Volume 2, Number 11
Friday, March 15, 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
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BUSH PASSES "UZBEK TEST." The Bush administration surprised the human rights community by balancing expressions of appreciation to partners in the war on terrorism with admonitions to stop their violations of human rights. On March 12, President George Bush thanked his guest, Uzbek President Islam Karimov, for having been the first Central Asian state to offer the United States a military base for use in the war in neighboring Afghanistan. Last year's $55 million in U.S. aid to Uzbekistan will now triple, in addition to $55 million in Export-Import Bank credits. But in a 45-minute Oval Office meeting Bush also pressed Karimov on human rights, the White House announced. The same day Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate subcommittee: "Karimov has been a solid coalition partner. At the same time, there are problems with respect to human rights in Uzbekistan, and we will not shrink from discussing them." Officials from the two countries signed an agreement on Strategic Partnership committing the U.S. to "regard with grave concern any external threat" to Uzbekistan as well as committing Uzbekistan to "intensify the democratic transformation of its society."

In Tashkent the day earlier, activist Mikhail Ardzinov proudly showed the Associated Press one of the first official registrations of an independent human rights group in Uzbekistan. He said he received the document after years of campaigning for it. U.S. officials and independent observers told the AP that the registration of Ardzinov's organization a week ago is among a series of actions that show that Karimov's "authoritarian government is loosening the reins.” AP reporter Burt Herman noted: "Expectations were that Uzbekistan's involvement in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition would give Karimov's regime a green light to step up persecution of alleged religious extremists." But Ardzinov told him that the number of arrests and convictions on religious grounds is now running at a fourth or a fifth of previous levels.

"There is no doubt that Uzbekistan has an appalling human rights record, and registering one group doesn't change that,'' said Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch. "What it does is set a precedent of what can be achieved if you really engage the Uzbeks and press them for a human rights concession.'' In an article titled "Bush's Uzbekistan Test" in the "Christian Science Monitor" on March 13, Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House, wrote: "Bush should press Karimov to stop repression of legitimate human-rights and political activists, legalize civic groups, allow an independent review of the estimated 8,000 political prisoners, and restore the rights of political parties such as Erk and Birlik… Unchecked, Karimov's policies will drive discontent further underground. There, it will likely be more susceptible to the manipulations of extremists, who may reemerge to menace Uzbekistan, its neighbors, and -- through links to global terrorist networks -- the U.S." Amnesty International has expressed particular concern with the repression of religious freedom. It said: “The violation of the rights of members and presumed members of independent Islamic congregations and their families is particularly severe and widespread.”

“Pro-democracy observers hope that the drift of four official political parties, which Karimov founded or approved, will lead to centrist or moderate opposition positions,” says Abdumannob Polat, director of the Central Asian Human Rights Information Network at UCSJ. He expressed hope that “new opposition forces with realistic agendas” will emerge or that some currently radical opposition members will shift to “more moderate positions.”

Karimov's press secretary, Rustan Jumaev, told the AP: "Uzbekistan has no tradition of democracy. In ten years we have taken the first steps toward democracy. The United States took 200 years to establish its democracy. There is a political will and desire for this to happen.'' Karimov, characterized by "The New York Times" as "a pariah-turned-ally," told reporters in Blair House on March 13: "Yes, indeed, we have problems with human rights."

ANTI-AMERICAN FEELING RISES IN RUSSIA. Only 17% of Russians see the United States as a "friendly state" and 71% hold "the opposite opinion," according to a poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) using 1,500 respondents in 44 regions. Media reports on March 8 cited VTsIOM as explaining that its previous poll reported only 44% of the respondents considering the U.S. “not a friendly state.” The sharp increase is primarily the result of Russia's problems in the Winter Olympic Games, the pollsters suggested. The poll also revealed that most Russians remain suspicious of NATO, with 56% believing that Russia has reason to fear NATO countries, while 30% do not. At the same time, 58% of Russians believe that NATO members have grounds to feel threatened by Russia. Only 7% agree with the U.S. in conflicts with Iraq, Iran, or Syria, while 20% think Russia should side with those countries. However, the majority believe that Russia should distance itself from such conflicts and take advantage of any confrontations that develop. Another poll, by the independent Russian Public Opinion and Market Research, found that 40.4% of Russians want federal troops to continue military actions in Chechnya until the rebels are eliminated, while 16.7% of those surveyed think it is necessary to withdraw the troops from Chechnya and recognize the republic's independence.

