MOSCOW, November 21 (Itar-Tass) —— The so-called Magnitsky list will pose no threat to the Russian economy or security if adopted, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.
“If it is adopted, we will find a way to respond,” he said on Wednesday, November 21.
This issue and the Jackson-Vanik was mentioned at a meeting of the Russian Security Council earlier in the day.
Minister of Economic Development Andrei Belousov believes that the Jackson-Vanik amendment “creates problems for the Americans because they have problems they can’t solve”.
“They [in the U.S.] abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment for themselves because this will benefit them,” Patrushev said.
In his opinion, “internal problems [in the U.S.] make [them] adopt the Magnitsky list”.
The adoption of the “Magnitsky Act” by the U.S. House of Representatives is a new attempt to politicise “in the grossest possible manner” the human rights situation, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law Konstantin Dolgov said earlier.
“The adoption by the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress of so-called ‘Magnitsky Act’ is another attempt to politicise in the grossest possible manner the human rights situation,” Dolgov said. “The American side is trying again to accuse Russia of human rights violations in the Magnitsky case, ignoring exhaustive explanations about the investigation of this criminal case and complex measures Russia is taking, particularly to improve the healthcare system in penitentiaries.”
“All this information has been repeatedly provided to U.S. representatives but was ignored,” the diplomat said.
Notwithstanding the facts, “the congressmen stated once again that they had allegedly seen some human rights violations there”, Dolgov said. “And adopted an utterly defective bill which, under the slogan of ‘protecting human rights’, is aimed at gross violation of these rights with respect to Russian citizens,” he noted.
Moscow “is seriously bewildered by the fact that the American legislators, clothing themselves in the mantle of democratic freedoms advocates, diligently fail to notice the stated facts which have been confirmed by the international community, violations of human rights and humanitarian norms which were committed with absolute impunity by the U.S. military and intelligence service officials in Iraq, Afghanistan, CIA special prisons, and military prison in Guantanamo,” Dolgov said. “None of these persons has been properly punished so far,” he added.
Russia has repeatedly emphasised that the adoption of the “Magnitsky Act” would “run counter to common sense and the logic of Russian-American relations, which have been developing positively lately and which should be free from such Cold War relics”, the diplomat said.
“Russia’s adequate response, based on international law, to this utterly unfriendly and provocative action by the American legislators won’t be long in coming,” Dolgov said.