All news

State Duma deputies draft statement on sanctions from US, EU

The parliamentarians “are especially bewildered” by the fact that the US sanction list includes head of the State Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children Elena Mizulina

MOSCOW, March 18. /ITAR-TASS/. A group of the State Duma’s deputies have drafted a statement On Sanctions from the US and the European Union, where they express bewilderment regarding sanction “black lists.”

The draft’s authors are representatives of the Duma’s factions - Mikhail Markelov (United Russia), Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), Mikhail Yemelyanov (A Just Russia), Alexander Yushchenko (Communist Party), a source at the lower house told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

In the draft statement, the deputies write that on Monday the US president “issued an order to limit rights of certain Russian citizens,” and those “discriminative measures were supported by foreign ministers of the European Union.” “The sanctions refer among others to some of our colleagues - deputies of the State Duma and members of the Federation Council,” the authors say.

The decision of President Obama and European officials, the deputies write, “is claimed to be related to Russia’s allegedly illegal position on the public referendums in the Republic of Crimea and in the city of Sevastopol,” as “they do not like that our fraternal peoples by means of open democratic procedures, in compliance with norms and standards of international law, practically unanimously made a decision on self-determination and on accesion to the Russian Federation.”

“This non-acceptance of the public will causes bewilderment, as the US and the European Union have always declared their adherence to democracy and have always called for the right of peoples to determine their fate,” the document reads.

The parliamentarians “are especially bewildered” by the fact that the US sanction list includes head of the State Duma’s Committee on Family, Women and Children Elena Mizulina, “a most respected Russian parliamentarian,” to whom “for over 20 years the Russian citizens have entrusted their representation at the Russian parliament.” They are convinced the fact that her name has been put on the list demonstrates it “does not have anything to do with the so-called Crimean issue and proves once again that the US is trying to limit the rights of those following clearly civil positions.”

“It is also clear that this political hysteria is a reaction to the adopted bill initiated by Elena Mizulina on banning gay-propaganda among children,” the deputies say in the document, adding that this bill has been supported by representatives of the State Duma’s all factions, where 436 deputies voted for it, and later on the bill was supported unanimously by the Federation Council, and besides “over 80% of the Russian people have supported it.”

In this connection, the document’s authors say it would be only reasonable if “Mister Obama and the European officials put every parliamentarian, who has voted for that bill, on the list of the Russian citizens against whom the US and the European Union introduce the sanctions.”

“We are not trading in principal approaches and we are not afraid of any sanctions!” the document’s authors stress.