Volume Two, Number 2
Friday, January 11, 2002

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
_____________________________________________________________

RUSSIA TO BE FREE OF JACKSON-VANIK; BUT EIGHT OTHERS MAY NOT QUALIFY. Last fall the Bush administration won over important segments of Congress to the idea of pleasing America's new Russian ally by drafting legislation to grant it normal trade status and to lift the Jackson-Vanik amendment that the Russians have considered an insult ever since its enactment in 1974. Now administration officials have surprised Congress with a request to add eight former Soviet republics to the list of countries to be freed from Congressional constraint that may be imposed on account of a poor human rights record. They are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, and the main idea is to reward those countries that have proved helpful in the war on terrorism. With Congress in recess, the response to the list is unclear. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Ca), sponsor of the legislation of "graduating" Russia, is traveling abroad, as are many of his colleagues. While the initial reaction to the Bush administration initiative was not negative, Congressional aides are skeptical if all eight countries would be allowed to join Russia in one legislative package, at the same time, and ready for a vote by May, before the next Russian-American summit meeting. "There will be lots of strong objections to some of the countries," says one knowledgeable Congressional aide, "and negotiations on a final draft will take time. In comparison, graduating Russia is easy."

Human rights organizations are critical of the repression practiced by several of the governments that stand to benefit, at least in public relations terms, from having normal trade relations with the United States. (Experts suggest that normalization could encourage American investors.) Only two months ago, Bush administration officials making plans to drop trade restrictions to a number of former Soviet republics decided that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan would not qualify because of their human rights performance. The dictatorships of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan still have dismal records, many argue, and their graduation from trade restrictions would be undeserved, even if they have been helpful in the attack on the terrorists in Afghanistan. Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch told "The Washington Post" which broke the story on January 6, that such countries "see graduation as a sign that they have made it as full-fledged partners of the United States, and, from the American point of view, it seems to make sense because the law appears to be a relic of the Soviet era. Unfortunately, some of these countries are also relics of the Soviet era." Administration officials insist that removing the restrictions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment does not mean that the United States will stop monitoring the state of human rights in countries no longer subject to the amendment. But they do consider the amendment a Cold War weapon and no longer an effective tool in advancing current American strategy.

TURKMENISTAN FREES PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE. In a development that may well be related to administration efforts on Capitol Hill, on January 8 Turkmenistan freed its most prominent religious prisoner, Baptist Shageldy Atakov, before the expiration of his four-year sentence next May, Keston News Service learned. The terms of the release are not known. "There is unease because of the abnormal nature of the release," a spokesman for the U.S.-based Russian Evangelistic Ministries told Keston, pointing out that Atakov has received neither a release certificate nor his identity papers. A convert to Christianity, Atakov was arrested in December 1998 on charges of swindling and forging documents that seem to have been fabricated. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in March 1999, but was retried in August 1999 and given an increased sentence. Last May, in a deal brokered by U.S. diplomats, Atakov was brought to Ashgabad, where he met the head of the KNB (former KGB) and was pressured to emigrate with his family in return for his freedom. Atakov declined and was returned to prison.

Turkmen authorities continue to put pressure on Baptist congregations. Keston reports that a church in Balkanabad was raided on December 23 and a leading member of the Ashgabad congregation, Mikhail Kozlov, died in suspicious circumstances on December 22. "Turkmenistan has the harshest religious policy of all the former Soviet republics," according to Keston specialist Felix Corley. Only state-approved mosques and congregations of the Russian Orthodox Church have been permitted to register. The government treats all other religious communities as illegal, including all Protestant Christians, the Armenian Church, and the Baha'is. "Believers of unregistered faiths have been beaten, fined, imprisoned, and deported," Corley wrote this week. "Places of worship have been confiscated and, in several cases, demolished. Private homes used for unsanctioned religious meetings have been confiscated."

BEEFED-UP SIX-NATION GROUP TO FIGHT TERRORISM. The first foreign minister-level meeting of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) pledged a stepped-up anti-terrorist program targeting three Muslim groups: Chechen "bandits," Uighur "separatists" in China's Xinjiang province, and "religious extremists" in Uzbekistan. Zhou Li of China's Foreign Ministry explained that these three groups constitute "an important part of international terrorist forces, and they should be severely cracked down upon." According to news agency dispatches, on January 7 in Beijing the SCO -- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- agreed to set up a regional counter-terrorism agency and an emergency response mechanism to fight "the three forces" -- terrorism, religious extremism, and ethnic separatism. The two mechanisms will be formally established in June when the fledgling SCO will hold a summit in St. Petersburg, Russia and sign the organization's charter, Zhou said.

The six states also pledged to expand their role in the international antiterrorist coalition led by the United States. At the same time, their statement opposed "any efforts to impose political order in Afghanistan from the outside," which reads like a warning to U.S. policymakers. In its meetings since 1996, the SCO has opposed Western human rights criticisms over Russia's crackdown on Chechen rebels and China's suppression of ethnic minorities in its westernmost Xinjiang region. Using phrases echoing official Russian statements, Zhou complained about "different standards" applied to different terrorist organizations. His words were aimed at the United States, which stated before September 11 that those who belong to the Eastern Turkestan group in Xinjiang are not terrorists and that ethnic minorities in western China have legitimate economic and social needs that should be addressed politically.

