Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Bigotry Monitor: Volume 8, Number 39

News

Bigotry Monitor: Volume 8, Number 39

(September 26, 2008)

Volume 8, Number 39
September 26, 2008

BIGOTRY MONITOR

A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Religious Persecution in the Former Communist World and Western Europe

EDITOR: CHARLES FENYVESI
(News and Editorial Policy within the sole discretion of the editor)

Published by UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union
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INGUSHETIA ON THE BRINK OF CIVIL WAR. “Barely noticed by the outside world, increasing violence and clashes between [Russian] federal forces and rebels in Ingushetia, just west of Chechnya, threaten to destabilize the north Caucasus,” Reuters reported on September 26. The local branch of the human rights group Memorial is quoted as saying that 93 people were killed in clashes in the year to the end of August, a high toll for a region with a population of 470,000. According to Reuters, “gunshots ring out at night in Nazran, the biggest town, and bomb attacks, murders, and kidnappings are part of daily life.”

ALEKSEYEVA COMPARES TERROR IN INGUSHETIA TO 1937. At a press conference on September 23 following a visit to Ingushetia, Moscow Helsinki Group director Lyudmila Alekseyeva said that the situation could only be compared "to the Stalinist repressions of 1937." Using the pretext of "the struggle against terrorism," she and her colleagues said, the Ingush regime of Murad Zyazikov together with its allies in the Russian FSB and military are carrying out a campaign of kidnappings, tortures, and killings that is both terrifying the population and leading to the growth of Islamist radicalism rather than its suppression. She and her team reported that many of the kidnappings and murders of peaceful residents were the work of "federal organs like the FSB and the Russian army." Alekseyeva and the other human rights activists say that many in Moscow view terror as a useful means to create a climate of fear in which it will be possible to "guarantee the stability of the political regime in this Caucasus republic." Another reason, they add, is that many in the Russian government believe that they can perfect the mechanisms of a dictatorship based on siloviki terrorism that, might be extended to the entire country in the future, just as Stalin did in building his totalitarian state. However, as Ingushetia has a civil society that is more organized than in many places in the Russian Federation, this official drive clashes with the population’s democratic aspirations, creating the conditions for a violent explosion.

MAN SHOOTS NEO-NAZI IN SELF-DEFENSE. A man whose appearance suggested that he is from the Caucasus shot an alleged neo-Nazi while waiting for a metro train in St. Petersburg, according to a September 22 report by the Newsru.com web site. On September 21, paramedics brought a 22-year-old man to the hospital suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach. He claimed that the shooter opened fire without provocation but police sources say that metro video cameras clearly show five young people dressed like "members of informal groups" (a euphemism for neo-Nazis) approach a man who looked like someone from the Caucasus and threatened him. Not taking any chances in a city where neo-Nazis have murdered several minorities in recent years, the man fired at his assailant and then fled.

NEO-NAZIS CHARGED WITH MURDER. Neo-Nazis murdered a man in Kaluga, Russia, according to a Regnum news agency item dated September 23. Police found the body of the victim, an Uzbek citizen, in a hastily dug grave in the woods on September 11. A day later, they detained four suspects and charged them with murder. Police say that the four assaulted their victim out of ethnic hatred but got scared that he would report them to the police. They forced him into a car, drove him to the woods, and killed him.

NEO-NAZIS CRITICALLY INJURE ANTI-FASCIST ACTIVIST. Neo-Nazis in Tolyatti, Russia (Samara Region) crushed the skull of an anti-fascist activist, according to a September 23 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Doctors describe his condition as critical. In recent days, five different clashes between neo-Nazis and anti-fascists took place in the city.

RACISTS ATTACK NON-RUSSIAN BOY IN MOSCOW. On August 4, two men assaulted and robbed a 14 year old boy in Moscow while screaming racist insults, according to a September 19 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The men, who appeared to be in their twenties, called their victim a "slant-eyed churka" (a Russian pejorative) and screamed the far-right slogan "Russia for Russians!" The boy suffered bruises and a concussion but did not initially tell his parents of the attack because his assailants threatened "big problems" if the crime was reported to the police.

