Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Bigotry Monitor: Volume 3, Number 2

News

Bigotry Monitor: Volume 3, Number 2

(January 10, 2003)

Volume 3, Number 2
Friday, January 10, 2003

BIGOTRY MONITOR
A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, andReligious 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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AZERIS IN RUSSIA MURDERED IN LARGE NUMBERS, BAKU NEWSPAPER SAYS. "Murders of our compatriots in Russia have taken on a mass scale," the Azeri newspaper "Hurriyyat" published in Baku wrote on January 7 in an article headlined "Six Corpses Were Brought from Russia to Azerbaijan Yesterday." The subhead said: "The number of our compatriots killed over the past five days reached 17." According to the article, only one of the six victims shipped back to Azerbaijan on January 6 was identified by name: Emin Ahmadov, described as "engaged in small business" for the past four years in the Russian city of Tolyati. The article said that excepting one person who had died a natural death, all the Azeris whose bodies were brought home were victims of racially motivated, anti-Caucasian violence.

FAR-RIGHT PARTY RECEIVES STERN WARNING FROM JUSTICE MINISTRY. The Justice Ministry has warned the National Great Power Party of Russia of the unacceptability of extremist activities and attempts to hide violations of the law, Interfax reported on January 8. A day earlier, the Justice Ministry's press service told Interfax that the document, signed by Deputy Justice Minister Yevgeny Sidorenko, gives the party three days after receiving a warning to announce in public its position on an interview that one of its leaders, Boris Mironov, conducted with the “Moskovskye Novosti" newspaper. The party has to report this step to the ministry no later than January 15.

The Justice Ministry charged that Mironov's interview includes calls to ethnically based restrictions of constitutional rights, such as stripping ethnic minorities, including Jews, of their voting rights. Moreover, the warning states, such statements can qualify as attempts to incite national discord and humiliate the national dignity of certain peoples, which violate Article 32 of the Constitution and Article 1 of federal legislation on the fight against extremist activities. Under Article 15 of federal legislation, the party has to openly voice its disagreement with Mironov's statements within 15 days after the interview's publication. So far, no such moves by the party have been made known to the Justice Ministry so far. The warning may be appealed in court.

TATARSTAN TO DEFY IMPOSITION OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS. Discussing the planned introduction of a course on the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" in schools throughout the Russian Federation, Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaymiev told Archbishop Anastasiy of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tatarstan that the republic's mostly Muslim population must be taken into account, and the archbishop agreed, according to the Tatar-Inform News Agency. Their meeting, also attended by a delegation of Orthodox clergy, took place on January 5, on the eve of the Russian Orthodox Christmas, a traditional time for a ceremonial get-together. President Shaymiev conveyed to all Orthodox believers his wishes for "success, peace, and accord."

The news agency headlined its item, "Tatar President Warns Against Forced Approach to Orthodox Religious Teaching in Schools," and quoted Shaymiev as saying: "There is no religious tension in the republic. However, at times tension is artificially whipped up by narrow-minded politicians or some departments at the federal level." To work out "a single approach to the problem" of Orthodox instruction will be held soon, to be attended by representatives of all faiths, the news agency added. Shaymiev warned that if any proposals are dictated to Tatarstan from above, they will not be carried out.

TURKMEN REGIME WARNS U.S. NOT TO CRITICIZE ITS HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD. Turkmenistan, which has accused Russia and Uzbekistan of playing a role in a November 26 attempt to assassinate President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov, took on the United States on January 8, charging a bias in criticizing the Central Asian republic's human rights abuses, according to a Reuters dispatch from the capital Ashgabat.

In a New Year's Eve statement, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said that the United States is "deeply concerned by the conduct of authorities in Turkmenistan" as it has obtained "credible reports of torture and abuse of suspects." The State Department charged that Turkmen authorities had carried out summary trials and arrested opposition members and civil society activists not connected to the attack. Turkmenistan has also accused senior Russian officials of protecting the plotters and the Uzbek ambassador of hiding former Turkmen Foreign Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, later sentenced to life imprisonment as the plot's ringleader. Now Reuters reports that all Turkmen newspapers - every one of them state-run - published an open letter, supposedly written by their editors, that warned: "Philip T. Reeker, we advise you not to make painstaking but futile efforts and not to bust your gut in the hope that your calumnious allegations ... will be able to split the Turkmen nation."

LITHUANIAN NEO-NAZIS GAIN IN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, POPULIST WINS PRESIDENCY. Though in recent year Lithuania has made some progress as a functioning democracy and free market economy, a significant minority of voters is attracted to extremism. Last week, a neo-Nazi party won four out of 31 seats in the parliament of the city of Siauliai and one seat in the city of Alytus, according to a report posted on NTV's web site. The party - the Lithuanian National Democratic Party -- is the latest incarnation of the Union of National-Socialist Lithuanians, headed by Mindaugas Murza. He founded a Siauliai branch of the party five years ago, but after the authorities kept refusing to register it, the party has undergone numerous name changes and eventually merged with the Lithuanian National Democratic Party, which Murza now heads. In his campaign registration, Murza acknowledged that he has a criminal conviction for illegal possession of explosives. In Kaunas, voters refused to elect any member of the Lithuanian National Democratic Party, and its candidates were taken off the ballot in the city of Panevezys after the discovery that unlike their leader, they had not acknowledged their criminal records.

Championing Lithuanian membership in NATO and eventually in the European Union (EU) does not earn credit with the electorate. On January 6, Rolandas Paksas, a former prime minister, won a surprise victory in the presidential runoff election, ousting the centrist incumbent, Valdas Adamkus, who had focused on NATO and the EU, Agence France Presse reports. Paksas's margin of victory was a respectable 55 to 45 percent, however the voter turnout was a very low 52 percent, and he outspent Adamkus. Adamkus, a 76-year-old returnee from the United States, who had been expected to win after garnering 35 percent of the vote in the first round two weeks earlier. Analysts suggest that Paksas won by campaigning against Adamkus's grandstanding on stability and foreign policy breakthroughs and bringing up instead mundane but powerful domestic issues such as pensions, salaries, and corruption. Lithuania was one of ten Central and Eastern European nations invited last month to negotiate accession to EU in 2004.

While some observers are concerned that Paksas is a populist leaning to the right, even a potential Lithuanian Jean-Marie Le Pen, others see him as an ambitious young man combining the values of his two earlier professions, a stunt pilot and an operator of a small business. "He is erratic," says one source who knows him well. "He is not a right-wing radical as some people think he is. He thinks of himself as a patriot, which may or may not be right. More importantly, he is connected with Lukoil, the giant Russian oil company that has designs on Lithuania, gives money to politicians, and enjoys an unsavory reputation of forcing people to do its bidding."

SEVEN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS DROWN OFF THE SPANISH COAST. Cold weather has not stopped the influx of Africans risking their lives in rickety boats to start a new life - or at least to get jobs - in Spain. Last week, seven illegal immigrants from Morocco drowned when their boat ran into rocks, according to Reuters. Of the 35 people who survived the shipwreck, police arrested 27; eight escaped. The Spanish press noted that the death toll is the highest since the bodies of 13 Africans were washed up on the same stretch of Spain's southern coast last August. In a separate incident, the number of illegal immigrants killed in a fire last week at a Spanish police station rose to four, officials said. They were detained, waiting for their deportation. According to figures released by the immigration authorities, last year Spain sent back to their countries of origin 74,467 immigrants -- 23,381of them Moroccans -- 58 percent more than in 2001.

25 JOURNALISTS KILLED IN 2002, MEDIA GROUP SAYS. In 2002, 25 journalists were killed worldwide, as opposed to 31 in 2001, the media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders reported on January 6. In its annual report, the Paris-based group said that most of those killed last year were targeted by armed groups, as for instance Daniel Pearl, "The Wall Street Journal" reporter who was kidnapped and killed by Islamic militants in Pakistan. In at least ten other cases, "the state, especially the army, was directly involved," the group said. "Hardly any murders of journalists in recent years have been solved," the report noted. In many countries, the report added, the authorities used the global war against terrorism as an excuse to arrest reporters, including journalists accused of supporting rebels in Chechnya and Colombia.

Another group that tracks the fate of journalists is the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Last week it said that 19 journalists were killed worldwide in the line of duty. The figures vary, depending on whether support staff, such as drivers and translators, are counted, and whether there are questions about the causes of a reporter's death.

In 2002, at least 692 journalists were arrested, compared to 489 in 2001, Reporters Without Borders said. In Nepal alone, at least 130 journalists and media assistants were arrested, the group said. As of New Year's Day, 118 journalists around the world were behind bars. The group listed 389 cases where the media were censored, a slight increase - 11 more than the year earlier. Among the worst offenders were China, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

SLOVAKIA'S ROMA ARE MOVED INTO SEGREGATED AREAS. An increasing number of Slovakia's 400,000 Roma, also known as Gypsies, "are being moved into segregated areas," according to "The Christian Science Monitor" of January 8. The report notes that despite pressure from the European Union (EU) to integrate minorities, "several towns in eastern Slovakia have recently passed ordinances banning Roma from entering the city limits, let alone living inside them." Slovakia is hoping to enter the EU.