RUSSIAN TROOPS USE HOLIDAY PERIOD TO SHOOT CIVILIANS IN CHECHNYA. Between New Year's eve and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated on January 7, Russians pay little attention to other events. Newspapers stop printing, and TV news broadcasts are cut back. But this year human rights activists have found what they describe as "mounting evidence" that roughly in that holiday time frame Russian troops staged operations that featured killings of Chechen civilians, according to "The Los Angeles Times" of January 7. The first operation began in Tsotsin-Yurt on December 30, targeting Chechen men, staff writer Maura Reynolds wrote, quoting Usam Baisaev of the Russian human rights group Memorial. Speaking from his office in Nazran, across the border in Ingushetia, Baisaev told Reynolds: "The soldiers kept shooting at any Chechen male they saw for four days in a row. They did not even bother to figure out whether the person they were about to deprive of life is or was a member of a rebel gang." According to official Russian reports, the second operation began in the town of Argun to hunt down as many as 30 alleged rebels.

Memorial investigator Kheda Saratova spent three days in Tsotsin-Yurt and reported that Russian troops killed at least 37 civilians. She said that in order to retrieve the bodies, relatives of the victims had to sign a statement acknowledging that their loved ones were members of rebel groups. "Troops kill peaceful civilians and then try to pass them off as rebels," Saratova told Reynolds. "The military just grab anyone who is at hand, and then the rest of the world has to trust their 'professionalism' when they say these people were bandits." Saratova cited the case of Musa Ismailov, a town mullah, taken away by Russian soldiers on December 30. To recover his body, his wife Malika paid 1,000 rubles (about $33) and signed a document saying he had been a rebel fighter. "This pretty much makes all members of our family fighters automatically," Malika Ismailov told Saratova. She is now afraid her 17-year-old son will avenge his father's death, and she will not be able to stop him. She said that "most of the people who are fighting against the federals today and whom the federals call bandits are ordinary people who want to avenge their relatives who were unjustly slaughtered by the federal troops."

Reynolds quoted Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies, who finds that most of the reports from Tsotsin-Yurt "sound very true. Things that would several years ago make one's hair stand on end today sound utterly commonplace." He concluded: "Because Russia has turned out to be a very useful and instrumental ally of the U.S. in fighting international terrorism, the West has completely turned a blind eye to what is happening in Chechnya."

On January 10, Army Chief of Staff Anatoly Kvashnin told the press that Russian troops crushed the last rebel units and, following the mopping-up operations launched in the last days of 2001, only insignificant pockets of resistance remain. He ruled out further attempts to negotiate. "There will be no more mistakes," Interfax news agency quoted Kvashnin as saying. "Our position is clear, no more concessions to bandits."

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX DIOCESE CHARGED WITH INCITING HATRED. Reversing an earlier decision, the Prosecutor's Office of Sverdlovsk Oblast is opening a criminal case against the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church on the grounds of a law that bans the incitement of ethnic and religious hatred. According to the newspaper "Vremya Novostey" last month, the law has been applied "extremely rarely." The case could set an important precedent.

Last July, Dr. Mikhail Oshtrakh, a Jewish leader in Sverdlovsk Oblast and a member of a presidium of the VAAD of Russia, sent appeals to the mayor of Yekaterinburg, the governor, and the Prosecutor's Office of Sverdlovsk Oblast, as well as the presidential plenipotentiary for the Urals region, asking that the distribution of antisemitic materials by the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church be stopped and that criminal charges be brought against the diocese. Dr. Oshtrakh informed UCSJ that the diocese is distributing a book containing the infamous forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" published in 1915 and written by Orthodox priest Sergey Nilus. The book has been reprinted in St. Petersburg by the Russian Orthodox publishing house and distributed in churches and icon stands in Yekaterinburg. In his appeal Dr. Ostrakh also pointed out that two of the diocese's newspapers have recently published antisemitic material.

On August 27, 2001 the Prosecutor's Office of Sverdlovsk Oblast formally refused to open a criminal case against the diocese. However, after receiving a new appeal signed by 16 ethnic organizations including Tatars, Kazakhs, Gypsies, and Greeks, the Urals Federal District's Department of the Federal Prosecutor General's Office reviewed that refusal. In a sharply worded letter sent to the Prosecutor's Office of Sverdlovsk Oblast on December 13, 2001, the federal authority chastised the oblast office for "not giving adequate attention to all the facts" laid out in Dr. Oshtrakh's appeal and for producing "unjustified red tape" rather than applying the law. It ordered that a criminal case be opened and the results of the investigation be given to Dr. Oshtrakh and the federal authority by February 14. Under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, incitement of ethnic and religious hatred is illegal, including the incitement of hatred through published material.

