Volume 2, Number 15
Friday, April 19, 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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ORIANA FALLACI FILES HER 'J'ACCUSE.' Rome's venerable "Corriere della Sera" put on the front page an article by leading Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci on the “new” antisemitism in Western Europe. The following are excerpts from her cri de coeur reminiscent of Emile Zola's "J'accuse" in defense of the falsely accused Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1898: "I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews…I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the keffiyeh just as Mussolini's avant garde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge. I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture antisemitism…I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent antisemitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or keffiyeh who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv."

Fallaci's conclusion: "And disgusted by the antisemitism of many Italians, of many Europeans, I am ashamed of this shame that dishonors my country and Europe. At best, it is not a community of states, but a pit of Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet were to think otherwise, I would continue to think so."

GERMANY FINDS EXPLOSION IN TUNISIAN SYNAGOGUE A SUICIDE ATTACK. It took Germany's Minister of Interior Otto Schilly only two days of investigation to announce that the explosion on April 11 in Africa's oldest synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba was a terrorist's suicide attack, rather than “a tragic accident" as claimed by Tunisia’s government, worried about the impact on the tourist trade. The blast killed 15 people - ten of them German tourists -- in addition to the man who drove a truck filled with propane gas into the synagogue wall. Three more Germans are in critical condition. The German press describes Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as annoyed with the Tunisian government for having speedily removed material evidence from the synagogue under the pretext of repair and refusing to acknowledge a terrorist act. On April 14, Schroeder pledged that his government will "do everything in its power to catch those responsible and put them in jail for a long time." On April 16, two London-based Arabic-language newspapers revealed that a group calling itself the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Sites claimed responsibility for the explosion. According to a statement faxed to the "Al Hayat" bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan, "the martyrdom operation" was in response to "Israeli crimes" and "a retaliation to [the Arab] governments' refusal to allow their peoples to join [the] jihad against the Jews." A group by the same name, linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, had claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

REPORT ON 1995 SERB MASSACRE PROMPTS DUTCH CABINET TO RESIGN. Disclosing an instance of poor military planning and tragic consequences that will surely haunt the consciences of European peacekeepers and their military and political bosses, the Dutch government resigned on April 16 and the country's top general followed suit the next day. Prime Minister Wim Kok accepted responsibility, though not blame, for a 1995 peacekeeping mission that ended in a massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb troops under Gen. Ratko Mladic, a wanted war criminal. Gen. Ad van Baal, the army chief of staff, quit under pressure to accept responsibility for mistakes by military commanders, including his predecessors, who, according to a report released last week, intentionally withheld information from the government to uphold the military's reputation.

According to the independent report by Netherlands' Institute for War Documentation, Dutch forces did little to prevent Serbs from rounding up Muslims who had sought refuge in a U.N.-designated "safe area." Political leaders carried out an "ill-conceived plan" to boost the country's international prestige and sent unprepared troops on a "mission impossible" to protect 30,000 refugees who fled Serb forces. Some 200 lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers stood by helplessly as Mladic ordered Muslim men and women separated. The women were deported and the men and boys were executed. Dutch troops were under orders not to fire unless fired upon, and the military command had not provided the wherewithal to respond to 1,500 Serb attackers. The United Nations had declared Srebrenica a "safe zone" but without defining the phrase, the report said. The international community is "anonymous and cannot take responsibility" for bungling its Bosnia peacekeeping operation, Kok said in his resignation statement. "I can and I do."

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IS CREATED DESPITE U.S. OBJECTION. On April 11, the world's first permanent court for prosecuting war criminals and dictators became reality and will open in The Hague in a year. "The long-held dream of the International Criminal Court will now be realized," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said at a news conference in Rome, where 120 countries first agreed to set up the tribunal. "Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow." Originally proposed after World War II, the treaty that established the court took effect after the 60th nation ratified it. "But the Bush administration again demonstrated its readiness to go it alone when it deems necessary, boycotting the ceremony that celebrated the birth of the court," noted "The New York Times." "That attitude has prompted concern in Europe and elsewhere over a new American unilateralism." Though most democratic nations and human rights groups welcomed the court's creation, the Bush administration is firmly opposed, arguing that the court will open American officials and military personnel to politically motivated lawsuits. During the Clinton administration's last days, the United States signed the treaty for the court. Bush administration officials say it will never be sent to the Senate for ratification. The court will have jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed after July 1, 2002.

