Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Bigotry Monitor: Volume 7, Number 17

News

Bigotry Monitor: Volume 7, Number 17

(April 27, 2007)

Volume 7, Number 17
Friday, April 27, 2007

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
__________________________________________________________________

MOSCOW OFFICIALS PERMIT ANOTHER NEO-NAZI RALLY. A week after Moscow police violently dispersed a peaceful opposition rally on the dubious ground that it was illegal, Moscow city authorities granted permission for neo-Nazis to mark the birthday of Adolf Hitler, a man who once planned to wipe the Russian capital off the face of the earth, according to an April 22 report posted on the Russian language web site of Radio Liberty. On April 21, a Saturday, about 350 extremists rallied on Slavyanskaya Square, in front of the presidential administration's building, screaming neo-Nazi slogans and extending their arms in the Nazi salute as police looked on. While Maxim Martsinkevich, leader of the far-right group Format 18, invited his comrades on his web site to come and celebrate the birthday of “one of the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet, whose monument stands on the square,” it was clear to observers that the birthday really celebrated was Hitler’s.

According to a report by Sova Information-Analytical Center, the organizers, the Party for the Defense of the Russian Constitution (known as “Rus”), invited members of members of the neo-Nazi movement National-Socialist Society (NSO) and a likeminded group that calls itself Format 18. Other neo-Nazi organizations included Russian Nationwide Unity (RONS) and Russian Will. The keynote speaker was NSO leader Dmitry Rumyantsev who, according to Sova, called for violence and a declaration of Russian racial superiority.

This was the second time in April that Moscow officials granted permission for an extreme nationalist rally. The first was held on April 14, the day of the opposition’s Dissenters’ March. In a show of collusion between government officials and ultra-nationalist hate groups, members of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration were permitted to hold their rally while officials denied public space to the Dissenters’ March whose participants were savagely beaten by police. The extremist rally’s leader was Dmitry Rogozin, a member of the State Duma who until recently was allied with the Kremlin before falling out of favor. At least two other State Duma members -- Andrey Savelev of the Kremlin-created party Just Russia and Viktor Alksnis, a former advocate of a tough line on the Baltic states at the time of the breakup of the USSR -- also addressed the rally. Police looked on as former Minister of the Press Boris Mironov violated the terms of his parole to speak. He is currently on trial in Novosibirsk for inciting ethnic hatred in a series of antisemitic books and articles and was only spared pre-trial detention after he signed a pledge not to leave that city.

For several years, Russian neo-Nazis marked April 20, Hitler’s birthday, with attacks on members of minorities and street demonstrations. This year, according to a Sova item dated April 22, police did not report hate crimes that took place on April 20 -- perhaps because such information is often delayed or because fearing police counter-measures, neo-Nazis may have been reluctant to act up on the birthday itself. Nowadays the rise of neo-Nazi violence is registered in the week before and after April 20, Sova noted and added that this year foreign students were asked not to leave their hostels before and after April 20 lest they be attacked. This April, seven people were murdered because of their ethnicity and more than 20 injured in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian towns, according to Sova’s count. Six of the seven murders took place in Moscow.

On April 22, about 20 people showed up at the city center for a peaceful “human rights walk,” Sova reported. They carried no signs or leaflets, and shouted no slogans. But they were confronted by several hundred policemen. Five human rights activists were detained. None of the people offering Nazi salutes and shouting Nazi slogans at the two far-right rallies in April was arrested, Sova’s report concluded.

NEO-NAZIS MURDER KYRGYZ MAN IN MOSCOW SUBURB. According to an April 24 report in the national daily “Moskovsky Komsomolets,” eight neo-Nazis murdered a Kyrgyz man in the Moscow suburb of Mytishchi “in the middle of April.” The item appears to be the first published reference to the violence that usually accompanies the time around Hitler’s birthday in Russia.

The neo-Nazis ambushed three Kyrgyz migrant workers but two of them managed to escape. The third was surrounded by attackers who butchered him with axes, hammers, and knives. Police have detained three suspects and have confiscated extremist literature from their homes. According to the article, the same skinheads had struck before, attacking several non-Russians as well as ethnic Russian fans of rap music, which neo-Nazis consider “racially inferior.”