NEO-NAZIS TO STAND TRIAL IN ESTONIA. Three members of the neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity (RNU) will be put on trial later this month in Tallinn, according to a January 8 report by the Baltic News Service. They are men in their twenties, two of them Russian citizens. Investigators established that one man printed and all three men distributed some 2,000 copies of the RNU newspaper "Kolovrat" which incites hatred against Jews, Estonians, and people from the Caucasus. The two Russian citizens work as private security guards. If found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred, they face up to one year in prison and/or a fine.

LITHUANIAN STATE SECURITY MOVES AGAINST NEO-NAZIS. State Security Department officers reprimanded in writing ten residents of the northwestern Lithuanian town of Mazeikiai, their ages ranging from 16 to 21, for planning to set up a pro-Nazi organization, according to the newspaper "Lietuvos Rytas" on January 7. They were warned that involvement in "organizations directed against the state" and "violating race equality" might be regarded as criminal activities. The article, titled "Hitler's Admirers Quieted," also reported that after a two-week investigation, police filed criminal charges against a carpentry student of the polytechnic school, Egidijus Rozenbergas, 17, who admitted having desecrated the local Jewish cemetery with Nazi graffiti on November 2 last year. Other suspects gave evidence that Rozenbergas planned to set up the neo-Nazi group.

SLAP ON THE WRIST FOR PRO-GOVERNMENT THUGS IN BELARUS. For several years now reliable sources have charged that the police and courts in Belarus close their eyes to vicious attacks on anti-government individuals. On September 2 last year, students Dmitry Koshel and Svyatoslav Leskovsky were accused of harassing anti-government demonstrators near the Pushkin Metro station in Minsk on September 2 by shouting antisemitic threats. When a man passing by stood up for the demonstrators, the two students are said to have beaten him, causing a concussion and other injuries. The police detained the students but let them go after they explained their action. Later the victim demanded that criminal charges be brought against his attackers, but the prosecutor refused, bringing only administrative charges that carry lighter penalties. According to Belapan news agency, on December 21, 2001 the Fruznensky District Court of Minsk found Koshel not guilty and fined Leskovsky, who did not bother to show up for the trial, the equivalent of three months of minimum wages.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "During the last ten years Central Asia has not been able to achieve stabilization or the economic balance between development and human rights," Giorgio Fiacconi wrote in the "Times of Central Asia" on January 7. "Today a new challenge lies ahead in the introduction of much demanded and needed reforms. The current rebound of international cooperation and support is offering a unique opportunity to all Central Asian leaders to create a new approach."

ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE RISES IN FRANCE
Attacks on Jewish Institutions Multiply in a Land of Grandeur

Though French Jews are divided in their assessments of the seriousness of the rise in antisemitic violence, few if any of them deny that they face a problem. Some observers go as far calling France the European country where Jewish communal life is most at risk today. Recent incidents include arson destroying a Jewish kindergarten in Marseilles, break-ins into several synagogues in the Paris area, and people spitting on Jews wearing skullcaps. The Interior Ministry claims it is acting to prevent such attacks and will apprehend the perpetrators, but the Jewish community is skeptical about the sincerity of the statements and does not expect results.

Many French Jews feel physically threatened, especially the Orthodox, the working class, and those who live in the suburbs of Paris and other towns. The fine rhetoric of patriotism gives scant comfort. Still, it is good to hear President Jacques Chirac condemning antisemitic violence as "diametrically opposed to the values France stands for." His statement then went on deploring "the reduction of the state's authority" - a reference to the attacks on the police, who are increasingly reluctant to enter certain neighborhoods or to defend property. On December 1, Roger Cukierman, who heads the central organization known as CRIF -- translated as the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France -- delivered an eloquent cri de coeur at the annual dinner of communal leaders and addressed the guest of honor, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin: "In this land, where our blood was spilled for the homeland together with that of our fellow citizens, where many Jews have contributed to the grandeur of France in the sciences, arts, and culture, we feel threatened. Hatred of Jews has resurfaced. And for the first time in half a century, shouts of 'Death to the Jews' can be heard in Paris, and some synagogues have been torched."

In extending a hand of friendship to the Muslim community in France, Cukierman blended anguish and skepticism: "Unfortunately, the notion that Islam is a religion of love is not shared by all. How can one hope for reconciliation when the innocence of children is employed by the fanatics to foment hatred?" He noted: "We who live Judaism not only as a religion, but also as a moral and ethical code and a culture, cannot imagine that Islam is any different. We are sure that many responsible Muslims will finally express -- in strong, audible voices -- their rejection of fanaticism."

Among government officials as well as assimilated Jews, the tendency is to blame the malaise among young Muslim immigrants from North Africa, some of them born in France, who have also attacked banks and the police. Especially since September 11, there is much talk about "the deep problems" of Arab youth unable to find a niche in French society and the helplessness of the authorities in dealing with them beyond repeating the slogan, also used on this side of the Atlantic: "Terrorism is not Islam." Moreover, the Palestinian intifada has radicalized Arabs in France, whose number is estimated as well over 5 million, or about ten times the Jewish population. But many if not most French Jews are convinced that there is a causal link between the antisemitic violence and the emotional climate created by the bias of the government and the news media in favor of the Palestinians.

* * * *

[HOME] [ACT] [CONNECT] [JOIN] [ABOUT] [SEARCH]