[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 19, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E335-E336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SUPPORTING FREEDOM IN RUSSIA

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 19, 2023

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I met with 
Evgenia Kara-Murza, the courageous wife of Russian patriot Vladimir 
Kara-Murza, and Kara-Murza's Moscow attorney Vadim Prokhorov, along 
with Bill Browder, the visionary sponsor of the Magnitsky Act. We 
discussed the outrageous sentencing of Vladimir Kara-Murza which has 
been so accurately exposed in the following lead editorial of the 
Washington Post yesterday.
       The sentencing of our opinions contributor, Vladimir Kara-
     Murza, to a quarter-century in prison on Monday by a Moscow 
     court, raises three very loud alarms. The first is that his 
     health is fragile and he might not survive 25 years in 
     prison. The second is that Mr. Kara-Murza, who committed no 
     crime, received one of the harshest sentences since Joseph 
     Stalin's time, a shocking, vengeful strike from President 
     Vladimir Putin. And lastly, the time has come for the United 
     States to step up on behalf of Mr. Kara-Murza--not only 
     because he represents this country's democratic values, but 
     also because he and others like him are the best hope for a 
     free, post-Putin Russia.
       Mr. Kara-Murza should be designated by the United States as 
     unlawfully or wrongfully detained, which will facilitate 
     negotiating a prisoner exchange with Russia. Mr. Kara-Murza 
     is a permanent resident of the United States, and his wife, 
     Evgenia Kara-Murza, and three children, are U.S. citizens. He 
     clearly meets the requirements for such a designation, which 
     Ms. Kara-Murza has been seeking for months. She told us Mr. 
     Kara-Murza would accept an exchange, and recalled that 
     dissidents were sometimes swapped during the Cold War.
       Mr. Kara-Murza returned to Moscow last year, knowing the 
     risks he faced. He did nothing wrong. He has committed free 
     speech, not treason. His arrest, conviction and sentencing 
     were entirely contrived.
       However, his deteriorating condition is real. He was the 
     target of attempted poisoning in 2015 and 2017 by Russia's 
     secret services, using some kind of nerve agent, and now 
     suffers from polyneuropathy, caused by damage to the 
     peripheral nerves throughout the body. The numbness began on 
     his left side and is spreading to his right, with loss of 
     feeling in both feet and his left hand. According to one of 
     his lawyers, Vadim Prokhorov, this malady should preclude 
     being incarcerated in a Russian prison, but so far the 
     wardens have turned a deaf ear to his appeals. ``I do realize 
     that he doesn't have five years, let alone 25'' in prison, 
     Ms. Kara-Murza told us. ``Now it is a question of life and 
     death.''
       ``If we lose him, if we lose people like Vladimir, who is 
     going to be there to rebuild

[[Page E336]]

     the country from ruins, to make sure that Russia does not 
     return to an authoritarian or totalitarian regime after the 
     collapse of this one?'' Ms. Kara-Murza said. ``Vladimir kept 
     on despite two poisoning attacks. Vladimir kept on despite 
     the assassination of his friend,'' Boris Nemtsov, the 
     reformist former deputy prime minister, ``and that did not 
     scare him. He went back to continue his fight time and again, 
     and I believe that he has shown he would not give up the 
     fight for a free Russia. The free democratic community has a 
     responsibility to stand with people like this.''
       Ms. Kara-Murza said the sentence was ``absolutely pure and 
     cynical revenge'' for her husband's effort to win approval of 
     the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law, similarly adopted by other 
     nations, that sanctions individuals who commit grave human 
     rights violations. Bill Browder, the investor who is the 
     architect of the Magnitsky sanctions, said Canada has added 
     nine Russians to the sanctions list and the United States six 
     over the Kara-Murza case, but there should be many more. ``It 
     absolutely helps,'' said Ms. Kara-Murza, noting the asset 
     freezes are a particular threat to Russian officials. ``They 
     prefer to steal in Russia, but hide that money in the West.''
       Mr. Putin's draconian laws against free speech since the 
     invasion of Ukraine--punishing supposed infractions as minor 
     as a child's drawing--have cast a pall of fear. There are no 
     large protests. ``That society does not have freedom of 
     speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, free and 
     fair elections,'' Ms. Kara-Murza said. ``There is nothing. No 
     rights are respected in Russia.'' But, she added, the strong 
     demand for virtual private networking software indicates a 
     continued demand for independent information from outside. 
     She suggested that in addition to sanctions, the United 
     States and its allies should do everything possible to defend 
     the remaining free channels of information, including support 
     for independent journalists, both inside Russia and outside, 
     and to help Ukraine push out the Russian invasion.
       Ms. Kara-Murza recalled that her husband worked as a 
     journalist but in 2012 discovered he had been barred from the 
     Russian Embassy in Washington, a retaliatory move because of 
     his public support of the Magnitsky Act. ``He decided, well, 
     I've got things to say and I will continue,'' and plunged 
     deeper into politics.
       Hopefully, he will continue to have things to say--the 
     unvarnished truth--and say it in freedom. There is much to do 
     to rescue Russia's freedom, too.

                          ____________________