[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 41 (Monday, March 2, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1258-S1259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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SENATE RESOLUTION 524--CONDEMNING THE PRACTICE OF POLITICALLY MOTIVATED 
IMPRISONMENT, CALLING FOR THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS 
   IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION, AND URGING ACTION BY THE UNITED STATES 
GOVERNMENT TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO PERSONS RESPONSIBLE FOR 
                    THAT FORM OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE

  Mr. CARDIN (for himself, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Coons, Mr. Johnson, and Mrs. 
Shaheen) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 524

       Whereas the right to liberty and security of a person and 
     the protection from arbitrary imprisonment are among the 
     principal human rights guaranteed by Article 9 of the 
     International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 
     23 of the Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting of the 
     Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Article 
     5 of the European Convention on Human Rights;
       Whereas the Russian Federation, as a member of the United 
     Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in 
     Europe (OSCE), and the Council of Europe, is bound by 
     international commitments with regard to human rights and the 
     rule of law;
       Whereas, on October 3, 2012, the Parliamentary Assembly of 
     the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 1900 (2012) that 
     defined anyone whose ``detention has been imposed in 
     violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the 
     European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols'' or 
     ``is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and 
     this appears to be connected with political motives of the 
     authorities'' as a political prisoner;
       Whereas, on July 2, 2014, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly 
     adopted the Baku Declaration in which it ``endorses the 
     adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of 
     Europe of a resolution confirming the definition of political 
     prisoners'' and ``strongly urges participating states to co-
     operate with international institutions like the OSCE, to 
     help ensure that . . . there will be no political prisoners 
     in the OSCE area'';
       Whereas, based on the criteria of the Parliamentary 
     Assembly of the Council of Europe Resolution 1900 (2012), the 
     Memorial Human Rights Center, one of the most respected 
     nongovernmental organizations in the Russian Federation, 
     estimates that there are currently more than 300 political 
     prisoners in the Russian Federation;
       Whereas the list of Russian political prisoners designated 
     by the Memorial Human Rights Center includes journalists, 
     civil society activists, human rights advocates, participants 
     of peaceful demonstrations, adherents of prohibited religious 
     groups, members of ``undesirable'' organizations, and 
     Ukrainian citizens from the illegally annexed Crimea;
       Whereas the longest-serving political prisoner in the 
     Russian Federation, Alexey Pichugin, has been incarcerated 
     since June 19, 2003, in violation of 2 rulings by the 
     European Court of Human Rights and the opinion by the United 
     Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
       Whereas opposition activist Konstantin Kotov was sentenced 
     to 4 years' imprisonment on September 5, 2019, for 
     participating

[[Page S1259]]

     in peaceful demonstrations, in a ruling Human Rights Watch 
     has described as ``an outrageous violation of the right to 
     peaceful protest'';
       Whereas Anastasia Shevchenko, an activist in the Open 
     Russia movement, has been held under house arrest since 
     January 23, 2019, on the charge of belonging to an 
     ``undesirable'' organization and has been designated by 
     Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience;
       Whereas Yuri Dmitriev, a historian and the leader of the 
     Memorial Human Rights Center's branch in the Republic of 
     Karelia who has worked to document mass burial sites from 
     Stalin-era executions, is being held in pretrial detention on 
     charges of child pornography that Human Rights Watch has 
     described as ``bogus'' and part of an ongoing ``smear 
     campaign'';
       Whereas Dennis Christensen, a Jehovah's Witness and a 
     citizen of Denmark, was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment on 
     February 6, 2019, in a decision condemned by the United 
     States Commission on International Religious Freedom as part 
     of the broader pattern of the Government of the Russian 
     Federation ``engaging in or tolerating severe violations of 
     religious freedom'';
       Whereas, on February 10, 2020, a court in Penza sentenced 7 
     activists to prison terms ranging from 6 to 18 years for 
     participation in what authorities alleged was a terrorist 
     organization called ``Network'' after a trial marked by 
     incommunicado detention, torture, and other ill treatment to 
     extract confessions, in what Human Rights Watch has described 
     as an example of the Russian authorities ``abusing 
     counterterrorism laws to silence critics and deny fundamental 
     human rights'';
       Whereas, on June 18, 2018, the Department of State affirmed 
     that ``the United States is deeply concerned by the growing 
     number of individuals . . . identified by credible human 
     rights organizations as political and religious prisoners 
     held by the Government of the Russian Federation'' and called 
     on the Government of the Russian Federation ``to release all 
     those identified as political or religious prisoners 
     immediately and cease its use of the legal system to suppress 
     dissent and peaceful religious practice'';
       Whereas, on January 28, 2020, 43 parliamentarians from 16 
     European countries introduced a resolution in the 
     Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe calling for 
     the appointment of a rapporteur ``to examine the growing 
     crisis with politically motivated imprisonments in the 
     Russian Federation''; and
       Whereas, according to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the 
     number of political prisoners in the Russian Federation has 
     increased more than 6-fold since 2015: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) expresses support for those unjustly imprisoned in the 
     Russian Federation;
       (2) condemns the practice of politically motivated 
     imprisonment in the Russian Federation, which violates the 
     commitments of the Russian Federation to international 
     obligations with respect to human rights and the rule of law;
       (3) calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to 
     immediately release political prisoners, including Alexey 
     Pichugin, Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri 
     Dmitriev, and Dennis Christensen;
       (4) urges the United States Government, in all its 
     interactions with the Government of the Russian Federation, 
     to raise individual cases of political prisoners held by the 
     Russian Federation and to press for their release; and
       (5) urges the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the 
     Treasury to use their authority under the Sergei Magnitsky 
     Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (title IV of Public 
     Law 112-208; 22 U.S.C. 5811 note), the Global Magnitsky Human 
     Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of title XII of Public 
     Law 114-328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note), and other applicable 
     provisions of law to designate for the imposition of 
     sanctions officials of the Government of the Russian 
     Federation who are responsible for human rights abuses in the 
     form of politically motivated imprisonment.

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