SHORT SENTENCES FOR NEO-NAZI KILLERS IN MOSCOW. The trial of a neo-Nazi youth gang accused of killing the internationally known chess player Sergey Nikolaev ended in shorter than expected sentences, according to a September 22 item posted on Jewish.ru. The Moscow City Court sentenced 13 defendants, aged from 16 to 18, to between three and ten years in prison, about half the prison time they could have received. Prosecutors accused the youths of two murders, ten attempted murders, and hate crimes. Only one defendant got the ten year sentence after the court determined that he was responsible for the two murders. Although the youths had repented during the trial, they reportedly yelled "Sieg Heil!" upon receiving their relatively short prison terms. Prosecutors plan to appeal.

ARTICLE DEMONIZES MIGRANTS AS RAPISTS. An article in the mainstream Moscow newspaper "Vechernyaya Moskva" dated September 19 evokes the Jim Crow South in its portrayal of ethnic minority men as hyper-sexual predators. Titled "It's Becoming Scary on the Street Because of the Large Number of Gastarbeiters" (German for guest workers), the article touches on the problem of sexual violence against women in Russia, beginning with a story about how she herself was stalked by two “dark-skinned men” on the street who were eventually scared off by a neighbor.

Author Elena Sidorenko Sidorenko relies exclusively on anecdotal information to prove her thesis that male migrants pose a major threat to Russian women. She presents no statistics and doesn't even bother mentioning that some ethnic Russian men engage in rape and other forms of sexual violence. Instead, story after story features male migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia going after Russian women. According to her, there are hundreds of such stories in Moscow. She added that recent proposals to confine migrants to specific areas of the city are "debatable, but perhaps not so eccentric after all." Otherwise, she concluded, neo-Nazi violence will worsen.

POLICE RAID NIGHTCLUB POPULAR WITH GAYS. In St. Petersburg last week, police raided a nightclub called Central Station popular with gay people and their friends, “The St. Petersburg Times” wrote, citing witnesses. Everyone in the club was taken to a police station for questioning and dozens of them were humiliated with homophobic threats. According to Central Station's founder and co-owner Ilya Abaturov, the raid was ordered by an investigator of the Moskovsky District Prosecutor's Office who is investigating the death of a Ukrainian citizen who had with him a map of St. Petersburg with the address of the club written on it. The investigator searched the club because of that connection, Abaturov said.

According to a witness, some 60 people were detained and crammed into a bus “like sardines in a tin.” "Some people protested but they were told we were all being taken to the Chief Police Department of the Moskovsky District,” the witness said. “The police threatened to use force. There was no violence, but they treated us like cattle, like slaves. They asked who is gay and who is straight. Two said they were straight and were allowed to leave." The witness said the police attempted to blackmail the detainees by threatening to reveal their patronage of the club to their families, educational establishments or places of work. The detainees were photographed and made to sign a document obliging them to help the police. At about 6 a.m., the witness was released; others were detained longer.

DZERZHINSKY’S STATUE TO BE RESTORED? On September 18, members of a Duma committee applauded a proposal by the country's former deputy procurator general to restore the statue of the first Soviet secret police director Feliks Dzerzhinsky to its former place of honor in Moscow, in front of the old KGB headquarters at Lubyanka Square. Addressing the Duma Security Committee, former prosecutor Vladimir Kolesnikov called for returning the statue to where it had stood in the Soviet era until its removal in 1991, regarded as a symbolic act ending the absolute power of a bloody institution. His proposal was well received, and Communist leaders said they would bring up the issue at a session of the Moscow City Duma.

Any mention of Dzerzhinsky’s exoneration brings a shiver to the millions in the former Communist world who lived through the reign of terror he inaugurated in the 1920s. Oleg Orlov of the human rights group Memorial was quoted as saying that "Dzerzhinsky is only a symbol" but that the next step will be the return of the kind of power he represented and a tragic indication that Russia has not broken with its recent past.

RUSSIA’S UNREGISTERED BAPTISTS ARE HARASSED. Baptists in different parts of Russia have experienced state harassment in recent months, Forum 18 News Service reported on September 22. The harassment included interrogation by the FSB security service, defamatory state television coverage, a warning for home worship, and a fine for preaching in public. The congregations concerned all belong to the Baptist Council of Churches whose communities do not register with state authorities. For example, two FSB officers in Kurgan Region separately questioned two Yurgamysh church members for four hours about internal church matters. Regional state TV later broadcast a program on the church called "Criminal News." The program made unsubstantiated allegations, such as that children from the church are "retarded, downtrodden, dress differently from other [school] pupils and often have to repeat the year," and that church members live off illegal businesses.

