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Brussels (dpa) - Human rights violations in countries like China, Russia or Saudi Arabia will in future be much easier to sanction the European Union.

Representatives of the member states agreed on a corresponding regulation on Wednesday evening in Brussels, as confirmed by EU diplomats from the German Press Agency.

It has been negotiated over the past few weeks under the current German EU Council Presidency and is to be officially decided at a meeting of foreign ministers next Monday.

The new regime will make it possible to freeze the assets of actors who commit or benefit from serious human rights violations.

In addition, entry bans are to be imposed on people.

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So far, human rights violations could only be punished in connection with punitive measures against states or within the framework of special sanction regimes that the EU has created, for example, in the fight against cyber attacks and the use of chemical weapons.

This has so far made it difficult or impossible for the EU to react to human rights violations - for example in the case of the gruesome killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.

The model for the planned EU system is the so-called Global Magnitsky Act of the USA.

This was decided by the US Congress in 2016 to impose sanctions on individuals responsible for the death of Russian lawyer and auditor Sergei Magnitsky.

Magnitsky died on remand in a Russian prison in 2009 after he was ill-treated and inadequate medical care.

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The EU did not take up proposals to name the planned EU sanction mechanism after the recently poisoned Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny.

Because of the attack on the opposition politician, the EU states had already imposed entry and property bans on people suspected of being responsible in the vicinity of President Vladimir Putin via the chemical weapons regime in October.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201203-99-553620 / 3

European Parliament resolution of 14 March 2019 on a European regime for sanctions for violations of human rights

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US government on the Global Magnitsky Act

Communication from the EU Commission on the proposal for a European framework for combating human rights violations and abuses

USA on "Global Magnitsky Sanctions on Individuals Involved in the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi"