[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 5, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           LEV PONOMAREV AND THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM IN RUSSIA

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 5, 2008

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, as President Vladimir Putin 
ends his presidency of the Russian Federation and his anointed 
successor, Dmitry Medvedev, prepares to take over, I would call the 
attention of my colleagues to what I consider an alarming backward step 
recently taken by the Kremlin in the area of civil liberties and 
freedom of speech.
  Last week, we learned that criminal charges have been filed against 
human rights activist Lev Ponomarev for allegedly slandering the head 
of the Russian prison system, General Yuri Kalinin.
  Mr. Ponomarev had charged publicly that so-called ``torture camps'' 
have been established in certain penal colonies under General Kalinin's 
jurisdiction. If taken to court and convicted, Mr. Ponomarev could be 
fined, or even imprisoned for as much as 3 years.
  Mr. Ponomarev, the leader of the Moscow-based organization ``For 
Human Rights,'' is a veteran human rights campaigner, going back to the 
Soviet era. He recently met with the staff of the Helsinki Commission, 
of which I am honored to serve as chairman, to share his concerns about 
what he feels is a pattern of systematic abuse and violence in Russia's 
penal system. The slander charges were filed when he returned to 
Moscow.
  Madam Speaker, I make no judgment about the substance of Mr. 
Ponomarev's contentions. Nevertheless, I would point out that much of 
what he stated has already been publicized in the Russian media and by 
the office of the Russian State Duma's human rights ombudsman. It would 
appear that Mr. Ponomarev is being prosecuted not for any genuine 
crimes he may have committed, but for his prominent and long-time human 
rights activity. If this is indeed the case, he joins a growing number 
of Russian citizens who have been subjected to questionable legal 
procedures by authorities as a result of their political activities.
  Unfortunately, this situation is symbolic of larger problems in 
Russia that are recounted very well in a February 25th editorial by 
Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl entitled, ``Holding Medvedev to 
His Words.''
  I would like to submit this article for the Record and I urge my 
colleagues to read it to better understand the challenges faced by 
Russian citizens who work for human rights and civil society in today's 
Russia.

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 25, 2008]

                     Holding Medvedev to His Words

                           (By Jackson Diehl)

       Dmitry Medvedev, the man Vladimir Putin has appointed to be 
     elected as Russia's president next Sunday, is so slavishly 
     devoted to his patron that he has begun imitating his 
     physical quirks. That includes ``how he lays his hands on the 
     table or how he stresses key words in speeches,'' not to 
     mention walking with ``fast and abrupt steps,'' according to 
     the Reuters journalist Oleg Shchedrov.
       Medvedev presumably won't be exercising his power as 
     president to dismiss the prime minister--the position Putin 
     is about to assume--anytime soon. Yet the diminutive 42-year-
     old former law professor has been making some interesting 
     statements the past couple of weeks. For example: ``Russia is 
     a country of legal nihilism. No European country can boast 
     such a universal disregard for the rule of law.''
       Or: ``Freedom is inseparable from the actual recognition by 
     the people of the power of law. The supremacy of the law 
     should become one of our basic values.'' Or: ``One of the key 
     elements of our work in the next four years will be ensuring 
     the independence of our legal system from the executive and 
     legislative branches of power.''
       It's hard to believe that Medvedev could mean this. After 
     all, the man he is to succeed has, according to estimates by 
     Russian and Western analysts, accumulated a $40 billion 
     fortune while in office, ranging from shares in Russian 
     energy companies to an apartment in Paris. On his watch, 14 
     journalists--almost all of them Kremlin critics--have been 
     murdered, but none of the killers has been brought to 
     justice. Relations with Britain are icy, thanks to Putin's 
     refusal to act on Scotland Yard's case against the former KGB 
     agent it says poisoned a Putin critic in London.
       But criminality isn't limited to the Kremlin; it may be 
     Russia's single greatest problem. Average citizens are 
     frustrated by everything from the bribes necessary to obtain 
     simple services to the extortion practiced by police and the 
     susceptibility of judges to payoffs, as well as political 
     orders. Promising the rule of law--even if he doesn't apply 
     it to Putin and his circle--may be the juiciest pre-election 
     promise Medvedev can make.
       In any case, his pledge was seized upon by Lev Ponomarev, 
     the courageous and pragmatic leader of the Russian movement 
     For Human Rights, which is fighting an uphill battle to 
     retard the country's return to Soviet-style lawlessness. 
     Ponomarev was in Washington this month to lobby the Bush 
     administration and the presidential campaigns; as he 
     explained it, Russia's presidential transition offers a rare 
     opportunity for outsiders to press Moscow to adhere to basic 
     international standards.
       ``I don't have any big illusions,'' Ponomarev told me. ``I 
     think Mr. Medvedev is just another face of Mr. Putin. On the 
     other hand it provides an opportunity to follow up on the 
     rhetoric about the rule of law. If Mr. Medvedev says A, maybe 
     it is possible to pressure him to say B. What can B be? It 
     can be specific steps for restoring and enforcing legal 
     norms.''
       Ponomarev said that President Bush and his successor can 
     start by pushing Medvedev to stop using the law as an 
     instrument of political repression. That would mean ending 
     such practices as the prosecution of liberal academics on 
     bogus espionage charges; the involuntary commitment of 
     opposition activists to psychiatric wards, or their draft 
     into the military; and the campaigns against human rights and 
     other civil society groups based on supposed tax violations 
     or breaches of local ordinances.
       Next comes what Ponomarev called ``the torture camps'': a 
     re-emerging gulag of some 50 prison colonies, closed to the 
     outside world, where prisoners are subjected to systematic 
     violence and abuse. Ponomarev's group has documented these 
     practices in photographs and videos smuggled out of the 
     camps, many of which are controlled by the same officials or 
     clans that managed them in the Soviet era.
       Finally, there is the legal persecution of those who report 
     such truths. On Friday, state prosecutors brought criminal 
     charges against Ponomarev himself, claiming that he had 
     slandered Gen. Yuri Kalinin, the head of the prison camp 
     system. Ponomarev's travel documents were also revoked; his 
     lawyers believe he is being punished for speaking out in the 
     United States.
       ``It seems to me that a country that is a member of the G-
     8,'' the group of rich democracies that Russia was allowed 
     into a decade ago, ``cannot afford to have political 
     prisoners and to have torture in its prison camps,'' 
     Ponomarev said to me. It also shouldn't be allowed to 
     prosecute human rights activists who try to promote the rule 
     of law. Medvedev ought to be asked by President Bush and 
     other Western leaders to explain how his talk of ending 
     ``legal nihilism'' squares with the charges against 
     Ponomarev--before the new president gets his first invitation 
     to a G-8 summit.

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