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press release
Senators Whitehouse and Hatch Introduce Rodchenkov Anti-Doping ActWednesday, December 19, 2018
WASHINGTON—Helsinki Commissioner Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT) today introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act. Named for Russian whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the bipartisan legislation establishes criminal penalties on individuals involved in doping fraud conspiracies affecting major international competitions. Earlier this year, Helsinki Commissioners Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and Rep. Michael Burgess (TX-26) introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act in the House of Representatives. "To remain a 'city on a hill,' America must hold the crooked and corrupt accountable whenever we can. That means forcefully confronting Russia's use of corruption as a tool of foreign policy," said Sen. Whitehouse. "In the face of certain retaliation, Dr. Rodchenkov revealed sweeping Russian state-sponsored doping. This bill would create consequences for Russia's cheating, and send a strong signal that Russia and other sponsors of state-directed fraud and corruption no longer enjoy impunity." "For too long, internationally agreed upon anti-doping rules have been broken with impunity. Athletes have been defrauded by coordinated, and in some cases state-sponsored, doping fraud schemes that call into question the integrity and fairness central to all competitions," said Senator Hatch. "This bill is a long overdue step to deter and punish individuals and state actors who would attempt to defraud international competitions through doping." In 2016, Dr. Rodchenkov exposed the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal that took place during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. By deceiving international anti-doping authorities and swapping athletes' samples, Russian officials cheated U.S. athletes out of Olympic glory and U.S. corporations out of honest sponsorships. These corrupt officials used bribes and illicit payments, sometimes through U.S. financial institutions, to commit this fraud. Unfortunately, the masterminds behind the Russian sports doping operation escaped punishment for their actions because there was no U.S. legal mechanism to bring them to justice. With the recent decision of the World Anti-Doping Agency to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, the matter now appears closed at the international level with no meaningful consequences for the Russian regime or the officials who perpetrated the scheme. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act will: Establish criminal penalties for participating in a scheme in commerce to influence a major international sport competition through prohibited substances or methods. This section applies to all major international sport competitions in which U.S. athletes participate, and where organizing entities receive sponsorship from companies doing business in the United States or are compensated for the right to broadcast their competition there, so that international fraud against Americans will not go unpunished. Penalties will include fines of up to $1,000,000, or imprisonment of up to ten years, depending on the offense. Provide restitution to victims of such conspiracies. Athletes and other persons who are victims of major international doping fraud conspiracies shall be entitled to mandatory restitution for losses inflicted upon them by fraudsters and conspirators. Protect whistleblowers from retaliation. By criminalizing participation in a major international doping fraud conspiracy, whistleblowers will be included under existing witness and informant protection laws. Establish coordination and sharing of information with the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Federal agencies involved in the fight against doping shall coordinate and share information with USADA, whose mission is to preserve the integrity of competition, inspire true sport, and protect the rights of athletes, to enhance their collective efforts to curb doping fraud. "I am humbled and honored to see the introduction of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act in the Senate today," said Dr. Rodchenkov. "I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Sen. Whitehouse, Sen. Hatch, and the Helsinki Commission for their courage and leadership in the protection of whistleblowers who come forward to speak the truth. I believe that this legislation holds the promise to finally protect athletes and international competitions from and corruption and interference that we see continues today. This broad support from Congress is vital to our fight for justice and fairness in the international arena of sport." In February 2018, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing featuring Dr. Rodchenkov's attorney, Jim Walden, on combating fraud in sports and the role of whistleblowers in safeguarding the integrity of international competitions. In March, Commissioners Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), Sen. Cory Gardner (CO), and Rep. Jackson Lee met with Dr. Rodchenkov to discuss the threat posed by Russia to the United States, corruption in international sports bodies, and how the United States can contribute to the international effort to counter doping fraud. In July, the Helsinki Commission held a hearing that explored the interplay between doping fraud and globalized corruption and U.S. policy responses, including the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act. In October, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted seven individuals for involvement in a Russian-operated military intelligence program in which GRU officers are alleged to have conducted sophisticated hacking of U.S. and international anti-doping agencies who investigated and publicly condemned Russia's state-sponsored doping program. The hacking victims also included 230 athletes from approximately 30 countries. The operation was part of a disinformation campaign in which victims' personal email communications and individual medical and drug testing information, sometimes modified from its original form, was used to actively promote media coverage to further a narrative favorable to the Russian government.
All Bets Are OffTuesday, December 04, 2018
Corruption—including bribery, doping fraud, and match-fixing—permeates international sport. Despite a 2015 FBI investigation into the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that indicted more than twenty-five top FIFA officials and associates for alleged decades-long racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering, international sport governance bodies remain compromised and U.S. athletes remain vulnerable. Corruption in sport has become an even more pressing concern following the U.S. Supreme Court's May 14 decision declaring the Amateur Sports Protection Act unconstitutional, unleashing a sports gambling industry in the United States potentially valued at $400 billion. This lucrative and unregulated market may now be susceptible to the same globalized corruption that has come to define international sport. Panelists provided their insights into the structure of international sport, the globalization of sports gambling, and how to protect American sport from the corruption that has swept over the rest of the world.
Incorporation TransparencyThursday, October 04, 2018
"Steal in Russia and spend in the West" is how Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza describes the behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates. A similar principle has become commonplace in most authoritarian regimes. Countries in which the rule of law is strong find themselves at risk from ill-gotten gains that autocrats have hidden within their borders. Not only does this make them complicit in the perpetuation of corruption abroad, but it also provides hidden "sleeper capital" through which autocrats and their cronies can exert influence domestically. The countries in which money is most often hidden—the United States, the United Kingdom, and many countries of the European Union, especially France and Germany—have a strong rule of law system and desirable markets. In their large cities, representatives of autocratic systems can purchase real estate, retain lawyers and PR firms to conduct influence operations and reputation laundering, and access elite circles and high society thanks to their illicit wealth. However, in the last few years, these countries have become more aware of the infiltration of their markets by authoritarian finance and have taken steps to curb its flow into their borders. They have sought to fortify themselves through a variety of measures, including beneficial ownership transparency (BOT). BOT is a government policy which requires incorporated entities to report their "beneficial owners": the real individuals who ultimately enjoy the benefits of ownership of a company or property, or the underlying asset of value. Beneficial ownership data is then available to law enforcement or the public. This is vital to transparency because, in many jurisdictions, beneficial owners do not necessarily need to be listed on legal paperwork—they may list "nominee owners" who hold assets on their behalf. While anonymous shell companies have legitimate uses, they are often abused to launder money. Autocrats can create a chain of such companies across many jurisdictions, evading law enforcement and moving stolen money from company to company until that money is nearly untraceable. At that point, the money is considered "washed" and can be used for all manner of ostensibly legitimate purposes. Download the full report to learn more. Contributor: Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor
Politically-Motivated (In)JusticeThursday, September 27, 2018
Since 2008, Lithuanian judge and parliamentarian Neringa Venckiene has been seeking justice for her young niece, who was allegedly sexually molested by two Lithuanian government officials. Despite a court ruling that there was enough evidence to indict the child's mother for facilitating the molestation, the niece was taken from Judge Venckiene and returned to the mother's care, preventing the girl from testifying further in an ongoing trial against her alleged abusers. In 2013, Judge Venckiene fled Lithuania to seek political asylum in the United States, fearing retribution not only for her efforts to protect her niece but also for her leadership in a new anti-corruption political party. Lithuanian prosecutors have charged Judge Venckiene with at least 35 crimes, ranging from petitioning the court on her niece's behalf, to speaking to journalists about the case, to bruising an officer during her struggle to keep her niece from being returned to the accused mother. Five years after arriving in the United States, Judge Venckiene's political asylum case has still not been heard, but U.S. authorities are moving to extradite her under the U.S.-Lithuania extradition treaty for bruising the officer who was returning the girl to the accused mother during the trial. The hearing explored the limits of extradition among allies, especially when charges appear politically motivated. Witnesses discussed the evidence of political motivation, including statements made publicly by the recent Chairman of the Lithuanian Supreme Court calling Judge Venckiene "an abscess in the judicial and the political system," and "the trouble of the whole state." Several witnesses argued forcefully that these and other actions by Lithuanian authorities demonstrate blatant political motivation. Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius, a member of the Seimas from 2012 to 2016 for the anti-corruption political party led by Judge Venckiene said, "...[T]he case of N. Venckienė itself can be regarded as a typical recurrence of the Soviet legal system—a person who talks too much about the crimes of influential people can be turned into a criminal herself." Human rights litigator Abbe Jolles calling Judge Venckiene's extradition to a system with "no chance of a fair trial" a "likely death sentence." The hearing examined other lenses through which to view the legal case for extradition. Law Professor Mary Leary explored the definitions of human trafficking established by Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-386) and by the Palermo Protocol. She advised that [as has been alleged], "if evidence exists that the abusers provided financial and other benefits to the mother of the child victim, this child sexual abuse could also implicate child sex trafficking." Concerns were also raised about the humanitarian standards of the Lithuanian prison system. As Ms. Jolles noted, several countries have previously refused Lithuanian extradition requests over concerns of unacceptable conditions and the possibility of torture. In addition, the United States cited Lithuania in a 2017 report for prison conditions below international standards. The litany of charges against Judge Venckiene that have been added and subtracted was also considered. In particular, the legitimacy of the charge of assaulting a police officer during the seizure of her niece was questioned. It remains unclear why Lithuanian prosecutors did not arrest Judge Venckiene while she was living in Lithuania for a year after the alleged assault, or why they would have allowed an alleged felon to immigrate to the United States and reside there for over two years before eventually filing for her extradition. This, again, suggested the possibility of political motivation behind the charges. The Government of Lithuania was invited to participate in the hearing, or to suggest a witness to represent its perspective, but declined. Instead, the Embassy of Lithuania provided a written statement.