NATIONAL BOLSHEVIKS BANNED. Last week the Moscow City Court declared Eduard Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party (NBP) an extremist organization and banned it, Interfax reported. NBP members now risk being sent to prison for up to four years if they decide to take to the streets. Limonov called the decision illegitimate. The NBP said it would lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Despite objections from members of several liberal groups, the NBP has been an active member of the Other Russia coalition of opposition parties such as Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front and Mikhail Kasyanov’s People’s Democratic Union. “We are not extremists, and we are not going to give up,” said Andrei Dmitriyev, NBP leader in St. Petersburg was quoted as saying in “The St. Petersburg Times.” He added that even if the ban on the party were not lifted, members would continue taking part in protests as Russian citizens and not as NBP members.

TOP RUSSIAN MP DEMANDS A LIST OF EXTREMIST GROUPS. Compiling a list of extremist organizations in Russia is a must, announced on April 23 the chairman of the State Duma legislation committee, Pavel Krasheninnikov, as reported by Itar-Tass, the main government information agency. He noted that, according to Russian legislation, “the list should already be there,” but Krasheninnikov said, “the Justice Ministry, it seems, is not getting around to it.”

Krasheninnikov added that all the extremist organizations must be on a single list so that law enforcement authorities would not need to “prove every time” that an organization is extremist. He acknowledged that the list could be compiled only on the basis of a court ruling.

DROP ANTI-JEWISH PASSAGES FROM LITURGY, ORTHODOX PRIESTS URGE. A group of 12 Orthodox priests have called on their church to review its longstanding theological positions toward Jews and the State of Israel, and to excise antisemitic passages from its liturgy, “The Jerusalem Post” reported on April 20. The priests, described by the paper as “dissidents,” made their demands in a 12-point declaration adopted during a visit to Israel. They say that their intention is to spur debate in the Orthodox Christian world.

“Sadly, there are some Orthodox Christians who propagate disgusting antisemitism under the banner of Orthodoxy, which is incompatible with Christianity,” said Rev. Innokenty Pavlov, professor of theology at Moscow's Biblical Theological Institute. “We have to raise our voices and call on Orthodox laity and the church leadership to formulate an official position of the Orthodox Church toward our relations with Judaism, as it was formulated a few decades ago by the Catholic Church,” he added, referring to the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965.

The 10-page declaration calls for the removal of antisemitic passages from Church liturgy - particularly Easter services - and endorses “the eternal connection” between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Unlike the Catholic and Protestant churches, the Orthodox Church has never removed antisemitic passages from its liturgy which still refers to Jews as Christ killers, said Dr. Dmitry Radyevsky, director of the Jerusalem Summit that “The Post” described as “a conservative Israeli think tank that co-sponsored the visit.” He described antisemitic passages as most conspicuous during Easter services that included statements such as “the Jewish tribe which condemned you to crucifixion, repay them, Oh Lord,” which is repeated half a dozen times, and “Christ has risen but the Jewish seed has perished,” as well as references to Jews as “God-killers.” Radyevsky said that for the Orthodox Church, “to even pose the question about the need to throw out Judeophobic passages from the liturgy, which were there for 1,500 years, is a revolution.”

The dozen Orthodox priests who signed the declaration -- some in open defiance of directives from church leadership – are said “to represent five different Orthodox churches, including the Russian, Greek, Ukrainian, Georgian, and Ecumenical Orthodox Churches.”

“It is high time to start the dialogue between Orthodox Christianity and Judaism,” said Rev. Ioann Sviridov, editor-in-chief of the Russian Christian radio-station Sophia. “In light of rising antisemitism and other manifestations of nationalism in Russia, our church has to respond to this ugly phenomena and review some of the aspects of its relations with Jews and Judaism.”

HUMAN RIGHTS FIGURE HIGH IN EU-RUSSIA TENSION. The European Union (EU) seems more eager than the Russians to begin talks on the new partnership pact that is supposed to cover “energy, trade, economic cooperation, and human rights,” Reuters reported on April 23. This past weekend, Brussels and Moscow failed to get an agreement to end the 16-month-old Russian ban on the import of Polish meat. “We have some work to do, but I hope very much that before long the issue will be resolved, in any case before the summit,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters ahead of his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The summit is scheduled for May 18. According to Reuters, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson “set a grim tone” before the talks with Lavrov by saying on Friday that EU-Russia relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War.