The article mentions that earlier this year, the city of Kosice relocated the last "white" Slovak family in the Lunik IX -- identified as a Roma slum on the edge of the country's second-largest city -- making Lunik IX the largest Roma ghetto in Slovakia and "concluding a process started by Rudolf Schuster," then the mayor of Kosice and now president of the republic. In 1997, Kosice's city council, headed by Schuster, announced a $50 million "city beautification project" to clean up the city for tourism. Part of the plan was to evict some 25,000 Roma from the center and move them to segregated areas. A document, signed by former district mayor Andrej Weber and seen by "Monitor" reporter Arie Farnam, designated Lunik IX as "small, substandard housing for Roma." "Moving Roma to Lunik IX is a normal development," says Zdenko Trebula, the current mayor. "If you know for a fact that a certain group of people is criminal and intolerable, of course you will not want them for neighbors. Besides, Roma don't pay the rent."

The "Monitor" quotes Claude Cahn, a researcher with the European Roma Rights Center, a Budapest-based legal group: "The Romany population is being systematically segregated in Slovak society - in housing, in schools, you name it. Since 1998, the situation has worsened in terms of skinhead violence and police violence. Prominent Slovak politicians are making radical statements about confining the Romany population and using mass sterilization to decrease their number." The newspaper offers the following statistics: Ninety-five percent of the Roma population in eastern Slovakia is unemployed, and virtually all Roma children in Slovakia attend segregated schools with a remedial curriculum designed for the mentally retarded.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "If you want to know how interethnic conflict begins, look at Slovakia right now," "The Christian Science Monitor" quotes Slovak writer Kristina Magdolenova as saying. "Some day, in 10 or 20 years, it will explode into violence. The Roma population is growing, and they are being literally forced to the margins of society and absolutely denied any hope for education or gainful employment. Eventually, like all people, they will fight back. This is a time bomb in the middle of Europe."

ANTI-JEWISH INCIDENTS IN FRANCE RESUME
Prominent Paris Rabbi Stabbed

France's new right-of-center government has suffered a setback in its efforts to end the wave of anti-Jewish violence, most of it perpetrated by young Muslim immigrants from North Africa. On January 3, Friday afternoon, an intruder stabbed Rabbi Gabriel Farhi twice in the abdomen. The attacker wore a motorcycle helmet and shouted "God is great"' in Arabic before fleeing, Farhi said. A few hours earlier, Farhi had received a threatening letter vowing to "avenge the blood of our Palestinian brothers" and referring to a fire that had damaged his synagogue last May. On January 6, his car was set on fire.

Farhi was treated at a hospital and released the same day.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe condemned the attack as "an odious aggression." He expressed "profound solidarity with Rabbi Farhi and his family" and extended his sympathy to the Jewish community. On October 6, 2002, Delanoe underwent emergency surgery after being stabbed in the abdomen by a man who said he disliked homosexuals.Farhi, 34, runs the Jewish Liberal Movement of France, which is affiliated with the World Union of Progressive Judaism. He is known for his involvement in efforts to improve understanding between French Jews and other religious groups, especially Muslims. He has also called for a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

An epidemic of anti-Jewish violence hit France after Israeli-Palestinian fighting broke out in September 2000 and peaked in the months that followed the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. One survey listed 400 incidents that ranged from a verbal assault on the street to firebombing synagogues and Jewish schools. But over the past half a year, the new government's hard line on crime and North African juvenile gangs led to an abrupt drop in anti-Jewish incidents. The conspicuous presence of police protecting Jewish institutions is widely believed to have made an impact, as did an active dialog with different sections of the Muslim community championed by the energetic new interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy.

"We had the feeling that incidents targeting the Jewish community were decreasing, that [the situation] was improving," the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) quoted Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF umbrella organization of French Jews, as saying after Rabbi Farhi's stabbing. According to the JTA, after the number of anti-Jewish incidents diminished, the police presence was removed except at the most sensitive locations, and French officials did not announce any new major security measures following the attack on Farhi. However, the JTA added, the Simon Wiesenthal Center upgraded its travel advisory on France to "extreme caution."

The number of French Jews who moved to Israel more than doubled last year to 2,566, the highest number since 1972, according to the Jewish Agency, which arranges immigration to Israel. Most Jews emigrating are between 16 and 35 years old, and roughly two-thirds have college degrees, the agency said. French opinion tends to link the upsurge to the uncertain security situation in France, where an estimated 600,000 Jews live, some of them in close proximity to members of a Muslim community, whose total number is about ten times that figure.
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