press release
Helsinki Commission to Explore Extradition Case of Lithuanian Judge Neringa VenckieneTuesday, September 25, 2018
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing: POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED (IN)JUSTICE? THE EXTRADITION CASE OF JUDGE VENCKIENE Thursday, September 27, 2018 2:00 p.m. Rayburn House Office Building Room 2261 Live Webcast: http://www.youtube.com/HelsinkiCommission Since 2008, Lithuanian judge and parliamentarian Neringa Venckiene has been seeking justice for her young niece, who was allegedly sexually molested by two Lithuanian government officials. Despite a court ruling that there was enough evidence to indict the child's mother for facilitating the molestation, the niece was taken from Judge Venckiene and returned to the mother's care, preventing the girl from testifying further in an ongoing trial against her alleged abusers. In 2013, Judge Venckiene fled Lithuania to seek political asylum in the United States, fearing retribution not only for her efforts to protect her niece but also for her leadership in a new anti-corruption political party. Lithuanian prosecutors have since charged Judge Venckiene with at least 35 crimes, ranging from petitioning the court on her niece's behalf, to speaking to journalists about the case, to bruising an officer during her struggle to keep her niece. Five years after arriving in the United States, Judge Venckiene's political asylum case has still not been heard, but U.S. authorities are moving to extradite her under the U.S.-Lithuania extradition treaty. The hearing will explore the limits of extradition among allies, especially when charges appear politically motivated. Witnesses will also discuss whether the bilateral extradition treaty would protect Judge Venckiene from additional charges and civil suits if she were extradited. Witnesses scheduled to testify include: Karolis Venckus, Son of Judge Neringa Venckiene Dr. Vytautas Matulevicius, Member of Lithuanian Parliament, Way of Courage Party (2012-2016) Abbe Jolles, Esq., International Human Rights Litigator, AJ Global Legal Professor Mary G. Leary, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law
Bosnia & HerzegovinaWednesday, September 12, 2018
Mr. President, it is important for this Senate and this country to once again be interested in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During my time in Congress, and particularly since joining the U.S. Helsinki Commission, which I now chair, the Western Balkans have been an ongoing concern of mine. Although our relationship with all of these countries of the Western Balkans is important, the United States has a specific interest, a particular interest, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We need to concentrate more on that. I had the opportunity in July to lead a nine-member bicameral delegation to Bosnia. The delegation sought to see more of the country and to hear from its citizens, rather than meet only in the offices of senior Bosnian officials. We visited the small town of Trebinje in the entity of Republika Srpska, and we visited the city of Mostar in the entity of the Federation. Then, we went on and visited in Sarajevo, the capital, engaging with international officials, the Bosnian Presidency, and citizens seeking a better Bosnia. Bosnia was a U.S. foreign policy priority when I came to the House in 1995. In less than a decade, Bosnia had gone from international acclaim while hosting the Winter Olympics to the scene of the worst carnage in human suffering in Europe since World War II. The conflict that erupted in Bosnia in 1992 was not internally generated. Rather, Bosnia became the victim of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the extreme nationalist forces this breakup unleashed throughout the region, first and foremost by Serbian leader and war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. The carnage and tragic conflict that occurred in the early 1990s was more than about Bosnia. It was about security in a Europe just emerging from its Cold War divisions and the international principles upon which that security was based. For that reason, the United States, under President Bill Clinton, rightly exercised leadership when Europe asked us to, having failed to do so themselves. The Clinton administration brokered the Dayton peace agreement in November 1995 and enabled NATO to engage in peacemaking and peacekeeping to preserve Bosnia's unity and territorial integrity. That was the Bosnian peace agreement. Almost a quarter of a century later, after the expenditure of significant diplomatic, military, and foreign assistance resources, the physical scars of the conflict have been largely erased. As we learned during our recent visit, the country remains far short of the prosperous democracy we hoped it would become and that its people deserve. Mostar, a spectacular city to visit, remains ethnically divided with Bosniak and Croat students separated by ethnicity in schools, even inside the same school buildings. Bosnian citizens, who are of minority groups, such as Jews, Romanis, or of mixed heritage, still cannot run for certain political offices. This is 2018. They can't run for State-level Presidency, simply because of their ethnicity. Neither can Bosniaks and Croats in Republika Srpska or Serbs in the Bosnian Federation run for the Presidency because of their ethnicity, in Europe in 2018. Nor can those numerous citizens who, on principle, refuse to declare their ethnicity because it should not replace their real qualifications for holding office. This goes on despite repeated rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that this flaw in the Dayton-negotiated Constitution must be corrected. In total, well over 300,000 people in a country of only 3.5 million fall into these categories despite what is likely their strong commitment to the country and to its future as a multiethnic state. This is simply wrong, and it needs to end. In addition, youth employment in Bosnia is among the highest in the world, and many who can leave the country are doing so, finding a future in Europe and finding a future in the United States. This denies Bosnia much of its needed talent and energy. Civil society is kept on the sidelines. Decisions in Bosnia are being made by political party leaders who are not accountable to the people. They are the decision makers. The people should be decision makers. Corruption is rampant. Ask anyone in Europe, and they will tell you, Bosnia's wealth and potential is being stolen by corruption. General elections will be held in October with a system favoring the status quo and resistance to electoral reforms that would give Bosnians more rather than fewer choices. The compromises made two and a half decades ago in Dayton to restore peace and give the leading ethnic groups--Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats-- an immediate sense of security make governance dysfunctional today. Two-and-a-half-decades-old agreements make governance inefficient today in Bosnia. Collective privileges for these groups come at the expense of the individual human rights of the citizens who are all but coerced into making ethnic identity their paramount concern and a source of division, when so many other common interests should unite them. Ethnically based political parties benefit as they engage in extensive patronage and corruption. Beneath the surface, ethnic reconciliation has not taken hold, and resulting tensions can still destabilize the country and even lead to violence. Malign outside forces, particularly Vladimir Putin's Russia but also influences from Turkey and Gulf States, seek to take advantage of the political impasse and malaise, steering the country away from its European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. As a result of these developments, Bosnia and Herzegovina is not making much progress, even as its neighbors join NATO and join the EU or make progress toward their desired integration. In my view, we should rightly credit the Dayton agreement for restoring peace to Bosnia. That was 25 years ago, but it is regrettable the negotiators did not put an expiration date on ethnic accommodations so Bosnia could become a modern democracy. As one of our interlocutors told us, the international community, which has substantial powers in Bosnia, has steadily withdrawn, turning over decision making to Bosnian officials who were not yet committed to making the country work and naively hoping the promise of future European integration would encourage responsible behavior. That has not happened. Of course, we can't turn back the clock and can't insert that expiration date on the Dayton agreement, but having made a difference in 1995, we can and should help make a difference again today. It is in our national security interest that we do so. I suggest the following. The United States and our European friends should state, unequivocally, that Dayton is an absolute baseline, which means only forward progress should be allowed. Separation or new entities should be declared to be clearly out of the question. Secondly, U.S. policymakers should also remind everyone that the international community, including NATO, did not relinquish its powers to Bosnia but simply has chosen to withdraw and exercise them less robustly. We should seek an agreement to resurrect the will to use these powers and to do so with resolve if growing tensions make renewed violence a credible possibility. Next, the United States and Europe should adopt a policy of imposing sanctions on individual Bosnian officials who are clearly engaged in corruption or who ignore the Dayton parameters, Bosnian law, and court rulings in their work. Washington has already done this regarding Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, and just recently, Nikola Spiric, a member of Bosnia's House of Representatives. However, the scope should be expanded, and European capitals need to join us in this regard. Senior U.S. officials, as well as Members of Congress, should make Sarajevo a priority. I hope more of our Members will visit Bosnia and increase our visibility, demonstrate our continued commitment, and enhance our understanding. Bosnia may not be ready to join NATO, but its Membership Action Plan should be activated without further delay. As soon as this year's elections are over in Bosnia, the international community should encourage the quick formation of new parliaments and governments at all levels, followed immediately by vigorous reform efforts that eliminate the discrimination in the criteria for certain offices, ensure that law enforcement more effectively serves and protects all residents, and end the corruption in healthcare and so many other violent areas of daily life. Our policy must shift back to an impetus on universal principles of individual human rights and citizen-based government. Indeed, the privileges Dayton accorded to the three main ethnic groups are not rights but privileges that should not be upheld at the expense of genuine democracy and individual rights. We, in my view, have been far too fatalistic about accepting in Bosnia what we are not willing to accept anywhere else. We also underestimate what Bosnians might find acceptable, and we should be encouraging them to support leaders based on credentials, positions, and personal integrity, not based on ethnicity. There should no longer be a reason why a Bosniak, Serb, or Croat voter should be prohibited by law from considering a candidate of another ethnicity or a multiethnic political party. All candidates and parties would do well to seek votes from those not belonging to a single ethnic group. This may take time and perhaps some effort, but it should happen sooner rather than later. Let me conclude by asserting that greater engagement is in the interest of the United States--the economic interest and the national security interest. Our country is credited with Bosnia's preservation after the country was almost destroyed by aggression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Thank God our country was there for Bosnia. Our adversaries--notably, but not exclusively, Russia--would like nothing more than to make an American effort fail in the end, and they would ensure that its repercussions are felt elsewhere around the globe. Current trends in Bosnia make the country an easier entry point for extremism in Europe, including Islamic extremism. If we wait for discrimination and ethnic tensions to explode again, our engagement will then become a moral imperative at significantly greater cost. The people of Bosnia, like their neighbors throughout the Balkans, know they are in Europe but consider the United States their most trusted friend, their most honest friend. They want our presence and engagement, and given the tragedies they have experienced, they have earned our support and friendship.
