Associated
Press/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Government Press Service - Russian
President Vladimir Putin speaks at the final Cabinet meeting of the year
in the government headquarters in Moscow, Thursday,
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he will sign a controversial bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, as the Kremlin's children's rights advocate recommended extending the ban to the rest of the world.
The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The bill is part of the country's
increasingly confrontational stance with the West and has angered some
Russians who argue it victimizes kids to make a political point.
The law would block dozens of
Russian children now in the process of being adopted by American
families from leaving the country and cut off a major route out of often
dismal orphanages. Russia is the single biggest source of adopted
children in the U.S., with more than 60,000 Russian children being taken
in by Americans over the past two decades.
"I still don't see any reasons
why I should not sign it," Putin said at a televised meeting. He went on
to say that he "intends" to do so.
UNICEF estimates that there are
about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia, while only
18,000 Russians are now waiting to adopt a child. Russian officials say they want to encourage more Russians to adopt Russian orphans.
Children rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov on Thursday petitioned the president to extend the ban to other countries.
"There is huge money and questionable people involved in the semi-legal schemes of exporting children," he tweeted.
Kremlin critics say Astakhov is
trying to extend the ban only to get more publicity and win more favors
with Putin. A graduate of the KGB law school and a celebrity lawyer,
Astakhov was a pro-Putin activist before becoming a children rights
ombudsman and is now seen as the Kremlin's voice on adoption issues.
"This is cynicism beyond limits,"
opposition leader Ilya Yashin tweeted. "The children rights ombudsman
is depriving children of a future."
The bill is retaliation for an
American law that calls for sanctions against Russian officials deemed
to be human rights violators. Kremlin critics say that means Russian
officials who own property in the West and send their children to
Western schools would lose access to their assets and families.
Putin said U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian
adoptees go unpunished — a clear reference to Dima Yakovlev, a Russian
toddler for whom the bill is named.
The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The U.S. State Department says it
regrets the Russian Parliament's decision to pass the bill, saying it
would prevent many children from growing up in families.
Astakhov said Wednesday that 46
children who were about to be adopted in the United States would remain
in Russia if the bill comes into effect.
The adoption of the bill follows
weeks of hysterical media campaign on Kremlin-controlled television that
lambasts American adoptive parents and adoption agencies that allegedly
bribe their way into getting Russian children.
A few lawmakers claimed that some
Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ
transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army.
Critics of the bill have left
dozens of stuffed toys and candles outside the parliament's lower and
upper houses to express solidarity with Russian orphans.
The U.S. law, called the
Magnitsky Act, stems from the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer
who died in jail after being arrested by police officers whom he
accused of a $230 million tax fraud. The law prohibits officials
allegedly involved in his death from entering the U.S.
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