KRASNODAR EXPELS KURDS, MESHKETIANS MAY BE NEXT. Following the adoption of a new local law restricting immigration, the first people deported from Krasnodar Kray, a southern region of Russia, were two families of ethnic Kurds, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Krasnodar correspondent reported on April 13. The families, who had lived in a village in the kray for several years, were sent by escort to Rostov Oblast. According to RFE/RL, the expulsion of several dozen more families is expected after the April 15 deadline for the registration of immigrants expires. Local Kurdish leader Ishkhan Khudoryan said that to defend the rights of his community, he intends to appeal to the Russian Supreme Court and international human rights groups. According to the Itar-Tass news agency, more than one million people who have fled wars and economic hardship have settled in the kray, and as a result, every fifth resident there is a migrant.

Some 15,000-18,000 Meskhetian Turks, also known as Meskhetians, are in danger of mass expulsion by Krasnodar authorities, according to Aleksandr Osipov of the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow, in an article contributed to RFE/RL. After the 1989 ethnic clashes in the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan, Meshketians fled to other republics of the former Soviet Union, including the Russian Federation. Krasnodar authorities refused to grant them registration permits. Osipov writes that like other groups the authorities wanted to discourage from permanent settlement, in 1992 Meskhetians were denied registration permits, in violation of the Russian citizenship law of 1991. "Therefore they are not officially recognized as Russian nationals and remain in immigration limbo," Osipov writes. "While formally Russian citizens under the law, Meskhetians are in the position of de facto stateless persons because of the authorities' refusal to legalize their residence." He estimates that up to 13,000 Meskhetians in Krasnodar are deprived of "almost all civil, political, and social rights because they still do not have registration to this day."

In an unsigned editorial comment on April 16, "Izvestiya" denounced the new immigration law signed by Governor Aleksandr Tkachev as "scandalous," enabling people "to confiscate land and real estate from anyone whose ID card does not fit the bill. The people who have adopted these laws are sowing dissent without realizing it. They possibly sincerely think that skinheads and other neo-Nazis are simply oddly dressed youths who will calm down and become decent citizens. They will not calm down. Today they are wrecking synagogues, tomorrow they will set on the Kurds and Meskhetians, and in the future they will go even further. Failing to realize this and playing up to them is a crime."

SIBERIAN COURT MAY EXPEL CATHOLIC PRIEST. Russian authorities threaten to expel yet another Roman Catholic priest and may cancel a parish's state registration, according to the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit legal defense group which intends to go to court to fight the measures. The Catholic parish of the Nativity in the Siberian city of Magadan was registered on April 1, 1999, the Slavic Center says, and the parish invited Fr. Michael Shields, a U.S. citizen, to serve as its priest. Earlier, Shields' application for a residence permit was refused. But Russian law does not require a parish priest to be a permanent resident, the Slavic Center argues. It contends that a court ruling against the Magadan parish would "create a dangerous precedent of the breach of the rights of religious organizations," with "serious consequences" for the Roman Catholic church in Russia where "an overwhelming majority of clergymen are foreign citizens from 22 countries of the world." Slavic Center co-director Vladimir Pyakovsky says that the Catholic Church, eradicated by Stalin and now coming back to life, "may be left without clergy."

On April 15 Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader of Russia's Catholics, published an open letter calling attention to an "organized campaign" against his church, the Associated Press reported. He said that numerous anti-Catholic rallies had been held outside Catholic churches in Russia and that law enforcement officials failed to respond. The next demonstration is scheduled for April 28 in sites across the country. Kondrusiewicz also protested the banning of a Catholic priest, Stefano Caprio, from re-entering Russia. Passport officers ripped Caprio's multiple-entry visa from his passport as he was leaving for his native Italy earlier this month, the archbishop said, and officials confirmed that he was on a blacklist of foreigners not allowed to enter Russia. No explanation for the ban has been given.

