppression of civil society
A key component of this playbook is suppression of civil society,
because civil society mobilizes citizens to check the abuses of power
committed by authoritarian elites and to press for democratic reform.
As authoritarian rulers seek to stack the deck for their reelection
long before election day, to the point where elections are no longer
competitive, civil society offers the greatest opportunities to change
a country's direction, as occurred with the Euro-Maidan movement in
Ukraine and, in 2011, the Arab uprisings.
Russia set the example of constraining space for civil society with
government criticism of foreign funding for local civil society groups
and the introduction of a restrictive NGO law in 2006. Neighboring
countries followed this example, and governments from Ethiopia to
Venezuela later pursued a similar assault on civil society. \3\ In
2012, Russia passed a foreign agents law that required NGOs to register
as ``foreign agents'' if they receive foreign funding to conduct
``political activity.'' This label harks back to the Soviet term used
to describe foreign spies and serves to stigmatize pro-democracy NGOs.
Similar legislation was enacted in Kazakhstan, debated but ultimately
rejected in Kyrgyzstan, and drafted in Hungary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Thomas Carothers and Saskia Brechenmacher, Closing Space:
Democracy and Human Rights Support under Fire, Carnegie Endowment,
2014: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/closing_space.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A foreign agents law can debilitate political reform and human
rights groups. In Russia, 158 groups were designated as ``foreign
agents'' and 30 have shut down, according to Human Rights Watch. \4\
Even when not enacted, the debate about foreign agents feeds a
pernicious narrative aimed at vilifying civil society. This narrative
portrays civil society groups as venal paid agents of foreign forces
that seek to impose alien agendas and dilute national sovereignty.
Authoritarian rulers like Putin use this narrative to distract
attention from the real issue--from their efforts to deny citizens
fundamental freedoms. The portrayal of civic activists as unpatriotic
is particularly pernicious, as these activists in fact show true
patriotism in devoting their time and often running serious risks to
expose corruption, observe elections, and give citizens a greater voice
in how they are governed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ https://www.hrw.org/russia-government-against-rights-groups-
battle-chronicle
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The false narrative of civil society serving foreign interests was
reinforced by Russia's introduction in 2013 of the anti-LGBT
``propaganda'' law, which penalizes ``propaganda'' of homosexuality.
Putin made an issue of so-called LGBT propaganda to depict human rights
defenders as purveyors of decadent Western influence intent on imposing
their alien values on traditional Russian society. The anti-LGBT law
advances this false narrative, undermines respect for human rights, and
causes serious harm to Russians. It led to a surge in hate crimes. From
2012 to 2015, annual murders of LGBT persons in Russia rose from 14 to
27. \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Alexander Kondakov, Prestuplenia na pochve nenavisti protiv
LGBT [Hate Crimes against LGBT Persons], Centre for Independent Social
Research, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The introduction of repressive legislation like the foreign agents
law and anti-LGBT law serves to mobilize the justice system in
constraining rather than defending the rights of citizens and to give a
patina of legitimacy to the government's effort to crush dissent.
Media manipulation
While Russia's repressive practices have echoed beyond its borders,
its media manipulation affects other countries directly.
Media manipulation is a sophisticated new form of influence that
combines facts, exaggerations, distortions, and outright fabrications
to shape public opinions. The influence often relies on high-quality
productions and entertaining content, for instance by RT (formerly
Russia Today), or on social media to amplify rumors or blatant
falsehoods to a significant audience. The reach of these rumors and
falsehoods in social media at times prompts coverage in mainstream
media, as happened with rumors about presidential candidate Emmanuel
Macron in France. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/world/europe/french-
election-russia.html?_r=0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia manipulates the media space to advance narratives that run
counter to verifiable facts but serve its interests. These narratives
compete with credible news coverage for attention in Eurasia and
Europe. They challenge the very notion of objective truth and thereby
aim to breed cynicism and weaken trust in democratic institutions.
Russian television has extensive reach in neighboring countries. It
monopolizes coverage of international news in Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhstan, dominates the media space in Belarus, and is viewed by most
ethnic Russians in the Baltic states. \7\ Russian media has influenced
public perceptions in Eurasia. According to a Gallup poll, residents in
most of the 12 countries of Eurasia find the Russian media's coverage
of the situation in Ukraine and Crimea more reliable than Western media
coverage. \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ David Satter, The Last Gasp of Empire: Russia's Attempts to
Control the Media in the Former Soviet Republics, National Endowment
for Democracy, January 2014: http://www.cima.ned.org/wpcontent/uploads/
2015/02/CIMA-Russia%20report--David%20Satter.pdf
\8\ http://www.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/189164/russian-western-
media-battle-influence.aspx
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because Russian TV reaches large audiences in neighboring
countries, it can instigate discussions and drive public discourse, as
it did on foreign funding for NGOs in Kyrgyzstan. And even where its
reach is limited, Russian media can spark public discussions, as it did
in Germany with a false report about a 13-year-old Russian-German girl
raped by migrants.
