Post date: Dec 26, 2012 6:51:28 PM
Russian senator and former Soviet PM Nikolai Ryzhkov says the law banning U.S. adoptions passed by Russia's parliament is a necessary return to the Cold War, while Russian human rights activists call the bill awful.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA (DECEMBER 26, 2012) (REUTERS) - Russia's Senate on Wednesday (December 26) approved a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children - a move that one senator described as a necessary return to the Cold War-era tactics, but that Russian human rights workers decried.
The bill is meant as a retaliation for a U.S. law meant to punish Russian human rights abusers.Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly hinted he will sign the bill, which also outlaws some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups and hits back at U.S. sanctions by imposing visa bans and asset freezes on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians.
The Federation Council, Russia's upper parliament house, voted unanimously to approve the bill, which has clouded U.S.-Russian relations and outraged liberals who say lawmakers are playing a political game with the lives of children.
"Everyone was outraged by this so-called Magnitsky law, obviously directed againstRussia, and so I think that this is the main motivation behind the Federation Council's vote for the necessity of taking adequate measures in response," Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko said.
A former Soviet Prime Minister, currently in Russia's Federation Council, said the bill was a necessary retaliation to the U.S. so-called Magnitsky Act.
"The fact that they passed this (Magnitsky) law, is absolutely wrong - it's our internal affairs. Yes, a man died, we sympathize - everything happens in life - here and there. But why have they made such a fuss, and made these conclusions that we're so bad, so they need to ban someone and so on," Russian senator and former Soviet prime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov said.
"I get the feeling that Americans became the judges of the whole world as soon as theSoviet Union collapsed. Earlier we kept things in balance. We sinned and they hit us; they sinned and we hit them - a general balance. But now they have no deterring factor," he added.
"Yes, this may be a certain step to the Cold War, but we couldn't act any other way - it would be to tolerate a slap in the face, and would be to disrespect your country," Ryzhkov said.
The bill has drawn unusual criticism from some government officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Olga Golodets, a deputy prime minister who said it may violate an international convention on children's rights.
Putin has described it as an emotional but appropriate response to U.S. legislation he said was poisoning relations.
Child rights advocates say the law, due to take effect on Jan. 1 if signed by Putin, will deprive children of a way out of Russia's overcrowded orphanage system.
"Concerning the law itself, of course it disappoints me, because we know a lot of instances when children who have no future here end up in the United States, and get a loving family and a future because the government takes care of them. And it's astounding how citizens of the United States - I can't even say that they take aduty, they take a responsibility or a burden on themselves, because they manage to give this their soul; they love these children," human rights worker Svetlana Gannushkina said.
U.S. President Barack Obama this month signed off on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in custody of an anti-graft lawyer in 2009.
The ban on American adoptions takes Russia's response a step further, playing into deep sensitivity among Russians - and the government in particular - over adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The bill is named for Dima Yakovlev - a Russian-born toddler who died of heat stroke when his adoptive American father forgot him in a car.
"The name of this law - I don't even want to repeat it - is an exploitation of the name of a deceased boy. Of course this is awful. I am in complete agreement that American authorities, and psychologists, and maybe even our wonderful psychologists, should check whether people are prepared (to adopt) or whether they are just following a certain fashion. Of course, this is all true, but it doesn't relate in the slightest to the impellant motives which made (lawmakers) introduce this law, and now makes them vote for it," Gannushkina said.
"Our own laws don't work, and at the same time, of course, such barbaric laws are made, which are not based on human rights. Human rights in our society, unfortunately, often have a negative connotation - like something which was invented in the West and doesn't fit us," she added.
The dispute adds to tension in U.S.-Russia ties already strained over issues ranging from Syria to the Kremlin's treatment of opponents and restrictions imposed on civil society groups since Putin, in power since 2000, began a new six-year term in May.
The Russian bill would outlaw U.S.-funded "non-profit organisations that engage in political activity", which Putin accuses of trying to influence Russian politics.
Russia ejected the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds Russian non-governmental groups, in October, and Putin has signed a law forcing many foreign-funded organisations to register as "foreign agents" - a term that evokes the Cold War.
Americans affected by the visa ban could include those involved in the prosecution ofViktor Bout, a Russian arms trader serving a 25-year prison term in the United Statesafter an arrest and trial condemned as unfair by Moscow.