Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 11th, 2012

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Is the Russian presidential council for the development of civil society and human rights a body of any credibility? Was that more window dressing along the lines of what they were doing by giving a little more access for political parties and for opposition parties?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

It is essentially a decoration; it is window dressing, especially during the past few months when about a third of the members left after Mr. Putin “returned”—I put quotes around “returned” because he never left—after he formally returned to the Kremlin.

[William Browder]

The presidential council on human rights actually consists of highly decorated, objectively proper human rights activists; however, it has no power whatsoever. They came up with absolutely damning conclusions on the way that Sergei Magnitsky had been treated, and they submitted those to the president. They said basically his right to life was violated by the state, that he was tortured in custody, that the people who had killed him were basically the same people whom he had testified against. They presented this to the president of the country on July 5, 2011, and the President Medvedev, at the time, said he acknowledged that crimes were committed. To this day, with the exception of one low-level doctor, not a single person has been prosecuted. That tells you that as much as they have these organizations, and some of them are credible, like this organization...that's why a number of the members resigned. They said, “What's the purpose of sitting on this council, where they can use our name to say there is some kind of credible—”

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

To validate things, yes.

One of the things that struck me in the testimony is the comprehensive reporting he did before his death. How did he get that out of prison?

[William Browder]

That's a very good question.

There's something unusual about Russia, and a lot of people have that same question. Russia is a country of lawlessness, but it's also a country where within the lawlessness they're absolutely wedded to procedure. The procedure is that you can file as many complaints as you want, and they can reject your complaints for no reason.

It's a closed system where nobody ever believed that any of the documents would ever see the light of day where anyone could look at them objectively from the outside. I think now they're understanding what a huge mistake they made by allowing this to happen.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It sounds like a contradiction in terms. He's cobbled together all of the evidence and they were allowing that to get through.

[William Browder]

They never thought there would be any use to the evidence, because they've always lived in a world of absolute impunity. Up until today, there's absolute impunity, so they thought, it doesn't matter what he says, it doesn't matter what the evidence is, because the evidence can't be used. They never anticipated in their worst nightmares that I would be sitting here in front of the Canadian Parliament recounting the story from this evidence. That never, ever entered their mind.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

There's no process in Russia to consider that evidence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm afraid, Mr. Marston, your time is up.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Before we go any further, though, I just want to ask a question.

With respect to Mr. Magnitsky's numerous complaints and also the report of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, are any of these documents available in a form that could be used by this committee? I was just questioning our analyst as to whether she'd been able to find them and she had not at present. So I wondered if you'd be able to direct us to those.

[William Browder]

There's a website called www.russian-untouchables.com, which is a campaign website put together by the reporters and friends of Sergei Magnitsky. It's a library of documents. On that website you can get access to the human rights council report, the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, many English translations of Sergei's complaints, and many more Russian original versions that aren't translated. Of course, we're happy to work with and support any analytical efforts you want to take here above and beyond what's available on the website.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sweet, you're next.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for bringing this case to another level of consciousness for us. We've already made a statement regarding Mr. Magnitsky's treatment.

Mr. Browder, what is the state of your security right now? You're not dealing with a schoolyard bully. You're dealing with some substantial characters. Have you been receiving death threats? What's the situation for you?

[William Browder]

Unfortunately, since this whole saga began, I and my colleagues who have been working on this campaign have received 10 death threats in London. Some of them have clearly originated in Russia. This is not a safe occupation, to be fighting for justice. In this case, we're fighting against some extremely dangerous, murderous people who have shown a capacity to kill and have every capability of killing in the future. We are all living under the threat of being murdered.

There was recently an unexplained death of a whistleblower who came forward in the summer of 2011 in London. He had previously been involved with the criminal group that did these things. He came forward with documents in London proving the involvement of certain tax officials in this case, along with bank statements proving their involvement. He gave us those documents, and we passed them on to the Swiss prosecutor and the Swiss police, who opened a major money-laundering investigation and froze millions of dollars of assets.

About a month ago, this man, Alexander Perepilichnyy, at the age of 44 and in perfect health, dropped dead outside his house in Surrey. We don't know what the cause of death was. The police are investigating, but it does give everybody involved a clear cause for concern.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Sorry, I didn't catch that. It was outside his house, but not in Russia.

[William Browder]

It was in Surrey, in London.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Kara-Murza, with respect to Mr. Browder's testimony, 39,000 articles have been published primarily about the collusion of Russian officials with what seems to be a mafia. Although Russian society is not as free as the western world, it's not like Iran. It's not a totally closed site. I'm surprised. How come people aren't marching in the streets about these kinds of things, with the government's being in bed with organized crime?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

Well, they are. In fact, one of the principal demands of the mass demonstrations of the past years has been not just free elections and not just political reform, but also rule of law, because people realize that this lawlessness, arbitrariness, violence, and corruption that is happening is the daily norm around them, and there's no defence against it inside the country. In fact, situations such as this are one of the key motivators for those unprecedentedly large rallies that we've been seeing. The other one is that people want to be treated as citizens in their own country, with full rights and liberties, and not treated as cattle, as voiceless people who could just be told anything and have to shut up and accept it.

You raised a very important point about media freedom. The situation in Russia is that all national television channels are under government control. You will not hear a word about this case on national TV channels. In fact, one of the more liberal TV commentators—Vladimir Posner, has a reputation for being more liberal. He tried to mention the name of Sergei Magnitsky on his show. The show is recorded; you don't have any live political shows on Russian TV any more. He mentioned the name and it was cut out of the program, so you will not hear about that.

Russian Internet is free and some of the small circulation newspapers are free of censorship. The statistics about the articles and their reporting refer to those.

But in terms of the relationship between the media and this case...I worked for a Russian television channel until this summer of 2012. I was fired from it and actually blacklisted from all other Russian media pretty openly by Kremlin officials for supporting the Magnitsky legislation and for supporting these kinds of measures against crooks, abusers, and human rights violators.

It's a pretty hot topic for the Russian regime. In fact, it's the number one topic right now, after the Americans passed a law. As Mr. Browder mentioned, one of the first things Putin did after his inauguration in May was to sign a directive to the foreign ministry tasking his diplomats with fighting the Magnitsky legislation being adopted in western countries. They're afraid of this, and they understand how serious this could be for their interests and ill-gotten money, which they have shoved around in western banks.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

So this testimony here today puts you at increased risk as well.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

I mentioned this new high treason law, with a new definition of high treason that includes consulting with representatives of a foreign country, a foreign organization, or an international organization. Any one of us who goes abroad and talks to members of Parliament, or even to representatives of civil societies, I guess, could be put under that. They haven't used it yet. It was only signed about three or four weeks ago, this new definition of high treason. We'll see where it goes.

This is a really important point for all of us. All of Russia's opposition leadership is really committed to this, because we think this is that new standard that could really strike at the heart of this criminal mafia system that has ruled our country for the past 12 years. It's really important for us, and we're not going to give this up.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Browder, who is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Actually, Mr. Sweet, you've used up your time.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Professor Cotler, go ahead, please.