RUSSIA'S TOP MUFTI LINKS MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN EXTREMISTS. Russia's Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin has lashed out against Islamic extremists as responsible for the war in Chechnya, as well as Christian “extremists” who in Ukraine created "confrontations between believers resulting in bloodshed." In an interview titled "Who Is Threatening Russian Spiritual Space" published on March 13 in the Moscow daily "Nezavisimaya Gazeta," Tadzhuddin -- the chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia and the European CIS Countries - issued a strange warning, lumping together Islamic fundamentalists with evangelical Christians and implying that they are equally dangerous: "If we turn a blind eye today to the spread of foreign Christian structures in the Russian Federation, new formations connected with foreign Islam will fill Russia tomorrow." He identified the enemy as "the sect or cult member" who appears in a traditional Christian or Muslim "dwelling place," "propagates his beliefs," "publishes newspapers, hands out souvenirs, distributes humanitarian aid. He buys television time, erects a three-story mansion on a grassy plot, while followers of traditional faiths cannot always pay for electricity and heating. Do you really think that the native population can remain silent at the sight of this? You are mistaken."

NEW WAVE OF SKINHEAD VIOLENCE IN MOSCOW. Early in the morning on March 6, a skinhead shot two Azeris in Moscow with a homemade gun, according to a report posted on the web site of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. Both were taken to the hospital. Within a 24-hour period, police reported that about 30 skinheads beat a citizen of Senegal at the Novokuznetskaya metro station and ten skinheads attacked two Azeris at the Belorusskaya train station. On March 9, skinheads pounced on a couple from Sri Lanka, Moscow police informed Interfax. The Sri Lankans, both of them students at Moscow universities, told the police that two men beat them at the Aeroport metro station and then ran away, leaving them with serious head injuries. The police are looking for the assailants, described as thick-set men between 20 and 25 years of age, wearing the skinhead “uniform” of heavy black boots and dark jackets with orange lining. This last incident was the eighth apparently racially motivated attack on foreigners in the Moscow metro over the past two months.

POLICE OPERATION TARGETS ROMA. Moscow’s own Interior Ministry's main directorate is conducting a police action codenamed "Tabor" against local Roma (Gypsies) in an effort to expel them from Moscow, "Moskovsky Komsomolets" reported on March 6. Documents cited by the daily described the Roma as "socially dangerous criminals" and ordered officials to identify Roma communities as well as those who rent them apartments. Roma rights activists condemned the operation as "disgraceful," and pointed out that "it is a shame to call a nationality a 'social criminal group,'" BBC reported. Regional media reports from cities ranging from Lipetsk in the west, Krasnodar in the south, and Petropavlovsk in the Far East suggest that Operation Tabor is most likely a countrywide police action targeted against the Roma.

CRIMINAL CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST DISTRIBUTORS OF ANTISEMITIC BOOK. The Yekaterinburg Prosecutor's Office has dropped a case against the Sverdlovsk Oblast diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church for distributing material that incites ethnic and religious hatred, UCSJ has learned. The reason cited is "lack of evidence of a crime." Last July, Dr. Mikhail Oshtrakh, president of the Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy of 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 the Sverdlovsk region, as well as the presidential plenipotentiary for the Urals region demanding that the local Orthodox diocese stop its sale of antisemitic publications which include a book by Sergey Nilus containing excerpts from the infamous forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Oshtrakh also asked that criminal charges be brought against the diocese, as the incitement of ethnic or religious hatred is illegal under the Russian Criminal Code, including the incitement of hatred through published material. The charges were dropped following an open letter to President Vladimir Putin, signed a few weeks ago by twelve members of the State Duma, that blasted the decision to investigate the Church, claiming that there is nothing antisemitic about Nilus' writings. Local Cossack leaders made a similar statement.

LATVIAN NEO-NAZI GROUP TRAINS YOUTH IN COMBAT SKILLS. A branch of the violent neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity (RNU) based in Liepaja, Latvia trains local youth in combat skills and has launched the newspaper "New Order," according to the Latvia-based, Russian-language daily "Chas" of March 2. The RNU's Liepaja branch was formed in 1994 by Evgeny Osipov, who is still its leader, the article said. Since the RNU split into several parts in late 2000, its Liepaja branch has developed independently, recruiting young people, training them in shooting and hand-to-hand combat, and distributing antisemitic publications. The article claimed that Osipov has Jewish relatives in Israel, a fact that he allegedly tries to hide. Latvian authorities have rejected attempts by the RNU to register itself and legally print its newspapers, leading to a constant renaming of its publications. According to "Chas," the first issue of "New Order" featured an article proposing that if the new head of the Latvian Jewish community wanted "to fight against corruption, he should shoot himself!" Another article accused Jews of generating tension between Russians and Latvians.