Free-Trade ZonesWednesday, September 12, 2018
Free-trade zones (FTZs) are duty-free areas within a country's borders designed to encourage economic development by allowing goods to be imported and exported under less restrictive conditions than are present elsewhere in that country. In many places, these zones generate jobs and revenue; however, they also are hospitable to illicit trade and money laundering. In the worst cases, law enforcement fails and FTZs become global hubs of criminal activity. According to Dr. Clay Fuller of the American Enterprise Institute, attempts to study FTZs are often thwarted by discrepancies in the definition and measurement of FTZs, a lack of coordination between the private and public sectors to collect data, and a dearth of globally aggregated data. Dr. Fuller agreed that FTZs have played a role in fostering corruption and suggested that better aggregate data is needed to reach further conclusions. Essential to overcoming their challenges, FTZs must first be identified in a standardized format before the data can be accurately amalgamated. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has begun to study these problems from a global perspective through its Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade. Jack Radisch, Senior Project Manager at the OECD, reported that the trade in fakes is a $461 billion industry. This problem is exacerbated by FTZs, which can enable the movement of illegal goods. Stephane Jacobzone, Deputy Head of OECD's Public Governance Division, expressed concerns about global "governance gaps," such as those created by FTZs with poor oversight, which allow criminal activity to thrive. Pedro Assares Rodrigues, a EUROPOL Representative with the Europol Liaison Bureau, underscored the significance of global coordination by discussing the risk of FTZs to harbor terrorist activity. The United States and EUROPOL have united to combat global security threats through projects such as the Secure Information Exchange Network Application, allowing the US and EU to work efficiently and securely. Alongside Mr. Assares Rodrigues' call for greater international coordination, panelists offered potential policy responses to criminal activities within the FTZs from both the private and public sectors. For example, Dr. Fuller proposed that private companies should be enlisted to report data on FTZs, though he stipulated that government must protect the privacy of companies throughout the process. Dr. Fuller also added that countries that already participate in international data sharing agreements or multilateral conversations about FTZs should beseech their trading partners to join these same data-sharing partnerships. Mr. Radisch and Mr. Jacobzone added that the OECD is working toward a comprehensive FTZ "code of conduct" that could eventually be adopted by member states.
press release
Helsinki Commission Briefing to Examine Value and Hazards of Free-Trade ZonesWednesday, September 05, 2018
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing: FREE-TRADE ZONES: PRODUCTIVE OR DESTRUCTIVE? Wednesday, September 12, 2018 3:00 p.m. Russell Senate Office Building Room 385 Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission Free-trade zones (FTZs) are duty-free areas within a country's borders designed to encourage economic development by allowing goods to be imported and exported under less restrictive conditions than are present elsewhere in that country. In many places, these zones generate jobs and revenue; however, they also are hospitable to illicit trade and money laundering. In the worst cases, law enforcement fails and FTZs become global hubs of criminal activity. This briefing will explore the value of FTZs across the world and the potential for reform, especially in areas where laws are poorly enforced. Participants will discuss the interplay of globalized corruption, transnational criminal organizations, and authoritarianism in and around FTZs; provide data on how these factors lubricate the movement of illicit goods; and recommend policy responses. The following panelists are scheduled to participate: Dr. Clay Fuller, Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow, American Enterprise Institute Jack Radisch, Senior Project Manager, OECD High Level Risk Forum Pedro Assares Rodrigues, Europol Representative, Europol Liaison Bureau
Remember Their Names: Eight Journalists Killed in the OSCE Region in 2018Friday, August 10, 2018
By Teresa Cardenas, Max Kampelman Communications Fellow Jan. Maksim. Zack. Gerald. John. Rob. Wendi. Rebecca. These are the names of journalists who have been killed in the OSCE region so far this year, according to reports from the Committee on Protecting Journalists (CPJ). This list includes journalists from Slovakia, Russia, and the United States, the latter reaching its record-high since CPJ began tracking journalist deaths in 1992. Beyond these eight, 49 individuals around the world—journalists, photographers, cameramen, editors, and other workers in media organizations—were killed in 2018. Ten were killed during a dangerous assignment or got caught in crossfire. Twenty-five people were murdered. In 14 cases, the motives behind the killings are still unknown. These numbers will likely grow between now and the end of 2018. CPJ's report has yet to include the recent execution of three investigative reporters from Russia in the Central African Republic, or the brutal murder of Moscow reporter Denis Suvorov earlier in July. The Helsinki Final Act recognizes the freedom of the media—including the protection of journalists—as a fundamental human right. Media freedom is a primary focus of the September 2018 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of OSCE participating States. Jan Kuciak (Slovakia) Kuciak was an investigative journalist for Aktuality.sk, a Slovakian news website reporting on government tax fraud, until he and his fiancée were killed, execution-style, on February 21, 2018. He covered tax evasion at the highest levels of government and reported on the Italian mafia's dominating influence in Slovakia. His final report—completed by colleagues—revealed a complex web of connections between government officials and a syndicate of the Italian mafia and accused the network of conspiring to steal funds from the European Union. This report is seen by many as the cause of his and his fiancée's brutal murders. Kuciak was the first Slovak journalist to be killed because of his profession since the country's independence in 1993. His murder led to widespread protests in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, followed by the resignations of the Slovak prime minister and other government officials. As of August 8, 2018, no one has been charged in connection to his murder. Kuciak's death was one of the two journalists at the center of Helsinki Commission briefing, A Deadly Calling. Maksim Borodin (Russia) A 32-year-old Russian journalist based in Yekaterinburg, Borodin wrote about corruption before falling from a fifth-floor balcony on April 12, 2018. Shortly before his death, Borodin had reported on the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary group that has reportedly been active in Syria and Ukraine. Four months later, three Russian journalists were killed while investigating the alleged presence of the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic. Though the circumstances of his death remain murky, Borodin reported on clandestine and secretive military issues, thus leaving the circumstances around his death suspicious. CPJ reports his death fits a pattern similar to the deaths of other Russia journalists who covered particularly sensitive issues that had a potential of repercussions from authorities. No one has been charged in connection with his murder. Zachary "ZackTV" Stoner (United States) Zack Stoner, appearing on social media as "ZackTV," was a Chicago-based YouTube persona who interviewed local up-and-coming rappers and hip-hop artists. He was well-recognized within his community, and his death shocked his audience and the subjects of his interviews. Assailants shot and killed Stoner as he was driving away from a concert on May 30, 2018. Stoner was known for investigating news ignored by more traditional media and covering issues that lacked visibility in Chicago. One of his most notable stories was the mysterious death of Kenneka Jenkins, a 19-year-old from Chicago whose body was found in a hotel freezer. Stoner was the first slain American journalist of 2018. No motive has emerged for his murder and no arrests have been made in the case. Gerald Fischman (United States) Fischman was one of five employees of the local Annapolis, Maryland newspaper, The Capital Gazette, who were murdered after a gunman opened fire in their newsroom on June 28, 2018. A columnist and editorial page editor with a shy demeanor and quick wit, Fischman worked for The Capital Gazette for more than 25 years and received numerous awards for his reporting. Prior to joining the paper, he studied journalism at the University of Maryland and worked at The Carroll County Times and The Montgomery Journal. Gunman Jarrod Ramos, targeted the Capital Gazette newsroom following a dispute over a 2011 article detailing his arrest and subsequent probation for harassing former high school classmates on social media. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder. John McNamara (United States) Another of the five victims of The Capital Gazette shooting in Maryland, McNamara covered local sports for nearly 24 years, and was an editor and reporter for The Capital's regional publication, The Bowie Blade-News. An avid sports fan, he wrote two books about the history of football and men's basketball at his alma mater, the University of Maryland. According to the Baltimore Sun, was in the process of writing a book about professional basketball players who were raised in the DC metro area when he died. Rob Hiaasen (United States) Hiaasen, a journalist and editor for The Capital Gazette, had a long and illustrious career in North Carolina, Florida, and Maryland. Primarily a feature writer, he became a local columnist when he joined The Capital Gazette in 2010. He also taught at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill School of Journalism, where he mentored young and aspiring journalists. He wrote stories about anything and everything local: a homeless man who passed away, and how the community planned a proper burial; an inmate on death row who was the first person to be released from prison due to DNA evidence; a Florida dentist who passed HIV onto his patients, one of the first signs of clinical transmission of the disease; and more. Wendi Winters (United States) Winters, a fashion-professional-turned-journalist, worked in the Annapolis area for 20 years until her murder in 2018. Starting out as a freelancer journalist for The Capital Gazette, she immersed herself into her community and became locally known for being the go-to contact on covering stories on a short notice. According to the Baltimore Sun, she wrote more than 250 articles each year. One of her most notable stories was one she did not write, but lived. According to fellow reporters and sales assistants at The Capital Gazette, Winters charged the gunman in the middle of his rampage. Her actions might have saved the lives of the six survivors. Rebecca Smith (United States) Smith, a recently hired sales associate at The Capital Gazette, was the only non-journalist employee of a media organization killed in the OSCE region in 2018 to date. Her colleagues considered her an asset to their team after only working for the publication for seven months. She is remembered as being a kind, thoughtful, and generous friend, and fiercely dedicated to her family.