Though the two sides have cooperated on world issues such as Middle East peace and containing Iran's nuclear program, Reuters noted, “EU leaders routinely anger Moscow with concerns about murders of dissidents and police conduct against demonstrators.”

KREMLIN BOYCOTTS LONDON’S ANNUAL RUSSIA FORUM. On April 23, the annual meeting of the Russian Economic Forum opened in London but this time without Russia’s participation. According to “Gazeta,” the Kremlin's decision to stay away is a response to the West's support for the Dissenters’ March protests as well as “a jab at London, which is gradually turning into the capital of the anti-Putin opposition.” The forum was established to provide space for dialogue between the private sector, including international corporations, and the Russian authorities. The Kremlin’s decision to boycott it “effectively makes this year's forum a failure,” the newspaper noted.

In an editorial titled “Russian Revenge” published on April 23, London’s “Financial Times” wrote that it is “obvious that behind the boycott lay the dread hand of the Kremlin.” The authorities offered no reasons, the editorial continued, but “they left no doubt they wanted to punish London, probably over the Boris Berezovsky affair. Officials are furious at the UK's failure to respond to the exiled oligarch's recent anti-Kremlin outburst. Moscow is also angry at the harm done to Russia's global image by the row over the poisoning in London of former spy Alexander Litvinenko.” For foreign investors, the newspaper points out, investing in the Russian economy whose “recent boom owes almost everything to high oil prices, not government policies,” the waters are “rich but dangerous…. Even large groups are not immune from arbitrary actions, as Royal Dutch Shell found when it was pressed to sell control of the Sakhalin-2 scheme to Gazprom.”

The prestigious paper’s conclusion must be discouraging reading for foreigners interested in doing business with Russia: “Investors who think they can avoid political risk are fooling themselves. In Russia almost everything is political and almost everything potentially carries political risk.”

TRADER IN EXTREMIST BOOKS DETAINED. Police have detained a man trading extremist literature at a book fair in Moscow, a source in law enforcement told Interfax on April 20. Some 40 books containing calls for ethnic enmity were seized at a book fair at the Olimpiisky Stadium, a police source told the news agency. A case on charges of fanning ethnic, racial, and religious enmity have been launched against him, the source said and added: “The investigation will look into the details of the case and take measures to identify the suppliers of the books and stop the spread of this kind of literature in the city.”

POLICE NAB NEO-NAZIS. Fifteen members of a neo-Nazi youth group who desecrated cemeteries and attacked foreigners have been detained in St. Petersburg, the main department of interior affairs in the Northwestern Federal District told Interfax on April 20. A baseball bat, barrels with paint, and nationalistic leaflets were confiscated from them.

TOMBSTONES TOPPLED IN UKRAINE. About 70 tombstones of Holocaust victims were toppled, and some destroyed, in a historic cemetery in western Ukraine. The incident in the city of Chernovtsy took place on April 12, but was reported only on April 19. Local law enforcement agencies are investigating. Among the damaged tombstones some had been restored only recently by local businessmen.

STAR OF DAVID DAUBED ON LENIN STATUE. On April 22, the eve of the 137th anniversary of Lenin's birth, vandals painted a Star of David on a large statue of the Soviet leader in Rostov-on-Don, Interfax reported. The perpetrators have not been found, and the motive is puzzling. Lenin, who founded the Soviet Union, had some distant Jewish ancestors but was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church and was extremely hostile to all religions. In a 2006 poll by the ROMIR sociological service he ranked third in popularity among Russian leaders since 1917.

ARMENIAN CHURCH VANDALIZED. A just constructed bell tower of an Armenian Apostolic church was vandalized in Kiev, according to an April 23 report from UCSJ's Lviv monitor. The previous day someone painted a swastika on the building. Some local residents had protested against the church's construction, even going so far as to file a lawsuit. It is not clear if those protests had anything to do with the vandalism, or if police are investigating the incident.

TWO ARRESTED IN FRANCE FOR GRAVE DESECRATION. Two men from the same local family suspected of damaging 51 graves in the Jewish part of Lille-Sud cemetery in Lille on the night of March 31 were arrested on April 18, Agence France-Presse reported. A legal inquiry was opened for “violation and desecration of graves or gravestones because they belong to an ethnic group, nation, race or religion.” The offence carries a five-year prison term. Politicians and human rights and anti-racism organizations condemned the desecration “unanimously,” according to the report.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, COMMUNISTS SNUB YELTSIN * * * “We will never give honor to the destroyer of the Fatherland,” Communist deputy Viktor Ilyukhin was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti, as Communist lawmakers refused to stand for a moment of silence called in Boris Yeltsin's memory at the opening of the April 25 session of the Duma.