LITHUANIAN EXTREMIST TEARS UP ISRAELI FLAG. Saulius Ozelis, chairman of Taurage branch of the extremist Lithuanian Freedom Union and member of the Taurage district council, tore up an Israeli flag in public, after police officers prevented him from setting it on fire, Vilnius’ Radio 1 reported on April 17. Dubbed "a notorious radical" in the press, Ozelis told a group of some 50 onlookers from the roof of a car that he was not against Jews but against the restitution of their property in Lithuania. The police said that Ozelis was not detained because they did not collect sufficient evidence against him. Ozelis said that he would not give up staging similar acts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "When the Catholic Church takes back its formerly nationalized buildings in the Old Town of Vilnius or when [Christian Democrat leader] Kazys Bobelis or his wife recover their former house or mansion, then Lithuania is deemed rich enough to let go of that property," Rimvydas Valatka wrote in the Lithuanian newspaper "Lietuvos Rytas" on April 15. "But if the government pledges to apply the same procedures for a Jewish community or a Kaunas Holocaust survivor, Lithuania immediately becomes too poor and feels abused."

NEO-NAZI YOUTHS ON A RAMPAGE
In the former Soviet Union, the authorities are still searching for subterfuges to avoid the onus of racist or antisemitic intent behind acts of violence. The denials have a Soviet flavor. "There are no neo-fascist or antisemitic organizations in Kyiv at all," Ukrainian security service official Pavlo Opanasenko said on April 17, and declared that "therefore the problem" of possible disturbances on Adolf Hitler's birthday is "irrelevant." Thoughtful commentators disagree. "Our country, which defeated fascism, is feeling, with increasing sharpness, the feverish breath of youth extremism," Russia's "Izvestiya" wrote on April 17. "Skinheads are just the tip of the looming social iceberg." The newspaper suggests that "the reason is the sense of abnormality, of humiliation, and of hopelessness which these people are feeling, and the fact that the new generation is growing up with an unfulfilled patriotic instinct." As a result, "they begin to hate anything that is alien to them."

The following five events show the rise of neo-Nazi fever.

1. Attack on Kyiv's Central Synagogue
"It seems that the ongoing anti-Jewish protests in Europe have reached Ukraine," reported the television station "Novy Kanal" in Kyiv. On April 13, "some 50 aggressive fans and skinheads carried out an attack on the central synagogue in Kyiv after a football match," the broadcast continued. "They threw stones at the building and attacked worshippers standing outside." The reporter called the action "a real pogrom" and suggested that "the crowd's intention was clear" while marching from the capital's main street, Khreshchatyk, some 200 yards from the synagogue, picking up stones and bottles along the way. According to Rabbi Moshe Reuven Asman, they shouted about "going to the synagogue" and "beating up some Jews." Asman said that the crowd pummeled the director of the rabbinical school, Rabbi Tsvi Kaplan, whose lip was smashed, and punched and kicked several worshipers. The guard was attacked with a bottle. Others threw stones and bottles at the windows.

Asman said that when the crowd was still on Khreshchatyk street, someone from the synagogue alerted the police. However, Asman added, the first patrols did not arrive until 20 minutes after the scuffle was over and the attackers dispersed. Police spokesman Oleksandr Zarubytsky revealed that the police did catch red-handed eight "hooligans." Arguing that the attack was not planned beforehand, Zarubytsky said: "I have no grounds to say that it was a manifestation of antisemitism. I have more grounds to say that this was an act of hooliganism. Young men of this age have much foolishness in their heads. They are not antisemites."