press release
Helsinki Commission Hearing to Explore Impact of Doping in International SportWednesday, July 18, 2018
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing: THE STATE OF PLAY: GLOBALIZED CORRUPTION, STATE-RUN DOPING, AND INTERNATIONAL SPORT Wednesday, July 25, 2018 2:00 p.m. Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 562 Live Webcast: http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=csce&filename=csce072518 Doping in international sport defrauds clean athletes and sponsors, and is inextricably linked with globalized corruption. However, international sports bodies like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) appear unable or unwilling to curtail it. While the United States acts against many other forms of transnational crime, doping remains largely unpunished. Courageous whistleblowers have brought to light the unprecedented extent to which Russia has sought to defraud the international community through doping. Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping lab, and Yuliya Stepanova, a world-class Russian athlete, revealed a complex web of deception that enabled Russia to cheat at international sporting events going back decades. To root out doping and corruption in international sport, Helsinki Commissioners Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D., (TX-26) recently introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA). The bipartisan legislation establishes civil remedies and criminal penalties for doping fraud violations at major international competitions. Helsinki Commissioners Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-04) and Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09) cosponsored the bill. Witnesses at this hearing will discuss this legislation and explore the impact of doping fraud and its relationship to globalized corruption. The following witnesses are scheduled to participate: Dagmar Freitag, Chairwoman, Sports Committee of the German Bundestag Yuliya Stepanova, World-class Russian athlete and anti-doping whistleblower Travis Tygart, CEO, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Katie Uhlaender, U.S. Olympian Jim Walden, Partner, Walden Macht & Haran LLP; attorney for Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov In February 2018, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing on combating fraud in sports and the role of whistleblowers in safeguarding the integrity of international competitions. In March, Commissioners Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), Sen. Cory Gardner (CO), and Rep. Jackson Lee met with Dr. Rodchenkov to discuss the threat posed by Russia to the United States, corruption in international sports bodies, and U.S. contributions to the international effort to counter doping fraud.
Inside the Turkish ElectionWednesday, July 11, 2018
By: Everett Price, Senior Policy Advisor With Contributions from Scott Rauland, Senior State Department Advisor On June 24, Turkey held its first presidential and parliamentary elections since the passage of controversial constitutional amendments last year that began Turkey's transformation from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The victors in this election are to preside over the transition to this new form of government and begin to shape the operation of its revamped institutions. In accordance with its commitments as a participating State of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Turkey formally invited the OSCE to observe the vote. This invitation paved the way for the OSCE's first-ever full-scale deployment of election observers to Turkey. Although the OSCE observed previous elections in Turkey—including last year's constitutional referendum—it had never done so with a full complement of hundreds of short-term observers that deploy all over the country to record their observations on election day. In the absence of short-term observers, OSCE observation missions rely primarily on a smaller cohort of long-term observers who spend as much as a month in the country monitoring every dimension of the campaign period and balloting. (Learn more about OSCE election observation.) Altogether, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) deployed 22 long-term observers and more than 300 short-term observers to observe the election across the country. Most STOs are drawn from cadres of experienced volunteers offered by individual OSCE participating States. In addition, the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE (OSCE PA) and Council of Europe (PACE) contributed 72 and 32 members of parliament and parliamentary staff, respectively, to serve as STOs. The U.S. Helsinki Commission regularly participates in OSCE PA election observation missions. What follows is a first-person account from two U.S. Helsinki Commission staff who served as short-term observers during the Turkish elections. These observations are not an authoritative account of the conduct of the Turkish election, however. Readers interested in such an account should review the OSCE's official statement of preliminary findings and conclusions. In the days before the election, experts from the OSCE's ODIHR and the OSCE PA organize a series of in-depth briefings in Ankara to acquaint short-term observers with the context and process for the coming vote. In opening these briefings, Mr. Ignacio Sanchez Amor, a Spanish parliamentarian tasked as the special coordinator and leader of the OSCE short-term observer mission, noted numerous ways in which this election was exceptional. Turks would be voting under a nearly two-year-old state of emergency imposed by the government following a failed coup attempt in July 2016. The state of emergency gave Turkish President Erdogan sweeping powers to rule by decree and authorized provincial governors to curtail basic freedoms, such as the freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. Presidential decrees purged tens of thousands of civil servants from their work, shuttered over a hundred news outlets, blocked thousands of websites, and contributed to the arrest of scores of independent journalists, often on dubious national security charges. Sanchez Amor further commented that the transition to a presidential system and the country's newly-approved election laws made this election especially complex. Most of the constitutional amendments approved in last year's referendum would take effect after the election. The victorious presidential candidate, for instance, would be the first to assume unprecedented executive powers that international monitors and the chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Sen. Roger Wicker (MS), criticized as undermining the separation of powers. Likewise, successful parliamentary candidates would take up seats in a somewhat neutered institution that is given no say in ministerial appointments and can be unilaterally dissolved by the president. One of the constitutional amendments abolished a previous prohibition on new electoral laws taking effect less than 12 months before an election. This meant that the June election would be governed by election regulations passed in November and March that President Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had muscled through parliament without any opposition support. Opposition leaders sharply criticized provisions in the laws that allowed the government to relocate voting locations on security grounds, loosened rules governing the police presence around polling stations, and weakened protections against election fraud by admitting ballots that are missing a required polling station stamp. Sanchez Amor also expressed concern that one of the country's major presidential candidates had been in pre-trial detention since November 2016 and was being forced to campaign from his jail cell. This treatment of Selahattin Demirtas, the presidential candidate for the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was one of many restrictions severely disadvantaging the HDP. Campaign banners of two opposition parties stretched across a primary avenue in downtown Ankara. The briefings we received from journalists, civil society organizations, and political parties largely focused on concerns that President Erdogan and the AKP enjoyed overwhelming and unfair advantages incompatible with a free and fair democratic process. Independent journalists noted that Turkey is the world's largest jailer of reporters with approximately 150 behind bars. They further remarked on dramatic changes in Turkey's media landscape in recent years that had seen nine out of 10 mainstream TV channels, and most of the print media, fall under the ownership of government aligned businessmen. As a result, the ruling party benefited from nearly wall-to-wall positive media coverage. Additionally, under recent legal changes the Supreme Election Board was stripped of its ability to impose penalties on broadcasters for violating regulations that mandate equal election coverage. All opposition parties complained about Turkey's 10 percent election threshold—the highest in the world—that requires a party to garner 10 percent of the national vote to secure seats in parliament. During this election, they feared that the ruling party would manipulate the vote to deprive the pro-Kudish HDP of a ten percent share, allowing AKP as the likely runner-up in Kurdish-dominated areas to assume the seats forfeited by HDP. This would be the AKP's quickest route to a commanding majority in the legislature. Opposition party leaders warned that the government could use a combination of tactics to suppress the vote for HDP, particularly in the Kurdish southeast. The government had already announced that it had invoked its new authorities to relocate and merge nearly a thousand polling stations in the southeast for security reasons, affecting more than 150,000 voters. Election authorities could also use the admission of unstamped ballots to artificially diminish HDP's share of the vote. In addition, several briefers noted that deadly violence could be used to intimidate voters. Indeed, less than two weeks before the election a campaign-related altercation in the south left three HDP supporters dead, along with the brother of an AKP candidate for parliament. Many briefers noted that the pro-government media had cast the AKP as the victim of the melee, where in reality the fight had been instigated and escalated by the ruling party's side. The opposition's indictment of the fairness of the election was met by an AKP-led campaign to smear those who might tarnish perceptions of the credibility of the outcome. The OSCE observation mission was one of the targets of this campaign. The government denied two OSCE PA parliamentarians entry to the country to participate in the election observation mission, citing political opinions they had expressed in the past. A government spokesperson decried the OSCE's interim report on the election on June 15 as "political." Additionally, just two days before the election, Turkey's semi-official news agency published a story citing anonymous security sources that claimed OSCE observers planned to create "chaos" in the country. It was in this climate of heightened mutual suspicion between the ruling party and the opposition, and between the government and the OSCE observation mission, that we deployed to Istanbul to undertake our election day observation. We were assigned to observe the election at precincts in and around Sisli, a mixed-income neighborhood in central Istanbul that historically supports the secular opposition. Each precinct in Turkey contains numerous voting rooms, with a maximum of 400 voters assigned to each. In all we visited nine so-called ballot box committees (BBCs) in five precincts throughout the day. Sisli delivered its largest share of votes (48.7 percent) to Turkey's leading secular opposition party CHP in the last parliamentary election in November 2015, and overwhelmingly opposed the transformational 2017 constitutional amendments (71.8 percent). Given the district's political profile, it was unsurprising to find observers from CHP and other secular opposition parties deployed in full force at our first precinct where we observed the opening procedures for the polls. We arrived just before 7:00 a.m. as the ballot box committee (BBC) was assembling to open the sealed election materials and prepare for voting to begin. The seven-person BBC, chaired by a civil servant and composed of bureaucrats and political party representatives, began to count and record the number of ballot envelopes and presidential and parliamentary ballots—a tally that is important for later confirming that no election materials are unaccounted for. The mood was serious but amiable and cooperative. With a solitary exception, BBC members worked together constructively without so much as a hint of their diverging political loyalties. Soon, an NGO observer (who was accredited as a political party observer, since there is no legal framework for NGO observation) appeared with a tray of traditional Turkish tea for everyone, observers and BBC members alike. (Tea stands were ubiquitous at the entrance to polling stations, fueling weary poll workers throughout the day