Civil Society, Democracy, and Markets in East Central Europe and the NIS: Problems and Perspectives

By Woody Atwood, Intern In 2008, a Russian tax lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky representing Hermitage Capital Management in a dispute over alleged tax evasion discovered a $230 million fraud being committed by Russian law enforcement officers assigned to the case. Magnitsky reported the fraud to the authorities and was arrested soon after by the same officers he had accused. For almost a year, Magnitsky was held in squalid prison conditions, denied visits from his family, and beaten by guards. Despite developing serious cases of gallstones, pancreatitis, and cholecystitis, he was denied medical attention. On November 16, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death in his cell. He had been imprisoned for 358 days, just seven days short of the maximum legal pre-trial detention period in Russia. A year later, Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), then Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, introduced the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act, directing the U.S. Secretary of State to publish a list of individuals involved in Sergei’s detention and death, and enabling the government to deny these individuals entry to the United States and freeze their American assets. The bill was reintroduced in the next Congress as the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. This version covered all individual who commit extrajudicial killings, torture or otherwise egregiously violate the human rights of activists or whistleblowers in Russia. Both houses of Congress passed the new bill in late 2012 as part of the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. On December 14, 2012, President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law, establishing severe consequences for the worst human rights violators in Russia. Just weeks after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian parliament and government responded by passing a law banning American families from adopting children from Russia. The law immediately terminated adoptions that were being processed, and many children, including children with serious disabilities, who were due to leave Russia were never able to join their American families. In 2013, the Russian government also issued a list of 18 American officials banned from entering Russia. In 2015, Sen. Cardin and Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), who was then chairing the Helsinki Commission, introduced the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to expand the authorities established by the original Magnitsky Act to include the worst human rights violators and those who commit significant acts of corruption around the world. The legislation required the President to annually issue a list of individuals sanctioned under it on Human Rights Day (December 10) or the soonest day thereafter when the full Congress is in session. The global version was passed in December 2016 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. The story of Sergei Magnitsky and the actions of the U.S. Congress have sparked a global movement to hold individual perpetrators accountable for their human rights violations and corruption. In the last year, Estonia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania have all passed their own Magnitsky laws. In honor of Human Rights Day and the fifth anniversary of the Magnitsky Act, and to correspond to the deadline for the annual Global Magnitsky List, the U.S. Helsinki Commission is holding two events related to the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky. On Wednesday, December 13, at 3:00PM Commission staff will lead a public briefing on “Combating Kleptocracy with the Global Magnitsky Act,” and on Thursday, December 14, Commissioners will hear testimony on “The Magnitsky Act at Five: Assessing Accomplishments and Challenges.”

By Jordan Warlick, Policy Advisor From November 2 to November 3, 2017, Helsinki Commission staff participated in the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on the Role of Free Media in the Comprehensive Approach to Security. Supplementary Human Dimension Meetings are convened a few times per year on specific subjects that are determined to deserve distinct focus by the Chairmanship-in-Office. Like the annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Supplementary Human Dimension Meetings bring participating States and civil society actors together, facilitating dialogue on challenges to human rights issues in the OSCE region. The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, identified this topic – the role of free media in the comprehensive approach to security – as one of his four priorities at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in September 2017: “My second priority will be to protect media freedom in the new security context….I fully support the efforts of governments to combat terrorism and create safer societies, but let me repeat this simple fact: there are ways to achieve these goals without compromising on our hard-fought fundamental freedoms.” Unfortunately, some governments in the OSCE region consider a free press to be a threat to national security, and worse, persecute or silence journalists in the name of the security. Certain governments and nationalists justify the censorship of journalists by labelling them unpatriotic, even enemies of the state.  Since the failed coup attempt Turkey, for example, hundreds of journalists have been arrested and media outlets shuttered on the basis of national security. The mere suspicion that citizens are part of the Gulenist movement – the group that the Turkish government blames for the coup attempt – can result in many years in prison, or even life sentences.  Journalists, as well as civil society as a whole, have been particularly targeted by terrorism-related charges. However, despite that freedom of expression and national security are often pitted against each other, the two are not mutually exclusive – in fact, they are complementary. An independent, free, and pluralistic media can play a role in peacebuilding and conflict prevention, countering prejudices or misperceptions, and preventing extremism and radicalization. Still, in a world where terrorists spread radical ideas, prejudiced organizations perpetuate intolerance, and government-sponsored bots disseminate misinformation, the tension between freedom of expression and national security seems greater than ever.   The conference featured three sessions: the first, on free media as a basis for European security; the second, on the role of the media in peacebuilding and conflict prevention; and the third, on the role of media in counteracting disinformation, “hate speech” and radicalization. Panelists and participants present discussed the tension between freedom of expression and security interests, the pressures independent media faces from this tension, and best practices for governments to uphold free media and expression commitments in this context. The OSCE takes a comprehensive approach to security, subscribing to the idea that political-military security, human rights, and economic governance are mutually reinforcing ideals. It is important to encourage dialogue on best practices to ensure that participating States remain true to the ideals that the OSCE was founded upon, despite sometimes challenging circumstances.

