Search Blog / Web

Custom Search

Monday, December 24, 2012

Obama urged to retaliate over Russia adoption ban

The Punch - Nigeria's Most Widely Read Newspaper
Breaking News, information and opinion in Nigeria
Obama urged to retaliate over Russia adoption ban
Dec 24th 2012, 23:00

Tens of thousands of petitioners are urging President Barack Obama to respond in kind to Moscow's plan to bar Americans from adopting Russian children, amid a diplomatic tiff sparked by US adoption of the so-called Magnitsky Act.

At least three petitions on the White House website are calling for US sanctions against Russian lawmakers who backed a bill that one of the documents says will "jeopardise lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans."

Moscow sees the ban on adoptions as retaliation for a US human rights law that allows the seizure of assets from Russian officials implicated in the 2009 death of a Russian lawyer, AFP reports.

Under the US law, those same officials would also be barred from entering the United States. It has been dubbed the Magnitsky Act after Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who blew the whistle on what he said was a $235 million police embezzlement scheme.

More than 46,500 people have signed one of the petitions, saying they are "outraged" by the Russian move.

Russian lawmakers "breached all imaginable boundaries of humanity, responsibility, or common sense and chose to jeopardise lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans, some of whom, the ill and the disabled ones, now might not have a chance of survival if the ban on international adoption is to be put in place," the petition continues.

The petitioners urged the Obama administration to "identify those involved in adopting such legislature responsible under the 'Magnitsky Act.'"

A second petition, signed by more than 7,000 people, asks that the Magnitsky Act "be extended to supporters of this law in (the) Russian Duma."

And a third, with nearly 3,500 signatures, asked Obama to add Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Magnitsky list of human rights violators if he signs the law banning adoptions by Americans.

According to White House rules, there must be an official response if the petition reaches 25,000 signatures within 30 days.

Russian deputy Irina Yarovaya, who heads the Duma's security committee, denounced the petitions.

Such initiatives "cross the limits of international law, of international relations and of a nation's sovereign rights," said Yarovaya in comments cited by Russian news agency Interfax.

Another lawmaker, Vyacheslav Nikonov, told Moscow Echo Radio that if Washington acted on the petitions, it could lead to "very serious diplomatic complications."

Nikonov is a senior member of the Duma's international relations committee.

Soviet-era dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva, however, backed the US initiative, the Interfax agency reported.

"According to our constitution, our lawmakers don't have the right to adopt laws that violate human rights," the rights campaigner said.

"Is the right of every unhappy child waiting to be adopted in an orphanage is violated by the law voted by the Duma? Of course."

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...