OUTLOOK FOR DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS IN BELARUS ‘DISCOURAGING.’ On September 24, Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) and Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), co-chairmen of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (better known as U.S. Helsinki Commission), called the political environment ahead of the September 28 parliamentary elections in Belarus “discouraging.” They said: “Thus far, we have seen few signs that these elections will differ significantly from previous elections that failed to live up to OSCE standards.” They characterized as “most troubling” a statement by Belarus leader Alexander Lukasheno to the effect that the West must accept the results of the election as “democratic” or his government will end efforts to improve relations.

UZBEKISTAN ADMITS RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. In an unusual move, the Uzbek Justice Ministry has admitted publicly that in some instances officials violated the rights of citizens and that some defendants were mistakenly sentenced to long prison terms, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported on September 22. The ministry says it is taking measures to punish those who broke the law or violated the public trust. The statement followed the findings of a presidential monitoring group that has been investigating reports of unfair trials and human rights violations.

Human rights groups consider the findings of the monitoring group to be "another show" for external consumption ahead of a European Union review, scheduled for October, of its currently suspended visa ban and arms embargo against Uzbekistan, RFE/RL added. The visa ban and arms embargo were instituted in the wake of the bloody government crackdown against protesters in Andijon in May 2005.

EU MAY SUE ITALY OVER DECREE TO EXPEL FOREIGNERS WHO COMMIT CRIMES. The Italian government angered the European Commission with its decree that would allow the automatic expulsion of other European Union (EU) citizens condemned to more than two years of jail there, Deutsche Welle reported on September 24. The Commission threatens Italy with legal action if it does not alter the decree, part of a package of measures against illegal immigrants and crime agreed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet in May. The package made illegal immigration an offense carrying a prison sentence and made the use of minors as beggars a crime punishable with up to three years in jail--a measure aimed at Roma, better known as Gypsies. The cabinet announced the package after right-wingers in the cabinet depicted Roma camps as dens of crime.

The EU said that Italy had ignored concerns that its proposals could fuel racism, saying that the decree "poses problems of compatibility with Community Law," according to a statement by EU Justice and Security Commissioner Jacques Barrot. The European Commission may take Italy to court

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, CALL FOR ‘A STABILITY LEAGUE’ * * * “If Russia is becoming what revolutionary France was under Napoleon or reverting to Soviet form--shorn of a totalitarian ideology but with an appetite for conquest and re-conquest--what is needed is not the ‘league of democracies’ advocated by some conservatives in the United States,” wrote Dominique Moisi of the French Institute for International Relations in an opinion piece in “The Moscow Times” dated September 23. “What is needed instead is a ‘stability league’ that includes prominent actors like China, India, and other countries that are more interested in economic growth than in ‘rocking the boat’ of the international system. Such a strategy implies first of all a solid partnership with China, not because it is evolving in the direction of democracy but because it is a status-quo power.”

STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM FINDS FEW CHANGES
In Former USSR, Only Uzbekistan Is Named a ‘Country of Particular Concern’

In its annual report on International Religious Freedom, the State Department noted that because of “the ongoing infringement of religious freedom and continuing instances of outright persecution, the United States government steadfastly promotes the respect of this universal human right.” Released on September 19, the report identified as its primary focus “to document the actions of governments--those that repress religious expression, persecute believers, and tolerate violence against religious minorities, as well as those that protect and promote religious freedom.”

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 requires the designation of countries that have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom" during the reporting period as "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPCs). Following the designation, negotiations may ensue, in which the United States seeks to work with a designated country to bring about change. Currently, the countries designated as CPCs are Burma, China, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan.

1. UZBEKISTAN SINGLED OUT. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated Uzbekistan as a CPC in November 2006, citing a restrictive law which “makes it difficult or impossible for many religious groups to obtain legal status” and the resulting “raids and arrests and imprisonment of religious leaders. There were continuing credible allegations that devout Muslims were arrested on suspicion of membership in extremist groups. Some of those detained were simply conservative Muslims whose beliefs or teachings differed from those of state-sanctioned clerics.” Following the CPC designation, a series of meetings ensued with Uzbek officials, aimed at encouraging improvements in religious freedom.

