The US House of Representatives called for Alexei Pichugin’s release

4 December, 2020

In its Resolution 958, the US House of Representatives called for the release of Russian political prisoners, including Yuri Dmitriev, Alexei Pichugin, Anastasia Shevchenko and others.

The Resolution cites the Memorial Human Rights Centre data that there are over 300 political prisoners in Russia today – six times more than in 2015.

The Resolution notes that Alexei Pichugin is the longest-serving political prisoner in the Russian Federation – he has been in custody since June 19, 2003 in violation of two judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and a UN Working Group opinion.

The US House of Representatives condemns the practice of politically motivated imprisonment in the Russian Federation that violates the country’s international obligations on human rights and the rule of law and expresses its solidarity with all those unjustly imprisoned in the Russian Federation.

The US House of Representatives calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to immediately release individuals designated by the Memorial Human Rights Center [sic] as political prisoners, including Alexey Pichugin, Igor Rudnikov, Konstantin Kotov, Anastasia Shevchenko, Yuri Dmitriev, and Dennis Christensen.

The US House of Representatives also calls for sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against those responsible for human rights abuses in the form of politically motivated imprisonment.

The document was adopted unanimously and took force immediately.

You can watch the debates here.

Source:  Resolution 958