III 

116TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 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. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

MARCH 2, 2020 

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 

RESOLUTION 

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. 

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 EuVerDate Sep 11 2014 23:38 Mar 02, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR524.IS SR524

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•SRES 524 IS 

rope, 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, 


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•SRES 524 IS 

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 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 


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•SRES 524 IS 

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 


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1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) expresses support for those unjustly impris3 oned in the Russian Federation; 

4 (2) condemns the practice of politically moti5 vated imprisonment in the Russian Federation, 

6 which violates the commitments of the Russian Fed7 eration to international obligations with respect to 

8 human rights and the rule of law; 

9 (3) calls on the Government of the Russian 

10 Federation to immediately release political prisoners, 

11 including Alexey Pichugin, Konstantin Kotov, 

12 Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri Dmitriev, and Dennis 

13 Christensen; 

14 (4) urges the United States Government, in all 

15 its interactions with the Government of the Russian 

16 Federation, to raise individual cases of political pris17 oners held by the Russian Federation and to press 

18 for their release; and 

19 (5) urges the Secretary of State and the Sec20 retary of the Treasury to use their authority under 

21 the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability 

22 Act of 2012 (title IV of Public Law 112–208; 22 

23 U.S.C. 5811 note), the Global Magnitsky Human 

24 Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of title XII of 

25 Public Law 114–328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note), and 


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1 other applicable provisions of law to designate for 

2 the imposition of sanctions officials of the Govern3 ment of the Russian Federation who are responsible 

4 for human rights abuses in the form of politically 

5 motivated imprisonment. 

Æ 


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