On April 15, "Novy Kanal" quoted Interior Minister Yuri Smyrnov saying that the organizer of the action was identified and "a manhunt is in under way." Smyrnov said the attackers will be charged with "hooliganism and damaging public property." He told the press: "I cannot talk of a political motive behind this. These were football hooligans. They had no special plan to smash the synagogue. All this happened on the spur of the moment, in the heat of a football fever fuelled by alcohol, of course…. The culprits will be punished, I am sure of this." Speaking about articles calling the attackers "skinheads", Zarubytsky said that he "is against using alien terms speaking about Kyiv. Our city is quiet and I would not like anybody to exaggerate what is happening."

Ukrainian Jewish leaders offered a different view. Rabbi Asman, Vadim Rabinovich, president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, and Garik Karagodsky, chairman of the synagogue's board of supervisors, agreed that the assault was organized rather than spontaneous.

On April 15, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported that "almost 200 football fans were detained by the police" and that the investigation established the direct participation of four people in the attack, two of them 21 years of age and the other two 15 and 16. The Internal Affairs Ministry disclosed that those who threw stones at the synagogue earlier committed other acts of hooliganism as well on Khreshchatyk: They destroyed a street telephone and then split, with one group smashing shop windows and the other breaking synagogue windows.

On April 16, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma instructed the Ministry of Interior and the Security Service "to uncover and stop the activities of illegal paramilitary or armed formations or other organizations that can stir up interethnic or religious enmity," according to the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN. Kuchma also ordered urgent measures to prevent violence against religious buildings. On April 17, some 10,000 people, including Jewish leaders and Ukrainian legislators, participated in a rally in Kyiv, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The demonstrators carried signs saying "Ukraine Is Against Fascism" and "Down with Antisemitism."

2. Russian Police Placed on High Alert to Prevent Neo-Nazi Attacks
Russian police units in charge of maintaining public order have been placed on high alert to prevent actions by neo-Nazi youth organizations, the Russian news agency Interfax reported. On April 12 the Russian Interior Ministry announced that the police "will curb all manifestations of interethnic discord and prosecute persons perpetrating it within the framework of the law." The statement said that "all necessary preventive operations are being carried out" and servicemen from special riot police units (OMON) have been ordered to stay in their barracks. "Combat reserves" are also involved in the preparations, while the ministry's criminal division "is carrying out the entire set of search measures" to establish the identities of extremist leaders.

Also on April 12, U.S. Consul General in Russia James Warlick told Interfax that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow informed the Russian Foreign Ministry that it is concerned over recent skinhead attacks on foreigners, including U.S. citizens. Warlick mentioned an incident on April 7, when skinheads attacked a group of U.S. citizens on Red Square and Stary Arbat. Warlick added that on April 8, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow received an e-mail from a group of Russian skinheads threatening violence against foreigners ahead of Hitler's birthday on April 20. Warlick said that upon receiving the message, the U.S. Embassy notified "all U.S. citizens registered at the consulate who are currently in Russia that extremist groups are becoming more aggressive in April-May." He said that 5,000 U.S. citizens currently in Russia are registered at the U.S. consulate but many more are not.

3. Russian Skinheads Declare War on All Foreigners
Russian skinheads also e-mailed embassies of African, Asian, and European countries in Moscow and threatened "to kill all foreigners they come across in celebration of Hitler's birthday." A message obtained by Interfax was signed by "Ivan, president of Russia's skinhead group" and demanded that the embassies repatriate all foreigners from Russia. "Ivan" declared war on all foreigners, as "Russia is for Russians."

On April 15, the Russian government channel ORT said that "the rise in the number of incidents involving skinheads in Moscow is becoming an international problem for the Russian authorities." Diplomats from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia have asked the Russian Foreign Ministry to step up measures to deal with "skinhead youth groups." On April 17, the Afghan embassy informed the Russian Foreign Ministry about an April 15 attack by skinheads on an Afghan citizen, Abdul Hakim Hakrid, 35, a translator for the Russian Interior Ministry's migration service, who subsequently died in a hospital. The note sent to the Foreign Ministry stressed that Afghan citizens in Moscow are "constantly being subjected to attacks by young nationalists" and are also victims of "illegal actions by the law-enforcement authorities." Interfax learned that skinheads attacked Hakrid at the exit from the Polyanka metro station. He left behind a wife, a Russian citizen, and four children.

