Complicit in Russia's crimes

„After opposition protests in Russia were violently suppressed in May, July and August, spokesmen for the National Security Council and the State Department expressed concern and regret that Russian authorities were not respecting the freedom of assembly. During the May 31 crackdown, one journalist who days before had interviewed NSC Russia expert Michael McFaul had his arm broken. When McFaul and Undersecretary of State William Burns met with a group of human rights activists and others this month in Moscow, longtime activist Lev Ponomaryov was notably absent. He had been arrested for giving an interview critical of the mayor of Moscow during which he allegedly stepped on the foot of a militia officer. Burns lamely called it regrettable that Ponomaryov was unable to attend.

The activists who met with Burns and McFaul urged the United States to take a more public and critical position about the deteriorating state of human rights in Russia. Indeed, Burns and McFaul should have recognized Ponomaryov's arrest as a slap in the face by Russian officials and condemned it. A raid before their visit on the Moscow offices of the New Times by masked and heavily armed security forces triggered no official response from Washington, though McFaul met with the editors of the journal. What will it take for higher levels of the Obama administration to unequivocally condemn arrests of activists, violence against protesters, pressure on journalists and murders of government critics?”