THE RISE OF A DEMOCRAT, THE FALL OF A BUNGLER
Farewell to Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s Man of Destiny

Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first popularly elected head of state who died on April 23 at age of 76, personified some of the best and a few of the worst characteristics of his fellow countrymen. Impetuously, he quit his post as the Moscow Communist Party boss three weeks before the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Speaking from the heart, his speech declared the “disillusionment” of the Soviet people and set in motion the end of the Communist monopoly on power. Just as impetuously, he sealed the fate of the Soviet Union as he rudely pushed his rival, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, off the stage of history. When acting deliberately, he showed wisdom in refusing to employ the armed forces to block the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from declaring their independence from Moscow. Whether or not he always anticipated the consequences that followed, these were grand moves by what historians call a man of destiny.

Dramatically, Yeltsin proved himself a revolutionary as he stood on top of a tank and called for resistance to a communist putsch. However, he was also responsible for the first Chechen war. Almost absent-mindedly, he let a group of greedy entrepreneurs buy up much of the country’s industrial wealth while millions slid into poverty, creating a discontent still festering. His popularity declined precipitously as corruption scandals shook the nation, the economy came close to collapse, and millions of Russians employed by the state received no paychecks for months. His alcoholism became a fact exposed on the television screen, especially during his trips abroad. But one more time, though broken in spirit and weak in body, this son of the Russian people rose to grandeur when he resigned the presidency. On New Year’s Eve of the new millennium, he wiped off a tear and apologized to his countrymen for “your dreams that never came true.”

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Russian Jewish leaders agree that the community should remember Yeltsin as the leader who ended decades of state-sanctioned antisemitism in Russia. “It was his great achievement that the new Russia came to life without that evil called state antisemitism," said Mikhail Chlenov, who established Russia's first legal Jewish group, the Va'ad, in the early years of Yeltsin's rule and became its president. JTA cited others who credit Yeltsin for allowing Jewish life to develop freely in Russia to an extent that was hard to imagine even under his predecessor, Gorbachev. Alexander Osovtsov, executive vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress from 1996 to 2000, told JTA: “I won't make a direct connection between Yeltsin's rule and Jewish life in Russia unless we take into account the maxim that the more freedom there is, the better it is for Jews.”

But Osovtsov, now a liberal oppositionist, expressed his bafflement as to why “many people with antisemitic views came to power” in Yeltsin’s time. He singled out Boris Mironov, an antisemitic publicist now on trial for hate speech, who early on in the Yeltsin presidency served in his cabinet as media minister.

Yeltsin’s “greatest mistake was the first Chechen war,” “The Washington Post” quoted Lyudmila Alexeeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, as saying. “He was able to realize his mistake, but at the price of tens of thousands of lives. But he did admit the mistake and stopped the war. He was very humane. When he was leaving, he said to people, ‘I am sorry.’ Not many leaders can do that.”

Another mistake history is likely to attribute to Yeltsin is his appointment of Vladimir Putin as his successor. Though Yeltsin was initially hostile to KGB officers and at one point even abolished the institution, he quietly brought it back to life and used it for keeping track of his enemies. His reasons for choosing Putin are not clear. Nikita Belykh, leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party, speculates that when Yeltsin resigned, he might have expected Putin to continue his policies. “The policy course that he set is being dismantled today,” Belykh said after paying his respects to Yeltsin at the state funeral. “We all make mistakes.”

Fearless and intensely energetic when not depressed, Yeltsin was at his most careless when choosing the men to carry out the dreams he seemed driven to realize.

* * * *

Bigotry Monitor welcomes use of its contents without prior approval on the condition that full attribution is given to "Bigotry Monitor -- UCSJ's weekly newsletter". We would also like to see a copy of the publication.

Send letters to the editor to: cfenyvesi@aol.com

How to Subscribe:
Send an email to bigotrymonitor@ucsj.com with the word "subscribe" as the subject of the message.

How to Unsubscribe:
Send an email to bigotrymonitor@ucsj.com with the word "unsubscribe" as the subject of the message.

All issues available at http://www.fsumonitor.com