Punishment for Human Rights' Abuses

Like two aspirins for those whose heads ache, because they feel powerless to do anything about unspeakable human rights' violations, the concept of Magnitsky laws is a cure. These laws impact the individuals and organizations responsible for inhuman abuses, who often seem to escape prosecution, to accummulate fortunes by leveraging their high-level contacts and to laundeer and stash their wealth in safe havens throughout the world. Countries, including the US, UK, Canada, the Baltics and members of the European Union, enact a version of the Magnitsky law to freeze accounts of those responsible for human rights' abuses, thereby preventing them from financing their anticipated luxurious lifestyles. While the laudible aim of Magnitsky laws and fate of Sergei Magnitsky are well known, some details are disputed. Mr. Magnitsky, a 37-year-old tax expert, sometimes represented as an attorney, worked for Bill Browder's London-based Hermitage Capital Management investment firm. When Browder's Russian investments in state-owned corporations, especially Gazprom, prospered, he appears to have involved Magnitsky in a scheme to limit his tax liability by claiming a discount for employing disabled workers firms did not employ. In connection with an investigation two Moscow police officers made into Broder's alleged $230 million tax fraud case, Magnitsky ended up in a Russian prison, where a doctor discovered he needed pancreatic surgery he never received. Magnitsky died in prison on November 16, 2009. Mr. Browder effectively tells the story that the two police officers who initiated the tax fraud investigation were responsible for Magnitsky's death. In any case, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) maintains a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanctioned under various laws, including the Global Magnitsky Act of 2012. On Friday, August 7, 2020, the OFAC list added 11 Hong Kong officials for undermining autonomy guarantees and restricting freedom of expression or assembly. In mid-July, 2020, the UK's Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations imposed asset freezes and travel bans on: - 25 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky's death - 20 senion Saudi intelligence officials allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - 2 Myanmar generals connected to ethnic Rohingya autrocities - 2 North Korean organizations that run the concentration camps for political prisoners The UK's sanctions regulations provide review provisions.

2018-2019 Struggle for Human Rights

No struggle for human rights around the world is ever complete. The record that I began in the earlier post, "Hope for the Future," needs to be updated with some  positive and negative developments.

     Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered by a military death squad in 1980 because he spoke out for unions and poor peasant groups against the grip of prosperous coffee growers and capitalism in El Salvador, was declared a saint of the Catholic Church in 2018.

     Vietnam released and exiled "Mother Mushroom," Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, who had been jailed for writing about the country's corruption and pollution.

     Boko Haram continues to kill and kidnap innocent victims in Nigeria and the Cameroon.

     North Korea has re-education camps for thousands, and China also holds Muslim Uighurs in camps because their religion is said to undermine peace and security. In March, 2019, Kazakhstan would demonstrate an effort to maintain good relations with its Chinese neighbor by arresting Serikzhan Bilash for supporting Uighurs detained in Xinjiang's camps.

     Russia tried unsuccessfully to poison a spy in the UK in 2018, and it continues to hold political prisoners, such as Oleg Sentsov and Oleg and Alexei Navalny. In February, 2019, Russia would arrest Michael Calvey, a U.S financier, which is reminiscent of the expulsion of Browder, whose tax expert, sometimes called his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison.

     For criticizing the regime of King Salman and his son, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the Saudi Arabian journalist and US resident, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October, 2018, but in the same month, a Turkish court released a US pastor, Andrew Brunson, who had been in prison there on false terrorism charges for two years.