By Jordan Warlick, Staff Associate and Olivia Leggieri, Intern November 2, 2017, marks the fourth International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists since the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution in December 2013. The UN chose this date in November to commemorate the assassination of two French journalists who were murdered while on assignment in Mali. This day serves as a reminder of the obligation of nations to take urgent measures to protect journalists and media workers and to bring the perpetrators of such targeted violence to justice. Currently, only one in ten cases committed against journalists worldwide ends in a conviction; since 1992, 695 journalists have been murdered with impunity in connection with their work. The assassination of Russian journalist Natalya Estemirova in 2009 illustrates these cases of impunity. Estemirova was a courageous investigative reporter who covered government atrocities in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, particularly after Vladimir Putin launched the second Chechen war in 1999 in response to a series of apartment bombings.  In 2006, she visited the Helsinki Commission to discuss her findings regarding human rights violations by Chechen authorities.  At the meeting, she also expressed concern about the rising justification for the use of torture as a tool of counterterrorism in many countries, observing, “You cannot protect the law using illegal methods.” Estemirova was abducted in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on the morning of July 15, 2009, and found murdered in Ingushetia later that day. She was the fifth Novaya Gazeta journalist killed since 2000; to this day no one has been held responsible for her murder. At the time of her assassination, she was 51 years old and left behind a 15-year-old daughter. Then-Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Ben Cardin, Co-Chairman Congressman Alcee Hastings, and Ranking Members Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Chris Smith condemned her murder. Chairman Cardin stated, “Murder and intimidation of activists and journalists is both a serious violation of human rights and an affront to any democracy.” On the one-year anniversary of Estemirova’s murder, then-Co-Chairman Representative Alcee Hastings introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to express solidarity with human rights defenders in the Russian Federation. The resolution called for an end to impunity for those responsible for such acts through the conduct of timely, transparent and thorough criminal investigations into the unresolved murders of human rights defenders, journalists, and political opposition members and the prosecution of all of those responsible for these crimes. Chechen nationalists have also targeted Russian journalist Karina Orlova, who participated in a recent Helsinki Commission briefing on systematic violence against journalists in Russia and other OSCE participating States in the region. These threats ultimately led her to flee Russia and become a correspondent for Radio Echo of Moscow in Washington, D.C.  She emphasized that attacks such as the ones she received force journalists to self-censor, but vowed to never do so herself. Ruthless regimes do not have to kill every independent, critical, investigative journalist, just enough so that others will get the message and fall silent or leave.  Violent attacks against journalists are often preceded by government-sanctioned or led smear campaigns and other forms of harassment. Participating States of OSCE are committed to protecting the freedom of the media and improving working conditions for journalists. However, violence against journalists in OSCE participating States signals a lack of compliance with the Helsinki Accords, and further, the need to bring justice to those attempting to silence the independent press.