Russian officials in Sakhalin have cautioned Japanese nationals and other foreigners in the Far East region about possible violence by skinheads, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said on April 16 according to Kyodo News Service. The Russian officials told the Japanese Consulate General in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk that about 30 members of a Moscow skinhead group traveled to the Sakhalin capital for a gathering aimed at attacking foreigners. The officials urged foreigners, particularly Japanese and South Koreans who are targeted in the planned attacks, to be careful when going outdoors, especially at night.

4. Teenagers Desecrate Armenian Graves in Southern Russia
In the early hours of April 17, a group of at least 40 youngsters vandalized up to 50 Armenian graves at a cemetery in Krasnodar, according to Moscow's state-owned RTR television network. The report stressed that "neither the police nor representatives of the Armenian diaspora doubt the fact that the young vandals were not acting on their own initiative -- more influential people were behind them." Witnesses said the youngsters, aged from 13 to 18, broke into the city cemetery at night and smashed gravestones for several hours. Police arrived only in the morning. Quoting police and other sources, the reporter suggested that the action "was definitely planned" and "the investigators' main task now is not just to establish specific people who committed the crime but also those who ordered it." Governor Aleksandr Tkachev, criticized for a discriminatory new law restricting immigration to Krasnodar Kray (also known as the Kuban), told a news conference: "I will not allow interethnic strife to be fanned in the Kuban. I will not allow the fight against illegal migrants who are not Russian Federation citizens to turn into interethnic conflicts."

In this case, the state-owned TV channel dismissed the idea of hooliganism. It quoted local Armenians who believe that this act of vandalism was committed on ethnic grounds.

5. Skinheads Alarm "Time" Magazine's Russian Columnist
Titled "From Russia, with Hate," the European edition of "Time" dated April 22 reported on a crowd of about 80 teenagers ruining a sunny day in the capital's Pushkin Square by chanting "Kill the U.S.A.!" and raising their arms in the Nazi salute. Moscow-based columnist Yuri Zarakhovich interviewed 15-year-old Zakhar "with shaved head and camouflage shirt" who explained that the rally is "all about exterminating the Jews, Americans, and other scum." When asked by the columnist why Moscow skinheads "vented their anger" at Hitler's birthday last year, killing a young Chechen and injuring more than a dozen people, Zakhar answered: "Because [Hitler] gave us the holy idea of National Socialism."

The columnist noted that Moscow police have promised to take the "necessary measures" to prevent violence this year. "But one policeman, who impassively observed Zakhar and his friends hoist 'Skins against Bush' posters near the McDonald's in Pushkin Square, didn't seem too worried," the columnist observed. "When asked why no 'measures' were being taken against this group, he shrugged: 'Where do you see any skinheads here? It's a rally to support domestic chicken producers against American imports.'"

Columnist Zarakhovich expressed regret "that last month 18 foreign students, mainly from African and Asian countries, studying at Rostov Medical University chose to leave Russia for good. They had been subjected to repeated beatings and insults by local skinheads, while the police turned a blind eye." He reported that at a conference last week in Moscow, representatives of Russian universities said that in the face of police indifference they have had to hire private guards and form self-defense teams to protect their 70,000 foreign students. He quoted estimates by journalists and diplomats that since May 2000, skinhead assaults in Moscow have left more than a dozen foreigners dead and one hundred hospitalized. "Dressed in bomber or camouflage jackets and heavy steel-tipped boots, skinheads prowl in packs of three to five 'fighters' armed with clubs and steel rods," the columnist wrote. "These groups can merge quickly to form mobs of several hundred for major assaults, which seem too well-organized to be spontaneous."

Zarakhovich concluded with a dark vision by Sergei Antonov, an unemployed Moscow economist in his 40s who blames not "the kids" but the government "which has condemned Russians to poverty while the blacks and foreigners are lording it over us." Antonov warns that skinheads now in their teens will take "dominant positions as they become adults. You'll see their impact a decade later." For the columnist, their impact was already clear in Pushkin Square.
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