and contributing to a generally festive atmosphere around the otherwise dreary school buildings.) Voters congregate outside a polling station in central Istanbul on election day. Over steaming cups of black tea, the poll workers set about the onerous task of applying the BBC's identifying ink stamp to each of the more than 300 envelopes and presidential and parliamentary ballots—nearly 1,000 stamps in all. Every BBC we visited that morning noted that they had labored well after the polls opened to complete this cumbersome but mandatory and important process. With two of their colleagues still engrossed in stamping and the eight o'clock opening just minutes away, the BBC's other five members forged ahead with preparations, sealing the clear plastic ballot box with a wax stamp. More or less promptly at eight, the BBC chairwoman announced the opening of the polling station. An elderly gentleman who had already shuffled through the open doorway before the announcement immediately presented his ID to receive his ballot papers. His punctual appearance quickly revealed the disorganization of this particular BBC, which had failed to organize the somewhat convoluted voting procedure into an orderly workflow. Voters were to hand over their identification for confirmation against the printed voter rolls and then receive two oversized ballots for president and parliament, one undersized envelope, and a stamp to mark their choices. To cast their ballots, voters entered a curtained booth, marked one choice each for parliament and president, stuffed the large sheets into the small envelope, sealed it with a lick, and emerged to drop the envelope into the ballot box. Before departing, voters returned the stamp back to the BBC, signed the voter roll, and retrieved their identification and any bags or cellphones they left behind with the BBC. Keeping track of identification cards, remembering to provide all four necessary voting materials (two ballots, envelope, and stamp), and managing the coming and going of voters proved difficult for our first BBC. In just the first twenty minutes the chairwoman twice pulled open a voting booth's privacy curtain to locate a misplaced ID and missing stamp—an act that should rarely—if ever—occur, since it can compromise the secrecy of the vote. This procedural dysfunction may have slowed the vote and caused undue confusion for voters, but it had negligible if any implications for the outcome of the balloting. Indeed, the majority of other BBCs we visited were capably managed and all demonstrated admirable transparency. In each classroom we visited—and they were all classrooms—the BBC chair graciously welcomed us, answered our questions, and allowed us to review the voting materials. Political party and NGO observers were common and none complained of being restricted in their work on election day. By the end of the day we had grown particularly accustomed to the sight of observers from the HDP party. These observers were almost uniformly impressive, assertive, young, and female. It became clear that what is generally described simply as a "pro-Kurdish party" has developed political purchase far beyond the Kurdish-dominated southeast, attracting many young, progressive Turks concerned with the rights of women and minorities. Presidential and parliamentary ballots and envelopes prepared for distribution to voters. In our experience, the transparency protected by professional BBCs and capable local observers was only undermined by skittish security services who seemed uneasy about the role of international observers. Under new election laws passed earlier this year, Turkish police were allowed to patrol closer to polling stations and—for the first time—enter voting rooms at the request of any citizen. One instance of police involvement we witnessed was legal and appropriate; in several other cases it appeared to overstep the prescribed bounds. At a polling station we visited in Gultepe, a more conservative neighborhood just outside Sisli, a heated argument erupted over a poll worker who allegedly exceeded his mandate in assisting a confused voter, sparking allegations of election interference. Consistent with their mandate, the police entered on at least three occasions during the prolonged shouting match to respond to the disturbance and to remove unauthorized people who had entered the voting room. These same police entered another time to exercise their prerogative to check our credentials but departed shortly after. As the day wore on, however, our interactions with the police grew more frequent and contentious. At another polling station in Sisli, police greeted us almost immediately upon our arrival and insisted on escorting us throughout the building. When we entered a voting room to conduct our observations, the police followed us in without any discernible invitation and sat down to watch us until we were through. Arriving at our final polling station of the day, we were stopped at the entrance to have our credentials checked against a screenshot of approved individuals the policeman had received via the encrypted messaging application, WhatsApp. He informed us that several foreigners had been caught "posing as OSCE observers" so they were under orders to apply extra scrutiny. Although we were not on his screenshot, the officer relented after a few minutes' delay and followed us inside while respecting the rules about entering the voting room. After a short break, we returned to the same polling station to witness the closing and counting procedure, but this time the police refused us entry. They said they had still not been able to find us on their list, despite our accreditation by the Supreme Electoral Board. With the five o'clock closing swiftly approaching, we insisted on the importance of entering before the polls closed. They offered that we could observe the voting room from the hallway, but we were obligated to decline since the OSCE's methodology requires unfettered access to the polling area. At the last minute, they said we could observe from a designated area inside the room. Once inside the room, it turned out no such area existed and the police displayed no interest in enforcing one. In contravention of the rules, however, they remained standing directly behind us inside the room nearly the entire time. Consistent with OSCE observations across the country, vote counting at our BBC began promptly once the polls closed. In much the same sprit of cooperation we witnessed at the opening in another precinct, the members of this BBC worked smoothly together to perform the critical, final procedures: securing the voting materials and counting and recording the results. The BBC's genuine effort to conduct this process fairly and transparently was marred by some critical procedural errors and the persistent presence of the police, which risked undue oversight by the security services of a sensitive political process. Most procedural faults took place early on and introduced avoidable opportunities for mistakes or manipulation. Rather than count the unused voting materials after the polls closed, for instance, the BBC departed from the prescribed procedure and counted them before the room was open to the public to observe the count. By depriving observers of the opportunity to verify this tally, the BBC undermined a safeguard that confirms the number of votes cast matches exactly the number of voters who participated. Another significant oversight involved the BBC's failure to enter crucial figures directly into the official register, known as a "protocol." By having one member of the committee simply jot down the tallies of voting materials on a scrap piece of paper, the BBC failed to guard against subsequent mistakes in transcription or intentional alterations. Oddly, the otherwise attentive and assertive political party observers in the room did not raise these issues with the BBC, possibly out of ignorance of the procedures or disinterest in the importance of these steps. They seemed most focused when it came to the centerpiece of the process: the all-important counting and adjudication of ballots. In this, the BBC acquitted itself quite well—holding up each ballot in full view of all present, loudly announcing the vote, and recording it only once all were satisfied with the chairman's judgment (i.e. valid, invalid, or blank). U.S. Helsinki Commission Senior State Department Advisor Scott Rauland reviews voting materials with Ballot Box Committee members. Given the considerable pre-election controversy about the admission of unstamped ballots, it was surprising that no observer raised a question about whether the ballots or envelopes were appropriately imprinted with the BBC's seal, which was often faint and on the reverse side of the papers. Late on the day of Turkey's controversial 2017 constitutional referendum, the government unilaterally decided to count unstamped ballots despite the widespread understanding that the stamps protected against fraud. The number of admitted unstamped ballots last year allegedly accounted for the government's slim margin of victory in that vote. As a result, opposition leaders protested earlier this year when the government used its absolute majority in the parliament to codify the validity of unstamped votes beginning with the 2018 presidential and parliamentary election. This decision created frustrating ambiguity about the need for the elaborate stamping process that tied up BBCs in the morning, sometimes for more than an hour. The last steps of the vote count turned out to be the most cumbersome. The astonishingly analog voting process created numerous frustrations, significantly delaying delivery of the ballots to the District Electoral Board responsible for tabulating all the votes in Sisli before forwarding them to the Provincial Electoral Board that oversees a third of Istanbul. The chairperson was consumed for almost an hour manually copying detailed voting results onto nearly a dozen copies of the official protocol for distribution to political party representatives and observers. Another time-consuming process involved sealing all the ballots and sensitive voting materials in a cloth sack using twine and a wax seal. All present watched in quiet agony as the chairperson struggled to melt the nub of wax with a lighter, singing his fingers and nearly setting fire to the bag in the process. Out of the 250 votes counted in our BBC, leading opposition presidential candidate Muharram Ince prevailed with 65 percent of the vote and his party, CHP, took 50 percent of the parliamentary ballots. The simultaneous presidential and parliamentary election afforded voters the opportunity to split their votes between the two ballots. Specifically, many analysts speculated that opposition supporters would endorse Ince as the favored presidential candidate while casting a vote for HDP in the parliamentary election to help the party clear the ten percent threshold. The outcome in our BBC seemed to bear this theory out: Ince received 15 percent more support for president than his party did in the parliamentary vote, while HDP's presidential candidate Demirtas secured only 4 percent in the presidential but his party garnered 24 percent in the parliamentary. Once counting was complete in all the precincts' voting rooms, members of the BBCs boarded a municipal vehicle with the sealed sacks and official protocols for delivery to the District Electoral Board. Per OSCE instructions, we jumped into a separate vehicle to tail the municipal van through the narrow streets of Istanbul to the DEB to confirm the official results were delivered directly without interference. A long line of vans packed with other BBCs was in front of the District Electoral Board waiting their turn to offload. When it came our turn I—accompanied by a police escort—followed the voting materials past heavily-armed guards and crowd control fencing into the building. It was a cramped but sprawling high-rise divided into a warren of small, austere rooms. A crush of poll workers pressed into the building's narrow corridors trying to reach their designated room. In each room were half a dozen election workers waiting to receive election materials from every corner of the district, double-check the calculations in the protocol, and forward the results for district-level tabulation. After verifying the secure delivery of our BBC's materials, I sought to follow the process a step further. Instead, I was offered a meeting with the judge who chairs Sisli's electoral board. Supporters of President Erdogan and AKP celebrate their election victory in Taksim Square. It was now well past 9:00 p.m., more than four hours since the polls closed. The judge sat in his office watching two sets of election returns roll in: semi-official results were being broadcast via cable news on a large television across the room while a map on his computer screen that read "Supreme Election Board" was being populated with the official numbers. Although it was impossible for me to tell what discrepancy might have existed between the figures at that moment, opposition leaders were simultaneously turning to social media to reassure their supporters that pro-government media were