Post by bot on Feb 5, 2017 17:23:58 GMT -5
Hoyer Statement on the Hospitalization of Russian Journalist & Civil Society Leader Vladamir Kara-Murza
WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today on reports that Russian journalist and civil society leader Vladamir Kara-Murza was hospitalized:
“Attempts to murder or incapacitate journalists and pro-democracy activists are the hallmark of a criminal, illegitimate, and unfree regime, which is exactly what President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has become. Today’s hospitalization of journalist and civil society leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, a coordinator of the pro-democracy Open Russia movement, with symptoms consistent with poisoning is deeply alarming. This is now the second time he has been treated for suspected poisoning – the preferred method by which Putin’s regime has tried to silence its critics. My thoughts and prayers today are with him, his wife Yevgenia, and their children. The world has borne witness to the murders of Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Sergei Magnitsky, and others who dared to speak out, write, and protest against the erosion of democracy in Putin’s Russia – and those responsible will eventually be held accountable.
“As former Chairman of the Helsinki Commission in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, I had a front-row seat for the fall of Communist totalitarianism in Russia and Eastern Europe. I saw the new hope for freedom: not only the freedom of expression but the freedom from fear. The world must not allow fear to take hold once again and suffocate the hopes and aspirations of the Russian people. Mr. Kara-Murza’s possible poisoning only makes the case for tough sanctions against the Russian leadership stronger, and I urge the Trump Administration not to reward Putin for his nefarious actions by ending them.”