Why Europe needs a Magnitsky law

A new book edited by Russian-French journalist Elena Servettaz, arguing for Europe to enact a Magnitsky law similar to the US Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was launched in the UK on 5 November.

– The book presents powerful arguments that Europe should deny visa and freeze assets of those who killed Sergei Magnitsky and other human rights violators, said Bjørn Engesland, Secretary General.

– EU member states and other European states would by enacting such legislation send a strong message that while law-abiding Russians are more than welcome in Europe, human rights violators are not. NHC’s Gunnar Ekeløve-Slydal has contributed to the book.

The book is a collection of 54 essays by European, U.S. and Canadian lawmakers, Russian human rights and civil society activists and victims of human rights abuse. The relatives of high-profile victims of human rights abuse in Russia speak in the book, including the daughter of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist killed in 2006 in her apartment building after exposing human rights abuses in Chechnya, the father of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a singer of Pussy Riot punk group, sentenced in 2012 to two years in penal colony following a several-seconds long anti-Putin protest in a Russian church, and Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander Litvinenko poisoned in London with radioactive polonium in 2006.

Find the full text of the US Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act here

There are two contributors from Norway: Peter S. Gitmark, former Member of Parliament, and Gunnar M. Ekeløve-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

The book is available online: http://magnitskybook.com/

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Gunnar M. Ekeløve-Slydal

Assisterende generalsekretærE-post: [email protected]Telefon: +47 95 21 03 07Twitter: @GunnarEkelveSly
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