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Friday, 19.04.2024, 07:38
Lithuanian parliament passes 'Magnitsky act'
The
amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens are to come into force next
January, which means that a blacklist of such individuals will be compiled and
become effective next year.
"I believe this is a key law showing our respect
for human rights, first of all in Russia, because reference is made to a person
who tried to protect Russia by preventing stealing from its budget and its
citizens. He suffered because of that and was destroyed by those who were
stealing from the Russian budget," MP Emanuelis Zingeris of the
conservative Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats, told the
parliament.
"This is respect for Russia and its potential
democratic future," he added.
His colleague Zygimantas Pavilionis noted that
it was exactly eight years ago that Sergey Magnitsky was killed
in Russia.
Mantas Adomenas, another lawmaker of the opposition Homeland Union, said, "That
democratic part of Russian society, the people who sacrificed their lives and
their destinies to prevent Putin from having full control of a large part of
society are waiting for this message of freedom from our parliament".
Under the amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of
Aliens, a foreigner will be banned from coming to Lithuania for up to five
years if there are serious grounds to believe that he or she has committed a
serious or very serious crime against a person in a foreign country and human
rights and freedoms have been violated as a result of this, has committed a
corruption offense or has been involved money laundering, or is on the national
list of foreigners denied entry to a EU, EFTA and NATO member state.
A decision on banning entry to such a foreigner will
be made by the interior minister at the foreign minister's proposal.
The law also allows not informing a foreigner about
the decision to blacklist him or her if that would undermine the interests of
state security, defense and public security and of prevention, investigation,
detection and prosecution of criminal offences.
Russia's ambassador to Lithuania, Alexander Udaltsov, has told the Russian news agency Interfax recently that Moscow "we
will have to respond to yet another unfriendly step by Lithuania and bar entry
to Russia to a number of unwelcome individuals from this country" if the
Seimas passes the legislation.
The United States in 2012 passed the so-called
Magnitsky Act that imposed sanctions on a list of Russian officials believed to
be responsible for human rights violations, banning visas for them and freezing
their assets. Currently, there are over 40 names on the list.
The US legislation was named after Sergey Magnitsky, a
Russian lawyer who was arrested under falsified charges and died in a prison in
2009 after exposing a corruption scheme.