broadcasting premature results to discourage them. These hopeful claims appear to have been inspired more by optimism than reality—the official results released the next day differed little from what the media was reporting in the evening. At least in central Istanbul, the election results at that time of night were still in the early stages of being compiled at the district level. The judge explained how in the coming hours the district's protocols would be digitized, loaded onto a public website, and used to generate a district-level protocol of official election results. As chairman, his role would be to adjudicate disputes and discrepancies in the tabulation and certify the final results. Satisfied that I had followed the process as far as I could, our observation ended. Around 10:00 p.m., President Erdogan declared victory. With 52.6 percent of the vote, he had won outright in the presidential election, avoiding a runoff with the leading secular opposition candidate by a comfortable margin. In parliament, AKP fell just short of an absolute majority for only the second time in its 16 years in power. The AKP's election coalition partner, the nationalist MHP party, surprised many with its strong performance, earning 49 seats in the 600-seat parliament and easily supplying the six seats AKP needs to reach 301 votes in the legislature. Importantly, HDP cleared the ten percent threshold and will be the third-largest party in parliament with 67 seats behind CHP's 146. Altogether, an impressive 86.2 percent of the population had participated in the vote. Over a late night dinner in a gentrifying secular neighborhood of Istanbul, I could hear some nearby diners discussing the election results with resignation over glasses of wine. Further off in the distance, the blaring of car horns announced the beginning of celebrations by the President's supporters. I followed lines of cars festooned with Turkish flags and AKP banners as they streamed toward centrally-located Taksim Square. There, a spontaneous victory party had broken out. A jubilant AKP loyalist was being carried aloft, leading the gathering crowd in chants of "Allahu Akbar!" and "Recep Tayyip Erdogan!" The evening stroll between these two contrasting scenes was a journey across a wide social and political chasm in Turkey—a chasm the president may choose to widen or narrow in his new mandate. Recent studies have revealed acute polarization within Turkish society that reflects high levels of social distrust and political intolerance. These ills present critical challenges for governance. During the campaign, President Erdogan pledged to lift the nearly two-year-old state of emergency upon his reelection. AKP statements since the election suggest that Erdogan may decline to renew the state of emergency when it expires on July 18. This would be an appropriate first step toward rebuilding trust and one the U.S. Helsinki Commission called for in an October 2017 letter to President Erdogan. But lifting the state of emergency might only be a superficial gesture if it is not accompanied by significant prisoner releases and amnesties—particularly for human rights defenders and journalists—as well as meaningful judicial reform to restore the credibility and independence of Turkey's politicized justice system. In accordance with its mandate, the U.S. Helsinki Commission will continue to monitor Turkey's implementation of its commitments as an OSCE participating State to respect human rights and democratic principles. In this most recent election the Turkish people demonstrated formidable levels of political participation and civic engagement. Now and in the future, the government must succeed where it has recently failed to ensure that all its citizens have an opportunity to participate in Turkish society and institutions on the basis of fundamental equality. The morning after the election, a woman crosses Taksim Square.
Press Conference Following U.S. Congressional Delegation Meetings in BosniaTuesday, July 03, 2018
Thank you Madam Ambassador. We appreciate it very, very much. And this is indeed a bicameral and bipartisan delegation of members of the United States Congress and I am pleased to be here in Sarajevo for my fifth visit. This is a nine-member congressional delegation. It represents – as the Ambassador said – the bicameral U.S. Helsinki Commission, of which I'm privileged to serve as chair. The Helsinki Commission and its members from the United States Congress have always cared about Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its first congressional visit here was in early 1991, before the conflict began. Commissioners returned when they could during the conflict, and have come back on several occasions after the conflict to assess and encourage recovery and reconciliation. This time, we come here first and foremost to let both the political leaders and the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina know the United States remains interested and engaged in the Balkans. The progress we want to see throughout the region must include progress here in Bosnia. We are committed to protecting the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity in line with the 1995 Dayton Agreement, and we support Bosnia's aspirations for European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Efforts to undermine state institutions, along with calls for secession or establishment of a third entity, violate the spirit and letter of the Dayton Accords and endanger the stability of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the entire region, and they diminish the likelihood of progress for local families and job creators. We encourage the Bosnian government to undertake the necessary reforms to make integration a reality. The inability to make Bosnia's government more functional, efficient, and accountable is holding this country back. It is the consensus of the international community that the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina are ill-served by their government's structure. Bosnia should correct one glaring shortcoming. The discriminatory ethnic criteria that prevent some Roma, Jewish, Serbs in the Federation, Croats and Bosniaks in the Republika Srpska, and other citizens who do not self-identify with a group from seeking certain public offices is unacceptable and can easily be addressed. Bosnia's neighbors are making progress, and we do not want to see this country fall further behind. In our meeting with Members of the Bosnian Presidency, we expressed our frustrations with the political impasse and often dangerous rhetoric. We urged stronger leadership and a more cooperative spirit in moving this country forward, together. This should include electoral reform now and a serious commitment to the additional reforms that are obviously needed in the near future. We are tired of the way ethnic politics dominates debate and makes decision-making such a difficult progress. We share this impatience with our allies and the people this country would like to move closer toward. This does not enhance the future of young people who want to stay and raise families in Bosnia, and it places a drag on efforts toward Euro-Atlantic integration. We encouraged international mission heads and the diplomatic community based here in Bosnia to defend human rights, democracy, the rule of law and all principles of the Helsinki Final Act in their important work. In these areas, there should be no compromises here in Bosnia that we would not accept elsewhere. Working together, the United States and Europe must deal firmly with those who seek to undermine those principles in any way, and that should include – for the worst offenders – coordinated sanctions on their ability to travel and on their individual assets. We also need to work with Bosnian officials to counter external forces that actively seek to make Bosnia even more vulnerable to internal instability than it already is right now. We are proud of the work between the United States and Bosnian officials thus far on countering terrorism. We hope Bosnia remains committed to prosecuting and rehabilitating foreign terrorist fighters through ensuring longer sentences for convicted terrorists. Second to sending a strong U.S. message, we come to hear the voices of the people. The Helsinki Commission and members of Congress regularly meet with diplomats and senior officials from Bosnia who visit Washington. Their views are important, and we have good discussions, and we had good discussions this time. However, we often wonder what the people of Bosnia truly think about their situation. To that end, we met here with citizens who continue to be denied their recognized right to seek certain public offices. We also heard the many concerns of non-governmental representatives. In Mostar, we met with a young leader whose organization is trying to find common ground among the people of that spectacular city, which is still divided in too many ways. It is deplorable that the citizens of Mostar have been denied their right to vote in local elections since 2008; we call on Bosnia's political leaders to set aside the differences and work toward a compromise that resolves the impasse. We encourage all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to give priority not to protecting ethnic privileges that keep them segregated from one another, but to promoting policies that will give them jobs, greater opportunity, a 21st century education, and the prosperity they want for their children and grandchildren. To succeed, Bosnian citizens must all move forward together. However, ethnic divisions continue to thwart needed cooperation. We sense that these divisions are not as deep as claimed by the political leaders who exploit them. They exploit them for power, in our judgment. And if there is one thing which should unite all Bosnians, it should be the desire to end the rampant corruption that robs this country of its wealth and potential. We hope that the upcoming Bosnian elections are not only conducted smoothly and peacefully, but their results reflect the genuine will of the people. Democracy is strengthened when voters cast their ballots based, not on fear, pressure or expectation, but based on their own, personal views regarding the issues and opinions of the candidates, their views and their character. The outcome must accurately capture these individual sentiments. We hope for progress on electoral reform, in line with accepted norms for free and fair elections, so that election results can be implemented and a government formed. We are dismayed at the lack of political diversity within some of the main ethnic groups in this country, and take issue with those who argue they are entitled to a monopoly in representing those groups. A third and final reason this delegation has come to Bosnia and Herzegovina is to remember —as American citizens and elected officials — why the United States of America should continue to care about Bosnia and Herzegovina, even when so many other crises demand attention. We are reminded, in that regard, of the upcoming anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica and the unimaginable pain and loss that lingers from that and other wartime atrocities. Some of us visited the War Childhood museum, reminding us as well of the innocence and vulnerability of civilian victims. We also remember past U.S. leadership in responding to the conflict. The address of this building is "1 Robert C. Frasure Street," after one of three American envoys who lost their lives on nearby Mount Igman while seeking to bring peace to this country. Their work, and that of so many other American diplomats, soldiers and citizens who have continued their work to this day, cannot be left unfinished. Finally, we also witnessed the incredible beauty of the countryside, the vibrancy of places like Sarajevo and Mostar, and the generous hospitality of the people. Having been through so much, they deserve better than they have right now. We therefore leave here more committed than ever to this country's future, and as confident as ever in our ability to work together to build that future. We support Ambassador Cormack here in Sarajevo and will continue to encourage our government in Washington to take further steps to encourage the good governance and prosperity that the citizens of this country deserve.
Roundtable on Illicit TradeThursday, June 21, 2018
Illicit trade—the transnational smuggling of illegal goods—has grown dramatically in the era of globalization thanks to modern technology, free trade zones, and the absence of the rule of law in many countries. Today, the shadow economy is booming and is estimated to account for up to 8 to 15 percent of world GDP. This roundtable brought U.S. government officials together with representatives of companies, associations, and organizations working to combat illicit trade. Participants discussed policy responses to the growing threat of illicit trade and how to build effective public-private partnerships. Officials from the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of State discussed their agencies' roles in the struggle to stem the tide of illicit trade. Click here to see the full list of participants.
