On the first question on religious prisoners, most of the people—and, as Natalia mentioned, it's more than 200 out of 296 people—are there as religious rather than political prisoners. The vast majority of those are either adherents of a Muslim organization called Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which is a radical but peaceful Islamic movement, or, increasingly, adherents of the Jehovah's Witnesses congregations. One of the latest political prisoners is actually a Danish citizen by the name of Mr. Christensen, who is one of the leaders of the Jehovah's Witness congregation in the city of Oryol.
You're right, that is a relatively new term in our discourse, but, of course, as part of the Helsinki Final Act commitments and other OSCE commitments, not to mention the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of religion is one of those obligations that the Russian government has undertaken, and in the case of these religious prisoners, that obligation is clearly being violated.
The very important second part of your question is on the Magnitsky act. I have been involved in this work now for almost a decade, starting in the U.S., then in Canada, then in several countries of the European Union. We always find the same model when it relates to the Magnitsky legislation. I think it would be fair to say this was a model that applied at least partially here in Canada too, where you have the executive branch, the government and diplomatic service, which are initially very much opposed to this principle. Realpolitik is not a new concept. It's a resilient one. It's been around for a long time, so it's perhaps not surprising that it still retains some of its strength. However, in every one of the six countries that have the Magnitsky legislation on the books—certainly including Canada—we found that a principled cross-party support for parliamentarians in the end overcame that resistance and made sure that the legislation was adopted and is being implemented. As you rightly pointed out in your question, those are two different things. For example, one of the six countries where the Magnitsky legislation exists, the United Kingdom, has had it now for one year, since June 2018, and the total number of people sanctioned under the Magnitsky legislation in the U.K. is precisely zero.
One of the things we're increasingly seeing happen over there in Britain is that there is pressure from Parliament. Also, on what it took initially to move the process ahead in the United States, I'll give you just one example. General Alexander Bastrykin, who is a top law enforcement official in the Putin regime, the chairman of the Russian investigative committee, is personally responsible for all the politically motivated prosecutions of recent years, like those in the Yukos affair, the Bolotnaya affair, the Navalny case and all the other ones. As well, a few years ago he personally—we're talking about the highest law enforcement official in Putin's government—took a leading independent journalist in Russia called Sergei Sokolov from Novaya Gazeta into a forest near Moscow. He walked him out of the car and took him into the forest and said to him, “If your newspaper continues to publish what you publish, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to bury you right here in this forest, and by the way, guess who is going to investigate? That will be the chairman of the investigation committee.” This is not in dispute, by the way. This is not “allegedly” or “admittedly”. He admitted he had done this.
He also said “sorry” the next week. I don't think that quite cuts it as taking responsibility by a senior government official who threatens to murder a journalist.
It took several years and a lot of pressure from the United States Congress, from both major political parties, to finally convince the United States government to sanction this individual. He was sanctioned in the year 2017. He was also sanctioned in Canada, straight away, by the way. In October 2017, you passed the law, and, I believe, in November was the first batch of the Magnitsky resignations, and General Bastrykin was on that list. So I actually find myself in the rare position of sitting in the Parliament of a country which instead of criticizing I would like to commend. Whenever I go now to other western European parliaments to talk about the need for Magnitsky legislation there, I always use Canada as an example of a country that both has passed the law unanimously and is implementing it.
Of course, there is always more to do, and those people we are talking about today, starting with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, I think are very obvious, glaring omissions. In fact, it is mind-boggling but Chaika, who has been either the justice minister or the prosecutor general for the entire 20 years of Vladimir Putin's rule, and as such has been responsible for some of the most egregious cases of politically motivated prosecution, has so far not been sanctioned by any of the six countries where the Magnitsky law exists, including Canada.
I think it would be important to have parliamentary pressure on the government here in Canada to sanction those people who are responsible for politically motivated prosecutions as well as those who are responsible for politically motivated assassinations.
Three weeks ago, the United States government took a very important step of sanctioning under their Magnitsky law a key organizer in the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov: a Russian interior ministry official named Ruslan Geremeyev.
Lithuania and the United States are two countries that have sanctioned this individual so far, and I think it would be very powerful and very important if Canada did the same. There is no more gross human rights abuse than the murder of somebody who dedicated his life to stand up for freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
Because we are witnessing for more than four years now a very high-level cover-up in Russia when it comes to anything related to bringing the organizers and masterminds of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov to justice, we are hoping that those countries that have the Magnitsky law use it to end the impunity for those people. After all, that's what the Magnitsky law was intended to do: end the impunity for those who are shielded and protected, those human rights abusers who are shielded and protected by their governments.