In 2001, four members of the RNU were arrested, charged with a series of brutal armed robberies, "Chas" recalled. All four suspects were unemployed men in their early twenties, two of them RNU members since ages 15 and 16. The other two were members for about a year only, and each had spent time in prison for robbery and illegal possession of weapons. In one robbery, the RNU thugs beat a young woman, tortured her with electric shocks, and then handcuffed her to a radiator. Police are said to have found a large quantity of firearms in the suspects' apartments and baseball bats engraved with the RNU symbol of a modified swastika.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * “In most of the countries which emerged from the Soviet Union, seventy years of official atheism has secularized religion, even Islam, and emasculated the traditional religious confessions,” Lawrence Uzzell, director of the Oxford-based Keston Institute, told RFE/RL in Washington on March 7. "Corruption is what dominates church-state relations, particularly in Russia. As a result, local religious leaders rarely take a position on state matters that have a direct impact on their moral teachings and beliefs, such as the homeless in major cities, abortion, war atrocities in Chechnya or forced expulsions."

STATE DEPARTMENT HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTS HIT HARD
Uzbekistan Scores Low, Belarus Worse, but Latvia Qualifies as a Parliamentary Democracy

The State Department's Human Rights Reports for 2001, released on March 4, do not spare friends from criticism and show a maturity of judgment when it comes to enemies. In presenting the study of some 2.8 million words, Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner said that policymakers have learned a lesson from the Cold War and reached the conclusion that neglecting the poor human rights record of allies is a mistake. On the subject of noting anti-democratic behavior by partners in the war on terrorism, Craner predicted that improved performance will be "an important byproduct of our alliance with them."

"Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights," begins the State Department's 17,000-word report on the strategic Central Asian republic. (For a review of the section on Russia, see Bigotry Monitor of March 8, 2002, Vol. 2, No. 10.) The report summed up President Islam Karimov's reelection in 2000 as "neither free nor fair" and characterized the parliament as consisting "almost entirely of officials appointed by the president and members of parties that support the president." Though the Constitution calls for an independent judiciary, the report found that the executive branch "heavily influences the courts in both civil and criminal cases" and charged that both the police and the secret police "committed numerous serious human rights abuses." The report detailed questionable deaths of prisoners and torture by police using suffocation, electric shock, and rape.

The State Department declared the Uzbek human rights record "very poor" and charged that the government "severely restricts freedom of speech and the press," "limits" freedom of assembly and association, bans unauthorized public meetings and demonstrations, and "police forcibly disrupted some protests during the year." Opposition parties and other groups that may be critical of the government are denied registration, and the government harassed and arrested hundreds of Islamic leaders not approved by the government as well as believers, citing “the threat of extremism." Minority religions are tolerated but limits are placed on their activities. "Following fighting with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in 2000, the government forcibly resettled five villages, and the villagers were not permitted to return home during the year," the report charged.

"The resettlement of other villages reportedly continued during the year." Local non-governmental organizations working on human rights were restricted. "Security forces abused human rights activists," the study continued. "The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman reported that it assisted hundreds of citizens in redressing human rights abuses, the majority of which involve allegedly unjust court decisions and claims of abuse of power by police; however, most of the successfully resolved cases were relatively minor."

“The repression of pious Muslims continued,” the report said. While the authorities tolerate many Christian evangelical groups, they often harass those that try to convert Muslims. Police have broken up meetings of unregistered groups, and leaders are fined and imprisoned. Jehovah's Witnesses charge that they are subjected routinely to police questioning, search, and arbitrary fines, and police repeatedly raided their meetings.