High Crimes and PipelinesMonday, June 18, 2018
Corruption continues to plague Ukraine's energy sector. Despite the success of reforms to its state-owned gas company, Naftogaz, rampant corruption in regional distribution companies and elsewhere prevents Ukraine's energy sector from realizing its potential. Coupled with the Russian assault on energy security in the form of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine finds itself at a crossroads: will it continue on the reformist path toward energy independence, or will its energy sector once again become defined by corruption? This briefing reviewed the challenges facing Ukraine's energy sector with a focus on corruption's role in preventing necessary reforms. Speakers provided expertise and insight as to how Ukraine's energy sector fits into the larger picture of Ukraine's fight against corruption. They also examined Russia's malign influence in the country. Finally, the briefing offered policy responses to these issues.
press release
Helsinki Commission to Host Roundtable On Illicit TradeThursday, June 14, 2018
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing: ROUNDTABLE ON ILLICIT TRADE Thursday, June 21, 2018 1:00 p.m. Russell Senate Office Building Room 485 Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission Illicit trade—the transnational smuggling of illegal goods—has grown dramatically in the era of globalization thanks to modern technology, free trade zones, and the absence of the rule of law in many countries. Today, the shadow economy is booming and is estimated to account for up to 8 to 15 percent of world GDP. This roundtable will bring U.S. government officials together with representatives of companies, associations, and organizations working to combat illicit trade. Participants will discuss policy responses to the growing threat of illicit trade and how to build effective public-private partnerships. Officials from the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of State will discuss their agencies' roles in the struggle to stem the tide of illicit trade. Discussion will follow each presentation. Participants include: Russ Travers, Acting Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence Convergence: How illicit trade networks fit in with other illicit networks Christa Brzozowski, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Trade and Transport, Department of Homeland Security Contraband: How to stop the flow of illicit goods Lisa Dyer, Director, Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement, Department of State Counterfeiting: How to combat the violation of IP protections Aaron Seres, Acting Section Chief, Financial Crimes Section, FBI Corruption and Organized Crime: How to counter those who facilitate illicit trade The event is open to the public.
In Support of H.R. 6067 Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA Act)Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Mr. Speaker, earlier today I introduced H.R. 6067, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (''RADA'') because in the realm of international sports, it has become almost commonplace for too many athletes to yield to the temptation of bridging the gap between their own skill and the pinnacle of athletic achievement by resorting to performance enhancing drugs. And to conceal this fall from grace, cheaters are employing increasingly sophisticated modes of masking the use of any proscribed drugs. This practice, some of it state-sanctioned, undermines international athletic competition and is often connected to more nefarious actions by state actors. This is why it is necessary for Congress to enact H.R. 6067, the bipartisan Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (''RADA'' Act) The legislation I have introduced is bipartisan, and bears the name of courageous whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a valiant man who revealed the true extent of the complex state-run doping scheme which permitted Russia to excel in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and which resulted in its ban from the 2018 Olympic Games. While he was complicit in Russia's state-run doping program, Dr. Rodchenkov regrets his role and seeks to atone for it by aiding the effort to clean up international sports and to curb the rampant corruption within Russia. The RADA Act is a serious step towards cracking down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in major international competition because it establishes criminal penalties and civil remedies for doping fraud. A number of other nations, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, have embraced criminal sanctions for doping fraud violations and it is time for the United States to be added to this list. Doping fraud in major international competitions—like the Olympics, the World Cup and the Tour de France—is often linked with corruption, bribery and money laundering. It is not just victory that criminals engaged in doping fraud snatch away from clean athletes—athletes depend on prize money and sponsorships to sustain their livelihoods. The United States has a large role to play in ferreting out corruption in international sports. Not only do U.S. athletes lose out on millions in sponsorships, but when a U.S. company spends millions to create a marketing campaign around an athlete, only to have that athlete later implicated in a doping fraud scandal, the damage to that company's brand can cost tens of millions. This has been the story of Alysia Montaño, a U.S. runner who competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics games in London and placed fifth place in the 800 meters behind two Russian women finishing first and third. These women were later found to have engaged in doping fraud by the World Anti-Doping Agency, meaning that Ms. Montaño had rightfully finished third, which would have earned her a bronze medal. Ms. Montaño estimates that doping fraud cost her 'maybe half a million dollars, if you look at rollovers and bonuses, and that's without outside sponsorship maybe coming in.' She adds, 'That's not why you're doing it, but you still deserve it.' She certainly does. Until now, defrauded U.S. athletes and companies have had little recourse against doping fraud. A recent article published by The New York Times titled ''U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminalize Doping in Global Competitions'' references the RADA as a step in the right direction toward criminalizing doping in international sports. The RADA is an important step to stemming the tide of Russian corruption in sport and restoring confidence in international competition. Mr. Speaker, I include in the RECORD the New York Times article published June 12, 2018 entitled ''U.S. Lawmakers Seek To Criminalize Doping in Global Competitions'', which cites RADA as a step in the right direction toward criminalizing doping in international sports. [From the New York Times, June 12, 2018] U.S. LAWMAKERS SEEK TO CRIMINALIZE DOPING IN GLOBAL COMPETITIONS (By Rebecca R. Ruiz) United States lawmakers on Tuesday took a step toward criminalizing doping in international sports, introducing a bill in the House that would attach prison time to the use, manufacturing or distribution of performance-enhancing drugs in global competitions. The legislation, inspired by the Russian doping scandal, would echo the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal to bribe foreign officials to gain a business advantage. The statute would be the first of its kind with global reach, empowering American prosecutors to act on doping violations abroad, and to file fraud charges of a different variety than those the Justice Department brought against top international soccer officials in 2015. Although American leagues like Major League Baseball would not be affected by the legislation, which would apply only to competitions among countries, it could apply to a league's athletes when participating in global events like the Ryder Cup, the Davis Cup or the World Baseball Classic. The law would establish America's jurisdiction over international sports events, even those outside of the United States, if they include at least three other nations, with at least four American athletes participating or two American companies acting as sponsors. It would also enhance the ability of cheated athletes and corporate sponsors to seek damages, expanding the window of time during which civil lawsuits could be filed. To justify the United States' broader jurisdiction over global competitions, the House bill invokes the United States' contribution to the World Anti-Doping Agency, the global regulator of drugs in sports. At $2.3 million, the United States' annual contribution is the single largest of any nation. ''Doping fraud in major international competitions also effectively defrauds the United States,'' the bill states. The lawmakers behind the bill were instrumental in the creation of the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which gave the government the right to freeze financial assets and impose visa restrictions on Russian nationals accused of serious human rights violations and corruption. On Tuesday, the lawmakers framed their interest in sports fraud around international relations and broader networks of crime that can accompany cheating. ''Doping fraud is a crime in which big money, state assets and transnational criminals gain advantage and honest athletes and companies are defrauded,'' said Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, who introduced the legislation on Tuesday. ''This practice, some of it state-sanctioned, has the ability to undermine international relations, and is often connected to more nefarious actions by state actors.'' Along with Ms. Jackson Lee, the bill was sponsored by two other Congressional representatives, Michael Burgess, Republican of Texas, and Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin. It was put forward just as Russia prepares to host soccer's World Cup, which starts Thursday. That sporting event will be the nation's biggest since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, where one of the most elaborate doping ploys in history took place. The bill, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, takes its name from Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the chemist who ran Russia's antidoping laboratory for 10 years before he spoke out about the state-sponsored cheating he had helped carry out—most notoriously in Sochi. At those Games, Dr. Rodchenkov said, he concealed widespread drug use among Russia's top Olympians by tampering with more than 100 urine samples with the help of Russia's Federal Security Service. Investigations commissioned by international sports regulators confirmed his account and concluded that Russia had cheated across competitions and years, tainting the performance of more than 1,000 athletes. In early 2017, American intelligence officials concluded that Russia's meddling in the 2016 American election had been, in part, a form of retribution for the Olympic doping scandal, whose disclosures Russian officials blamed on the United States. Nations including Germany, France, Italy, Kenya and Spain have established criminal penalties for sports doping perpetrated within their borders. Russia, too, passed a law in 2017 that made it a crime to assist or coerce doping, though no known charges have been brought under that law to date. Under the proposed American law, criminal penalties for offenders would include a prison term of up to five years as well as fines that could stretch to $250,000 for individuals and $1 million for organizations. ''We could have real change if people think they could actually go to jail for this,'' said Jim Walden, a lawyer for Dr. Rodchenkov, who met with the lawmakers as they considered the issue in recent months. ''I think it will have a meaningful impact on coaches and athletes if they realize they might not be able to travel outside of their country for fear of being arrested.'' The legislation also authorizes civil actions for doping fraud, giving athletes who may have been cheated in competitions—as well as corporations acting as sponsors—the right to sue in federal court to recover damages from people who may have defrauded competitions. Ms. Jackson Lee cited the American runner Alysia Montaño, who placed fifth in the 800 meters at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Two Russian women who placed first and third in that race were later disqualified for doping, elevating Ms. Montaño years later. ''She had rightfully finished third, which would have earned her a bronze medal,'' Ms. Jackson Lee said, noting the financial benefits and sponsorships Ms. Montaño could have captured. The bill would establish a window of seven years for criminal actions and 10 years for civil lawsuits. It also seeks to protect whistle-blowers from retaliation, making it illegal to take ''adverse action'' against a person because he or she has disclosed information about doping fraud. Dr. Rodchenkov, who has lived in the United States since fall 2015, has been criminally charged in Russia after he publicly deconstructed the cheating he said he carried out on orders from a state minister. ''While he was complicit in Russia's past bad acts, Dr. Rodchenkov regrets his past role in Russia's state-run doping program and seeks to atone for it by aiding the effort to clean up international sports and to curb the corruption rampant in Russia,'' Ms. Jackson Lee said, calling Tuesday's bill ''an important step to stemming the tide of Russian corruption in sport and restoring confidence in international competition.''
