{"id":1725,"date":"2018-05-06T13:29:03","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T19:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/?p=1725"},"modified":"2018-05-24T09:20:30","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T15:20:30","slug":"english-microscopic-dots-cont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/2018\/05\/06\/english-microscopic-dots-cont\/","title":{"rendered":"Microscopic Dots, Cont."},"content":{"rendered":"<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1727\" src=\"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/National-Review.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/National-Review.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/National-Review-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/National-Review-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/es\/2018\/05\/06\/english-microscopic-dots-cont\/\"><strong>Espa\u00f1ol Disponible Aqu\u00ed:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1726\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1726\" style=\"width: 789px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1726 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Igor-Bitkov-y-Vladimir-su-hijo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"789\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Igor-Bitkov-y-Vladimir-su-hijo.jpg 789w, https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Igor-Bitkov-y-Vladimir-su-hijo-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Igor-Bitkov-y-Vladimir-su-hijo-768x448.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 789px) 100vw, 789px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1726\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Igor Bitkov and his son Vladimir (born in Guatemala, after the family had fled Russia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<header class=\"article-header article-header--full\" data-component=\"articleHeader\">\n<div class=\"article-header__inner\">\n<div class=\"article-header__meta\">\n<div class=\"article-header__meta-byline\" style=\"text-align: right;\">\n<div class=\"article-header__meta-author-container\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><span class=\"article-header__meta-author article-header__meta-author--prefix\">By<\/span>\u00a0<a class=\"author article-header__meta-author\" title=\"Posts by Jay Nordlinger\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/author\/jay-nordlinger\/\" rel=\"author\" data-author-id=\"160886\" aria-haspopup=\"true\">JAY NORDLINGER<\/a><\/div>\n<p><time class=\"article-header__meta-pubdate separator\" title=\"May 5, 2018 5:43 PM\" datetime=\"2018-05-05T17:43:12-04:00\">May 5, 2018 5:43 PM<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-header__meta-nav\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>\u00a0Last month, I went to Guatemala to visit a family named Bitkov in their prisons. Igor, Irina, and Anastasia Bitkov fled Russia in fear of their lives. They wound up in Guatemala. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, they are now in prison. They were put there by a strange combination of Guatemalan legal authorities, a Russian bank, and a U.N. agency. You can read my story \u2014 the Bitkovs\u2019 story, told by me \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2018\/04\/bitkov-family-ordeal-fled-russia-imprisoned-in-guatemala\/\">here<\/a>.There is good news: Senator Marco Rubio has placed a hold on U.S. funding of the U.N. agency. And there is talk that Canada might accept the Bitkovs, in the event of their release. (Article\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/politics\/article-russian-family-jailed-in-guatemala-seeks-ottawas-help\/\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"section-content--primary\">\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A clutch of people have taken up the Bitkovs\u2019 cause. Rubio is one of them. Bill Browder is another. (He is the financier who campaigns for \u201cMagnitsky acts,\u201d sanctioning human-rights abusers.) Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady of the\u00a0<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0has written repeatedly about the Bitkovs and their case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I sat in prison with Irina Bitkov. She marveled at the help she and her family were getting. \u201cWe are not their fellow citizens,\u201d she said of those helping the Bitkovs. \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything for them. They are helping us simply because we are human beings.\u201d She could hardly believe it. She thought it was the most marvelous thing in the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And as she spoke, I thought of the nationalists and realists (self-styled).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--native\">\n<div class=\"ad-unit__inner\">\n<div data-react-component=\"AdUnit\" data-unit=\"native_mobile\" data-hide-subscribers=\"true\" data-lazy-load=\"\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-native_mobile\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After I got back, I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/microscopic-dots-lets-look-at-them\/\">wrote about<\/a>\u00a0an incident from the Carter years. President Carter was meeting with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister. Carter brought up the case of Anatoly Shcharansky (later Natan Sharansky), the leading refusenik in the Gulag. Gromyko was nonplussed at this. The USSR and the USA had such big fish to fry: nuclear arsenals, the fate of the world. And Carter was bringing up this one\u00a0<em>zek<\/em>, this one prisoner. He is but \u201ca microscopic dot,\u201d Gromyko said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A clutch of people have taken up the Bitkovs\u2019 cause. Rubio is one of them. Bill Browder is another. (He is the financier who campaigns for \u201cMagnitsky acts,\u201d sanctioning human-rights abusers.) Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady of the\u00a0<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0has written repeatedly about the Bitkovs and their case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I sat in prison with Irina Bitkov. She marveled at the help she and her family were getting. \u201cWe are not their fellow citizens,\u201d she said of those helping the Bitkovs. \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything for them. They are helping us simply because we are human beings.\u201d She could hardly believe it. She thought it was the most marvelous thing in the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">And as she spoke, I thought of the nationalists and realists (self-styled).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--native\">\n<div class=\"ad-unit__inner\">\n<div data-react-component=\"AdUnit\" data-unit=\"native_mobile\" data-hide-subscribers=\"true\" data-lazy-load=\"\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-native_mobile\">\u00a0After I got back, I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/microscopic-dots-lets-look-at-them\/\">wrote about<\/a>\u00a0an incident from the Carter years. President Carter was meeting with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister. Carter brought up the case of Anatoly Shcharansky (later Natan Sharansky), the leading refusenik in the Gulag. Gromyko was nonplussed at this. The USSR and the USA had such big fish to fry: nuclear arsenals, the fate of the world. And Carter was bringing up this one\u00a0<em>zek<\/em>, this one prisoner. He is but \u201ca microscopic dot,\u201d Gromyko said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Today, my eyes fell on a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/democracy-post\/wp\/2018\/05\/02\/the-uk-makes-history-on-human-rights\/?utm_term=.3008e9d5a841\">piece<\/a>\u00a0by Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian democracy leader. Let me quote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One morning in the spring of 2016, I spoke at a breakfast meeting with British members of Parliament who were on an official visit to Moscow. The conversation soon turned to the\u00a0Magnitsky Act, the path-breaking U.S. measure that targeted individuals responsible for human rights abuses in Russia. When I urged my interlocutors to pass the same law in Britain, one member of the delegation broke me off and launched into a diatribe: why on earth, he complained, should the City of London forgo billions in profits because of some \u201chuman rights hearsay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Our meeting was taking place in the British ambassador\u2019s residence, just a few hundred yards from the bridge where, months earlier, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down as he walked home after dinner. I was barely able to stand, using a cane, months after my own near-fatal poisoning. I had nothing to say to the honorable gentleman as he lamented the loss of profits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cHuman-rights hearsay,\u201d \u201cmicroscopic dots.\u201d The national interest is paramount. It must always be thus. But we Americans find that, usually, our interest does not conflict with concern for human beings, for these little dots. It may be that they are, in fact, what makes life worth living.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Browder Says:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Wonderful update by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaynordlinger?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@jaynordlinger<\/a> on the Bitkov arrest scandal in Guatemala orchestrated by Russia and the political and media fallout.  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WaD3XAVPN5\">https:\/\/t.co\/WaD3XAVPN5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Billbrowder\/status\/992918986416361472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 6, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Source:\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/microscopic-dots-cont\/\">https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/microscopic-dots-cont\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/2018\/05\/06\/english-microscopic-dots-cont\/\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground:  !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 100% !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Espa\u00f1ol Disponible Aqu\u00ed: By\u00a0JAY NORDLINGER May 5, 2018 5:43 PM \u00a0Last month, I went to Guatemala to visit a family named Bitkov in their prisons. Igor, Irina, and Anastasia Bitkov fled Russia in fear of their lives. They wound up in Guatemala. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, they are now in prison. They were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,3,136,146,134,139,138,140,148],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-casobitkovs","8":"category-rusia","9":"category-articulos","10":"category-bitkov","11":"category-bitkov-family","12":"category-breaking-news","13":"category-comision-de-helsinki","14":"category-helsinki","15":"category-helsinki-commission","16":"category-national-review"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}