The Duma and the Foreign Ministry responded to Chamberlain

The European Parliament today considered the “Magnitsky list”. But the PublicPost correspondent in the European Parliament is not accredited, so he reports from Russia. We inform you: the Duma Committee on International Affairs also discussed human rights. Not just anywhere, but in the USA.

The event took place in the Small Hall, similar to a university lecture hall. This, of course, is not a plenary hall, where parliamentarians sit decorously at their seats and traditionally go to the podium. Here the speakers all sit at one table in front of the audience, the podium for speaking is nearby. Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Human Rights Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Konstantin Dolgov and LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky were invited to criticize the American government. By the way, one of the available Wi-Fi points in the hall criticizes the guarantor. That’s what it says: putin-vor .

Committee Chairman Alexei Pushkov, speaking about the painful life of an unfree America, touched upon the topic of freedom of speech in the media. Apparently addressing journalists (and the event caused a great stir in the press), Pushkov reported on the figures: “The organization Reporters Without Borders in January 2012 lowered the ranking of the United States in its annual report on the press freedom index by 27 positions. Today the United States ranks 47th in the world for press freedom." This is a bad indicator for the “flagship of democracy”. Whether it’s the Russian press, which is comfortably located in the ranking between sunny Gambia and Colombia in 142nd place. Although Pushkov is not offended by this, and he takes it quite calmly: “The USA claims that they have had democracy for 200 years, but we do not claim this.”

At this point the parliamentary hearings could have ended. But Pushkov explained why Russia has the moral right to criticize the United States: “Russia has no complaints about actions outside the country. We do not have secret prisons, we do not kidnap people, I don’t remember there being any serious scandals.” “(Pushkov, obviously, has already forgotten about Litvinenko and Yamadayev. But apparently, they haven’t reported to him about Razvozzhaev yet).

In addition to the violation of human rights in the United States, the chairman was also concerned about Ambassador Michael McFaul's absenteeism from the hearings. “I think he would be very interested,” Pushkov expressed his assumption. But it was interesting and so was everyone.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov presented a report that should be a response to the US adoption of the “Magnitsky list”. “Unfortunately, in America there are many who still cannot get rid of the stereotypes of the Cold War and still think in terms of ideological confrontation. Hence the biased attacks on us repeated year after year in the well-known reports of the State Department on human rights in the world “Hence the denigration of the situation with respect to human rights in our country,” Ryabkov read the report monotonously. “The US administration and the American Congress have a unanimous opinion in favor of adopting the anti-Russian Magnitsky law, which provides for visa and financial sanctions against our officials. We won’t be able to leave an answer.” In general, during the hearings, a lot of attention was paid to two topics: the Magnitsky law, which, like a red rag, irritates Russian officials, and the imprisonment of Viktor Bout and the US refusal to extradite him to his homeland.

Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov spoke about cases with Russian adopted children in American families. About the real state of affairs, which should be looked at more closely than Magnitsky’s list (there is nothing to be done about it). Astakhov remembered the case of Ivan Skorobogatov, told a story about a couple who adopted disabled girls for filming in porn films and other cases worthy of Hollywood horror films. “Do not succumb to the myths and hysterics that convince us that it is impossible to close foreign adoption, then Russian orphans will have no future - this is a lie,” Astakhov said. After his bright speech, as befits a real lawyer, the audience applauded.

The speakers repeated each other in individual theses. Except for the leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In his short speech, he clearly dotted all the i’s: “Jewish emigration is behind the anti-Russian propaganda in the United States.” Zhirinovsky also complained that Ambassador McFaul did not come to the hearing: “McFaul could have come here, but it’s unpleasant for him to listen to two hours of criticism of his country. But his diplomats wrote everything down, they will give everything to him, and today his lunch will be ruined.”

The speeches did not end there, however, the remaining speakers did not arouse much interest, and the hall quickly emptied. The time on the clock was approaching lunch, and it was difficult to ruin a Russian official’s lunch.