press release
Helsinki Commissioners Jackson Lee and Burgess Introduce Rodchenkov Anti-Doping ActTuesday, June 12, 2018
WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Helsinki Commissioners Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D., (TX-26) introduced the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA) in the House of Representatives. Named for Russian whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the bipartisan legislation establishes civil remedies and criminal penalties for doping fraud crimes affecting U.S. athletes and companies at international sports competitions. Helsinki Commissioner Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-04) also co-sponsored the bill. "Meeting Dr. Rodchenkov and witnessing his courage in the face of Putin's brutal regime inspired me to introduce the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act," said Rep. Jackson Lee, who sponsored the bill and serves as the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations. "The unprecedented level of doping he exposed at the Olympics, where American athletes compete and U.S. companies are sponsors, demonstrates how countries engaging in clean sport are being defrauded by criminals. In particular, athletes' livelihoods suffer when prize money and sponsorships are awarded to cheaters." "International competitions should be the pinnacle of human physical achievement—a chance for those who have trained harder than anyone to go head-to-head and demonstrate their skills to the whole world," said Rep. Burgess, the bill's lead co-sponsor. "There should not be an opportunity for states to engage in misconduct. Athletes who compete honestly must not have victory seized from them by an opponent who has used performance-enhancing drugs." In 2016, Dr. Rodchenkov exposed the Russian state-sponsored doping scandal that took place during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. By deceiving international anti-doping authorities and swapping athletes' samples, Russian officials cheated U.S. athletes out of Olympic glory and U.S. corporations out of honest sponsorships. These corrupt officials used bribes and illicit payments, sometimes through U.S. financial institutions, to commit this fraud. Unfortunately, the masterminds behind the Russian doping operation escaped punishment for their actions because there was no U.S. legal mechanism to bring them to justice. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act will: Establish criminal penalties for knowingly manufacturing, distributing, and using PEDs. This section applies to all major international competitions in which U.S. athletes or U.S. entities participate, so that international fraud against Americans will not go unpunished. Penalties will include fines of up to $1,000,000, or imprisonment of up to ten years, depending on the offense. Establish a private civil right of action for doping fraud, giving clean athletes and defrauded corporations and entities legal recourse to pursue civil action against deceptive competition that has deprived them of medals or financial awards. Protect whistleblowers from retaliation, to ensure that intimidation tactics will not be tolerated against those who do the right thing and expose fraudulent schemes. Any person who has experienced retaliation because of exposing Doping Fraud may sue the retaliating party in United States district court. Empower the U.S. Attorney General to develop regulations by which the U.S. Department of Justice will help private litigants to obtain foreign evidence, in compliance with the Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters. In February 2018, the Helsinki Commission held a briefing featuring Dr. Rodchenkov's attorney, Jim Walden, on combating fraud in sports and the role of whistleblowers in safeguarding the integrity of international competitions. In March, Commissioners Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), Sen. Cory Gardner (CO), and Rep. Jackson Lee met with Dr. Rodchenkov to discuss the threat posed by Russia to the United States, corruption in international sports bodies, and how the United States can contribute to the international effort to counter doping fraud. "It is both gratifying and humbling to see the introduction of the "Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act in the House of Representatives today," said Dr. Rodchenkov. "I would like to thank Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Rep. Michael Burgess, and the rest of the Helsinki Commission for taking the time to hear about my role in the Russian doping scandal that marred the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Although doping continues to pervade international athletic competitions, I am encouraged that the U.S. Congress has chosen to protect clean athletes and fair sport. This bill stands to correct a broken and corrupt system, and I sincerely hope that other Members of Congress will support this endeavor."
press release
Corruption in Ukraine's Energy Sector Focus of Upcoming Helsinki Commission BriefingTuesday, June 12, 2018
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing: HIGH CRIMES AND PIPELINES: CURBING CORRUPTION IN UKRAINE'S ENERGY SECTOR Monday, June 18, 2018 3:30 p.m. Dirksen Senate Office Building Room G11 Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission Corruption continues to plague Ukraine's energy sector. Despite the success of reforms to its state-owned gas company, Naftogaz, rampant corruption in regional distribution companies and elsewhere prevents Ukraine's energy sector from realizing its potential. Coupled with the Russian assault on energy security in the form of Nord Stream 2, Ukraine finds itself at a crossroads: will it continue on the reformist path toward energy independence, or will its energy sector once again become defined by corruption? This briefing will review the challenges facing Ukraine's energy sector with a focus on corruption's role in preventing necessary reforms. Speakers will provide expertise and insight as to how Ukraine's energy sector fits into the larger picture of Ukraine's fight against corruption. They will also examine Russia's malign influence in the country. Finally, the briefing will offer policy responses to these issues. The following panelists are scheduled to participate: Ambassador Bill Courtney, Former U.S. Ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan and career foreign service officer Ed Chow, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, Member of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada
2018 World Cup: The Beautiful Game and an Ugly RegimeThursday, May 31, 2018
The 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia has created an unprecedented opportunity for the country's kleptocrats to enrich themselves. Just as he did with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, President Vladimir Putin has hijacked a world sporting event in an attempt to burnish his own image and enrich the Kremlin elite, rather than to celebrate sport and sportsmanship in Russia. However, unlike the 2014 Winter Olympics, the World Cup has required multiple infrastructure projects in not just one, but eleven, host cities. Oligarchs, as well as regional and national officials, have worked together to embezzle assets from the tournament stadium construction and refurbishment to side projects of accommodation and transport. Mistreated and forced laborers have completed this work. Contractors have used and manipulated Rus-sian and migrant workers to erect the stadiums and other structures that are essential to hosting a World Cup. For example, Russia has continued its unscrupulous use of North Korean forced labor to build St. Petersburg Zenit Arena, opened by President Putin himself in March 2017. Russia presented the World Cup to the FIFA voters in 2010 as a wholesome tournament, bringing the world together for a festival of sport. Instead, President Putin will give the world a corrupt tournament, built on the backs of forced and mistreated labor, and expose fans to a real risk of soccer violence and hatred. Although troubling trends in each of these areas can be seen in countries throughout the OSCE region, the offenses of the Kremlin are particularly egregious. Download the full report to learn more. Contributors: Michael Newton, Intern and Scott Rauland, Senior State Department Advisor
Sanctioning Human Rights Abusers and Kleptocrats under the Global Magnitsky ActThursday, May 24, 2018
The Global Magnitsky Act enables the United States to sanction the world's worst human rights abusers and most corrupt oligarchs and foreign officials, freezing their U.S. assets and preventing them from traveling to the United States. Sanctioned individuals become financial pariahs and the international financial system wants nothing to do with them. Before proceeding, ask yourself: is Global Magnitsky right for my case? The language of the Global Magnitsky Act as passed by Congress was ex-panded by Executive Order 13818, which is now the implementing authority for Global Magnitsky sanctions. EO 13818 stipulates that sanctions may be considered for individuals who are engaging or have engaged in "serious human rights abuse" against any person, or are engaging or have en-gaged in "corruption." Individuals who, by virtue of their rank, have ordered others to engage or have facilitated these acts also are liable to be sanctioned. Keep in mind that prior to the EO's expansion of the language, human rights sanctions were limited to "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights" as codified in 22 USC § 2304(d)(1). The original language also stipulates that any victim must be working "to expose illegal activity car-ried out by government officials" or to "obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms." As for sanctions for corruption, it identifies "acts of significant corruption" as sanctionable offenses. This is generally thought to be a stricter standard than the EO's term "corruption." It may be worthwhile to aim for this higher standard to make the tightest case possible for sanctions. As a rule, reach out to other NGOs and individuals working in the human rights and anti-corruption field, especially those who are advocating for their own Global Magnitsky sanctions. Doing so at the beginning of the process will enable you to build strong relationships, develop a robust network, and speak with a stronger voice. Download the full guide to learn more. Contributor: Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor
Corruption in Sport Focus of Upcoming Helsinki Commission Briefing
WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:
Gambling, Match-Fixing, and Corruption in Sport
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
11:30 a.m.
Russell Senate Office Building
Room 188
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
Corruption—including bribery, doping fraud, and match-fixing—permeates international sport. Despite a 2015 FBI investigation into the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) that indicted more than twenty-five top FIFA officials and associates for alleged decades-long racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering, international sport governance bodies remain compromised and U.S. athletes remain vulnerable.
Corruption in sport has become an even more pressing concern following the U.S. Supreme Court's May 14 decision declaring the Amateur Sports Protection Act unconstitutional, unleashing a sports gambling industry in the United States potentially valued at $400 billion. This lucrative and unregulated market may now be susceptible to the same globalized corruption that has come to define international sport. Panelists will provide their insights into the structure of international sport, the globalization of sports gambling, and how to protect American sport from the corruption that has swept over the rest of the world.
The following panelists are scheduled to participate:
- Declan Hill, Professor of Investigations, University of New Haven
- David Larkin, U.S. lawyer; co-founder of ChangeFIFA
- Marko Stanovic, Balkan-based former match-fixer
- Alexandra Wrage, President and CEO, TRACE International; former member of FIFA's failed Independent Governance Committee

subset: commoncrawl