In discussing Belarus, the State Department could not find anything truly encouraging. "The regime's human rights record continued to be very poor and worsened in several areas," the report began, referring contemptuously as "the regime" to Alexander Lukashenko's dictatorship. "The authorities continued to limit severely the right of citizens to change their government." Before the September presidential elections, "the regime committed widespread human and civil rights violations, including physical mistreatment of opponents, manipulation of the regime-dominated mass media, intimidation of election observers, and manipulation of the vote count." There were no serious efforts "to account for disappearances in previous years of well-known opposition political figures," and the authorities discounted "credible reports during the year regarding the regime's role in those disappearances." Security forces continued the practice of beating political opponents, detainees, and others. Citizens were arbitrarily arrested and detained, and "the number of apparently politically motivated detentions greatly increased."

The security services monitored closely the activities of opposition politicians, human rights organizations, and other segments of the population. "Severe restrictions" continued on freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of peaceful assembly or association was not respected, and several new decrees were introduced further restricting these freedoms. Another section of the report noted: "Police frequently beat participants in demonstrations and at times denied them food while they were in detention." Prior to the September presidential elections, "there were many reported beatings by police and plainclothesmen." The authorities continued to restrict freedom of religion, favoring the Russian Orthodox Church at the expense of the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Greek Catholic, and Autocephalous Orthodox churches, while "antisemitism persisted."

The authorities continued to enforce a 1995 decree that controls religious workers in an attempt to protect Orthodoxy and prevent the growth of evangelical religions, the study found. Other restrictions included a Council of Ministers directive banning teaching religion at youth camps and forbidding foreigners from preaching or heading churches, at least in case of “nontraditional faiths or sects,“ which include Protestant groups. The Roman Catholic Church has experienced a shortage of native clergy, and at times it had difficulty getting permission from the authorities to bring in foreign religious workers, mostly from Poland, to make up for the shortage. In September after a long delay, the regime gave permission to the Catholic Church to open a seminary in Minsk. The regime indicated that in light of this development, foreign priests no longer would be allowed to work in the country; however, this change may not be enforced at the local level.

“Regime officials took a number of hostile actions toward the Jewish community,” the report noted, and “did little to counter the spread of antisemitic literature.” The authorities arrested two members of the Jewish community for holding an unsanctioned picket protesting the illegal destruction of a former synagogue in Minsk. Charges were dropped in one case, but the organizer of the picket was awaiting trial at year's end. “The regime refused to help maintain Jewish cemeteries and historic monuments, or create memorials to Belarusian Holocaust victims,” the report charged, and the authorities once again attempted to prohibit the distribution of matzoh for Passover. Also noted was “a noticeable lack of regime action in redressing earlier instances of antisemitic vandalism. For example, no discernible effort was made by the authorities to find those responsible for the fire bombing of a Minsk synagogue in December 2000.”

One positive development in 2001 was the absence of "conclusive reports of political killings committed by the regime or its agents." However, several credible reports surfaced "implicating senior levels of the regime in the 2000 disappearance of journalist Dimitry Zavadsky and the 1999 disappearances of opposition figures Yury Zakharenko, Viktor Gonchar, and Anatoliy Krasovsky." The State Department seemed to give credence to testimony that a "death squad" ordered by the authorities killed these four men, and the report stated that two operatives of the Prosecutor's Office working on the case of the disappeared "died under mysterious circumstances."

On the other hand, the State Department praised Latvia as a parliamentary democracy, with free and fair elections. The government "generally respects the constitutional provision for an independent judiciary in practice; however, the judiciary is not well trained, efficient, or free from corruption." The report called the government generally respectful of the human rights of its citizens and the large resident non-citizen community, but noted "problems," such as the security forces, including the police and other Interior Ministry personnel, sometimes using excessive force and mistreating individuals. Prison conditions remained poor, and lengthy pretrial detention was a problem. According to the report, the judiciary was "inefficient" and did not always ensure the fair administration of justice. There were some reports of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. But U.S. diplomats received no reports of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life, nor of politically motivated disappearances. There were no political prisoners, and the government "generally respects" the Constitutional provisions for freedom of speech and of the press.

The report cited the Latvian Constitution as providing for freedom of religion, and found that "the government generally respects this right in practice; however, bureaucratic problems for minority religions persisted" as exemplified in the government distinguishing between "traditional" (Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Old Believers, Baptist, and Jewish) and "new" religions. "The Constitution provides for freedom of association," the State Department report noted, and acknowledged that the government "generally respects this right in practice; however, the Law on Registering Public Organizations bars the registration of Communist, Nazi, or other organizations whose activities would contravene the Constitution." The report did not discuss the merits of that restriction.
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