Citizens ask US to sanction Dutch officials over Russian oppositionist's suicide

15:55 24/01/2013

MOSCOW, January 24 - RAPSI. A petition has been published on the White House's website requesting that the US Congress compile a Dolmatov list featuring all Dutch officials deemed responsible for Russian opposition activist Alexander Dolmatov's suicide.

The petition, which was posted Thursday, reads: "We ask American Congress to make The Act of Alexander Dolmatov which will include "Dolmatov list" to punish all Dutch officials responsible for the death of Dolmatov."

The petition has so far received 975 signatures, as of the time of this writing.

Last week Alexander Dolmatov, who was one of the defendants in the case of the Moscow Bolotnaya Square riots on May 6 last year, committed suicide in Amsterdam on January 17, his lawyer Yevgeny Arkhipov told RAPSI.

"Geert Ates, director of the United for Intercultural Action refugee network, told me that Alexander Dolmatov, who had requested political asylum in the Netherlands in 2012, committed suicide in a refugee center in Amsterdam last night. I do not know the reasons for his suicide or any other details," the lawyer said the following day.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has requested that Dutch officials make a thorough inquiry into the incident.

A petition posted on the White House's website requires 100,000 signatures to be collected within 30 days for it to be considered by the government.

The number of required signatures was increased in mid-January due to the growing popularity of the White House petition page.

Russian immigrants have contributed to the popularity of the page by posting a petition in late 2012 that requested the Magnitsky List to be extended to those State Duma members who had voted for the Dima Yakovlev Law and also to the Russian President, if he approves the law.

On January 1, 2013, the Dima Yakovlev law banning the adoption of Russian children by American citizens came into force.

It was passed in retaliation for the US Magnitsky Act, which stipulates visa sanctions for Russians who are believed by the senate members to have been involved in human rights violations.