CPJ joins call for US Congress to reauthorize Global Magnitsky Act
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 57 other civil society groups in a letter on Wednesday, March 23, calling for the U.S. Congress to reauthorize and strengthen the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
The 2016 law allows the U.S. to place targeted economic and visa sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights abuses, and is set to expire December 23. The letter urges majority and minority leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives to reauthorize the law with stronger language, particularly in light of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, where at least four journalists have been killed.
“For more than four years, Global Magnitsky sanctions have been a key part of the U.S. government’s response to atrocities and serious human rights abuses around the world,” the signatories write, noting that it has been used to respond to “Chinese abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang; military attacks on the Rohingya in Myanmar and on the people of Tigray; and violent militias in Iraq, Libya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
CPJ previously joined calls to reauthorize the law, including most recently as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022.
The full letter is available here.