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.

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 Europe, 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 is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and this appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities 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 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, civil society activists, human rights advocates, participants of peaceful demonstrations, adherents of prohibited religious groups, members of undesirable 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 Whereas Yuri Dmitriev, a historian and the leader of the Memorial Human Rights Centers 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 smear campaign Whereas Dennis Christensen, a Jehovahs 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 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 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 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 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 That the Senate (1) expresses support for those unjustly imprisoned in the Russian Federation; (2) condemns the practice of politically motivated imprisonment in the Russian Federation, which violates the commitments of the Russian Federation to international obligations with respect to human rights and the rule of law; (3) calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to immediately release political prisoners, including Alexey Pichugin, Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri Dmitriev, and Dennis Christensen; (4) urges the United States Government, in all its interactions with the Government of the Russian Federation, to raise individual cases of political prisoners held by the Russian Federation and to press for their release; and (5) urges the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury to use their authority under the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 (title IV of Public Law 112208 22 U.S.C. 5811 Public Law 114328 22 U.S.C. 2656

Summary: This resolution condemns political imprisonments in Russia and calls on Russia to release its political prisoners. The resolution also urges the United States to advocate for the release of such prisoners and to identify the Russian officials responsible for their imprisonment.