WASHINGTON, November 16 (Sputnik) – US President Barack Obama has failed to properly enforce the Magnitsky Act and needs to expand the US law’s blacklist of alleged Russian human rights abusers, US Senator Jim Risch, co-sponsor of the Magnitsky Act, told Sputnik on Thursday.
“The [Obama] Administration has not made enough progress on the Magnitsky Act. It’s the law of the land, and the Administration should enforce it properly and do much more to review cases and people who should be added to the list,” Risch said.
The administration was criticized by senior US Senators in January for not adding more names to the original list and failing to encourage other countries to impose similar targeted sanctions on Russian citizens.
“They have narrowly applied this law when they should be taking a much broader position on it,” Risch added.
The 2012 Magnitsky Act calls for sanctioning Russian individuals allegedly complicit in the 2009 death of whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow jail.
The bill is being assessed just ahead of the five-year anniversary of the lawyer’s death on November 16.
In a response to the Magnitsky Act, Russia issued its own blacklist of US officials linked to human rights violations at the infamous prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
