Sanctions against persons on the "Kara-Murza list"
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly
debate on 17 April 2024 (11th sitting) (see Doc. 15939, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human
Rights, rapporteur: Mr Eerik-Niiles Kross). Text
adopted by the Assembly on 17 April 2024 (11th sitting).
1. The Parliamentary Assembly pays
tribute to Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition
politician, journalist, documentary film-maker, historian and writer.
2. In April 2023, Mr Kara-Murza was sentenced to twenty-five
years in prison for criticising the Russian war of aggression against
Ukraine. He is subjected to particularly harsh prison conditions,
which are putting his life and health at serious risk, particularly
given the long-term effects of two earlier poisonings that came
close to killing him.
3. Vladimir Kara-Murza was handed down a particularly long prison
sentence compared to those meted out to other critics of the Russian
war of aggression, most of whom have been sentenced to five to ten
years in prison. Mr Kara-Murza’s supporters consider the particularly
harsh sentence as retaliation for his long-standing vocal support
for “Magnitsky laws” on targeted sanctions against human rights
violators.
4. “Magnitsky laws” such as those adopted by the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, numerous central and eastern European
countries and not least by the European Union allow targeted sanctions
against perpetrators of serious human rights violations who enjoy
impunity in their own country, including police and State security
officials, to be imposed. Vladimir Putin has made the elimination
of “Magnitsky sanctions” against his supporters one of his foreign
policy priorities.
5. The persons directly responsible for and who participate in
the persecution and ill-treatment of Vladimir Kara-Murza are well
known. A detailed list can be found via this link “
Kara-Murza
list”. It includes prison staff, police officers, prosecutors
and judges involved, in their respective roles, in the gross abuse
of the Russian justice system for the purpose of silencing Mr Kara-Murza.
6. These persons should be included in sanctions lists naming
individuals, established under the existing and future Magnitsky-type
sanctions laws.
7. The life of Vladimir Kara-Murza is threatened by the solitary
confinement to which he is arbitrarily subjected, despite his weakened
state of health following two poisonings which he narrowly survived.
8. The tragic and sudden death in prison in February 2024 of
Alexei Navalny, an outspoken Kremlin critic and anti-corruption
activist, who had similarly been subject to and had narrowly survived
poisoning by a nerve agent, highlights the urgency of ensuring the
release of Vladimir Kara-Murza from prison and of holding to account
on a personal and individual basis all those involved in his persecution.
9. As a dual citizen of the Russian Federation and the United
Kingdom, Mr Kara-Murza could be included in any exchange of Russian
spies held by Western States for political prisoners and other persons,
including citizens of foreign States that are being held hostage
by the Russian Federation.
10. The Assembly therefore:
10.1 invites
all States that have not yet adopted Magnitsky-type targeted sanctions
laws to do so without further delay;
10.2 calls on the European Union and all States that have laws
on targeted sanctions to include in their sanctions lists the persons
directly responsible for the persecution and ill-treatment of Vladimir
Kara-Murza and the persecution, ill-treatment and death of Alexei
Navalny, and those participating in them;
10.3 urges all States negotiating exchanges of prisoners with
the Russian Federation to include Vladimir Kara-Murza in any such
exchange;
10.4 calls on the authorities of the Russian Federation to
release Vladimir Kara-Murza without delay, while immediately rectifying
his current conditions of detention until such release so as not
to further jeopardise his health and his life.