During the U.S. election last year, scores of websites routinely
peddled Russian propaganda, and coordinated efforts on social media
amplified false or misleading stories, for instance about Hillary
Clinton's health and about electoral irregularities. Some of these
stories originated from Russian state-funded broadcasters RT or
Sputnik. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-
propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fakenews-during-election-experts-say/
2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-
716af66098fe_story.html?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.9aefc7291d7b
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
International norms
At the same time as Russia presents a model for political control
by authoritarian rulers, it seeks to undercut the ability of
international organizations, including the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to protect human rights and
democratic standards. For example, Russia blocked the reappointment of
the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, because it objected
to her statement in 2014 that she found no evidence of rights
violations against ethnic Russians in Crimea, and has impeded the
selection of a new OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. Russia
seeks to avert scrutiny of its human rights record and that of like-
minded governments and to reinforce the narrative that Russia's
purported defense of ``traditional values'' should take precedence over
international norms. The Russian government's emphasis on ``traditional
values'' in fact is a cynical ploy to avoid accountability for its
human rights violations.
Russia's challenge to international human rights norms is a key
part of its broader effort to revise the European order, which the
United States was instrumental in creating and which has provided the
foundation for peace on the continent for over 70 years. This order is
based to a large extent on the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, particularly
the grand bargain whereby the United States and Western Europe accepted
existing borders and the Soviet Union and its communist allies
recognized the human dimension as integral to security. This bargain
has broken down. Russia respects neither human rights nor existing
borders, as evident in its intervention in Ukraine and annexation of
Crimea.
U.S. interests
U.S. support for democracy and human rights is integral to the
European order that provides peace and security. Unless the United
States actively defends this order, Russia will continue to erode it,
and Europe will grow less stable. Expansion of Russian influence in
Europe is likely to reduce support for the trans-Atlantic alliance and
weaken resistance to Russia's encroachments on the territorial
integrity of its neighbors.
The spread of democracy serves U.S. economic interests as well.
Democratic countries usually are more reliable partners, more
economically successful, and more open to foreign trade and investment.
Corruption and weak rule of law put U.S. businesses at a distinct
disadvantage in relation to local competitors with political
connections, and restrictions on media and civil society, such as
internet restrictions, limit the access of American companies to
overseas markets. For example, LinkedIn was blocked in Russia after a
court ruled that the company had failed to comply with a law requiring
internet companies to store data on Russia citizens within the
country's borders. This law gives Russian intelligence services easy
access to personal data.
When the United States defends human rights, it is not imposing its
values on other countries. Instead, it is holding other governments to
account for failing to live up to their own laws and international
commitments to respect the rights of their citizens, including their
commitments under the OSCE.
Recommendations
To counteract the spread of Russia's repressive practices and media
manipulation, the U.S. government should do the following:
Staunchly defend the human rights norms established by
the OSCE and other international conventions. The United States should
respond firmly and vocally to every serious violation of OSCE
commitments by Russia or other member governments.
Lead democratic countries in publicly criticizing and
diplomatically pushing back on initiatives to replicate Russia's
repressive practices in other countries, such as the Hungarian
government's foreign agents bill.
Fully enforce both the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law
Accountability Act and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability
Act, which provide for U.S. visa bans and asset freezes on foreign
officials responsible for gross human rights abuses. These targeted
sanctions introduce some measure of accountability for such officials
and serve to deter future violations of human rights. Congress should
press the President to add more senior Russian officials to the Russia
sanctions list and to impose sanctions on officials of other
governments under the Global Magnitsky Act.
Maintain robust funding for U.S. foreign broadcasting,
including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, even in
the current context of likely cuts in federal spending. These
broadcasting services counteract Russian propaganda by providing
balanced, fact-based news in local languages.
Support independent Russian-language media based outside
of Russia so that they can sustain their news coverage and expand their
audiences. The forms of this support-training, technical assistance
with business operations, material support, etc.-should be determined
mainly by these media outlets and reinforce their independence and
credibility.
Continue to provide assistance for human rights and civil
society in Russia and Eurasia, including support for pro-democracy
civic initiatives and emergency assistance to human rights defenders.
The U.S. government should ensure discretion and sensitivity in
providing funds for these purposes.
A firm U.S. response to the spread of Russia's repressive practices
and media manipulation is critical to defend American values, protect
the European order that has safeguarded peace on the continent, and
advance U.S. security and economic interests in Europe and beyond.
M A T E R I A L F O R
T H E R E C O R D
=======================================================================
List of Individuals Recognized as Political Prisoners by the Memorial
Human Rights Center
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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