“A number of religious groups remained unregistered because they were unable to satisfy the strict registration requirements set out by the law,” the report noted. “Some unregistered Christian groups, particularly those with ethnic Uzbek members, experienced raids, harassment, and the detention of their leaders and members; some faced criminal charges. The government's campaign against unauthorized Islamic groups suspected of extremist sentiments or activities appeared to have slowed but did not cease.”

2. USCIRF CALLS ON STATE DEPARTMENT TO MAKE MORE CPC DESIGNATIONS. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) applauded the International Religious Freedom Report 2008 but expressed its concern that the State Department has not designated any CPC since November 2006. In a statement released the same day as the State Department annual report, USCIRF pointed out that the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which established both USCIRF and the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, specifically directs the Secretary of State to review religious freedom around the world on an annual basis and, based on that review, to designate as CPCs those countries in which the government has engaged in or tolerated "particularly severe violations of religious freedom."

3. RESTRICTIONS ON RELIGIOUS MINORITIES CONTINUE IN RUSSIA. As in previous years, the State Department report noted that the Russian government “generally respected freedom of religion for most of the population,” though “in some cases authorities imposed restrictions on certain groups and did not always respect separation of church and state and the equality of all religions before the law. Some federal agencies and many local authorities continued to restrict the rights of some religious minorities.”

The report pointed out that over the past year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the Russian government violated its international religious freedom obligations in cases involving the Moscow Church of Scientology and the Christ’s Grace Church of Evangelical Christians. “Some earlier ECHR decisions have still not been fully implemented,” the report observed. “Vague legislation countering ‘extremism’ has had a detrimental effect on religious freedom. There were indications that the security services, including the Federal Security Service, treated the leadership and literature of some minority religious groups as security threats. Popular attitudes toward traditionally Muslim ethnic groups are negative in many regions, and there are manifestations of antisemitism as well as hostility toward Roman Catholics and other non‑Orthodox Christian denominations.”

The State Department recorded “instances of religiously motivated violence continued, although it often was difficult to determine whether xenophobic, religious, or ethnic prejudices were the primary motivation behind violent attacks. Some Russian Orthodox Church clergy have stated publicly their opposition to any expansion of the presence of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and other non-Orthodox denominations. Instances of problems in securing entry visas for clergy increased.”

4. SMALL IMPROVEMENTS IN TURKMENISTAN BUT PERSECUTION GOES ON. Though the Turkmen Constitution provides for freedom of religion and does not establish a state religion, the report stressed that in practice the government continued to restrict the free practice of religion. “There were small improvements in the status of respect for religious freedom,” the report added, “but troubling developments in the treatment of some registered and unregistered groups continued.” All groups must register in order to gain legal status, the report pointed out, unregistered religious activity is illegal and may be punished by administrative fines.

The government threatened minority religious groups with fines, loss of employment and housing, and imprisonment. There were also reports of raids, and the government continued to arrest and charge Jehovah's Witnesses who conscientiously objected to military service.

5. BELARUS CONTINUES TO RESTRICT RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES. “The Belarusian government continued to restrict religious freedom in accordance with the provisions of a 2002 law on religion and a 2003 concordat with the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC), a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the only officially recognized Orthodox denomination,” the report stated. “Although there is no state religion, the concordat grants the BOC privileged status. Protestants in particular attracted negative attention. Authorities kept many religious communities waiting as long as several years for decisions about registration or property restitution. Authorities harassed and fined members of certain religious groups, especially those regarded as bearers of foreign cultural influence or as having a political agenda.”

The report pointed out that foreign missionaries, clergy, and humanitarian workers affiliated with churches faced many government-imposed obstacles, including deportation, and restrictions on foreign clergy increased during the reporting period. Also noted were instances of societal abuses and discrimination, including numerous acts of vandalism and arson of religious sites, buildings, and memorials.

6. UKRAINE GOVERNMENT RESPECTS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. In Ukraine, the government continued to respect religious freedom in practice, the State Department acknowledged. But, the report cautioned, local officials at times took sides in disputes between religious organizations, and property restitution problems remained. At the same time, the government “continued to facilitate the return of some communal properties.” Also observed were “instances of societal abuse and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice, including cases of antisemitism and anti-Islamism.”

“The U.S. government discusses religious freedom with the government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights and raise concerns about antisemitism,” the report stated, and “U.S. embassy representatives also raised concerns about antisemitism with local officials and promoted ethnic and religious tolerance through public outreach events.”
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