Title: Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment and 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.
Policy area: International Affairs

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.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 958 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 958

   Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment and 
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 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 8, 2020

    Mr. Engel (for himself and Mr. McCaul) submitted the following 
   resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Condemning the practice of politically motivated imprisonment and 
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 member of the United Nations, the 
        Organization for Security and Cooperation 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) which 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'' and 
        ``is the result of proceedings which were clearly unfair and . . . 
        appears to be connected with political motives of the authorities'' as a 
        political prisoner;
Whereas based on the criteria of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of 
        Europe Resolution 1900 (2012), the Memorial Human Rights Center, a 
        Russian nongovernmental organization, estimates that there are currently 
        more than 300 political prisoners in the Russian Federation--a six-fold 
        increase since 2015;
Whereas the Memorial Human Rights Center list of Russian political prisoners 
        includes journalists, civil society activists, human rights advocates, 
        participants of peaceful organizations, and Ukrainian citizens from 
        illegally annexed Crimea;
Whereas the Russian Federation's longest-detained political prisoner, Alexey 
        Pichugin, has been incarcerated since June 19, 2003, in violation of two 
        rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the opinion by the 
        United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention;
Whereas, investigative journalist and former editor of the independent newspaper 
        Noviye Kolyosa, Igor Rudnikov has been in pretrial detention since 
        November 1, 2017, for alleged extortion charges;
Whereas Igor Rudnikov's detention and charges were criticized by the OSCE 
        Representative on Freedom of the Media and Reporters without Borders, 
        calling them ``clearly trumped-up'' and ``an act of political revenge'', 
        respectively;
Whereas opposition activist Konstantin Kotov was sentenced to 1.5 years' 
        imprisonment on April 20, 2020, for participating in peaceful 
        demonstrations, in a ruling Amnesty International has described as ``a 
        profound injustice'';
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 leader of Memorial Human Rights Center's branch in the 
        Republic of Karelia region of the Russian Federation 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 Danish citizen, 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 Russian Government 
        ``engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom'';
Whereas, on February 10, 2020, seven activists from Russia's Penza Oblast were 
        sentenced to terms of six to eighteen years for alleged membership in a 
        terrorist group following a detention marked by torture, ill-treatment 
        to extract confessions, and periods held incommunicado;
Whereas Human Rights Watch described the case as an example of the Russian 
        authorities ``abusing counterterrorism laws to silence critics and deny 
        fundamental human rights'';
Whereas, on June 18, 2019, 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''; and
Whereas, on January 28, 2020, 43 parliamentarians from 16 European countries 
        introduced a Resolution in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of 
        Europe to appoint a rapporteur ``to examine the growing crisis with 
        politically motivated imprisonments in the Russian Federation'': Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) condemns the practice of politically motivated 
        imprisonment in the Russian Federation that violates the 
        country's international obligations on human rights and the 
        rule of law and expresses its solidarity with all those 
        unjustly imprisoned in the Russian Federation;
            (2) calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to 
        immediately release individuals designated by the Memorial 
        Human Rights Center as political prisoners under the criteria 
        of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 
        Resolution 1900 (2012), including Alexey Pichugin, Igor 
        Rudnikov, Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri 
        Dmitriev, and Dennis Christensen;
            (3) urges the United States Government, in all its 
        interactions with the Government of the Russian Federation, to 
        raise individual cases of Russian political prisoners and 
        advocate for their release; and
            (4) calls on 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 
        112-208), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act 
        (subtitle F of title XII of Public Law 114-328), and other 
        applicable United States statutory authorities to designate 
        officials of the Government of the Russian Federation who are 
        responsible for human rights abuses in the form of politically 
        motivated imprisonment.
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