Volume 2, Number 24
Friday, June 21, 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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RUSSIA’S DUMA ADOPTS BILL AGAINST EXTREMISM. On June 20, Russia’s State Duma adopted an amended version of a bill, approved and promoted by President Vladimir Putin, aimed at cracking down on extremist activity, which is widely seen as on the increase nationwide. The vote was 272 for and 126 against. A third and final reading of the bill is scheduled for early next month. According to Itar-Tass, the bill as it now stands defines extremism, puts on record the principles of government policies against it, and sets up bans in specific instances. “Extremism” now means any activity by public or religious associations related to the planning, organization, preparation for or execution of actions aimed at the forcible change of Russia's constitutional system or violation of its territorial integrity; undermining Russia's security or assumption of governing powers; creation of illegal armed formations; terrorist activity; incitement of social, racial, ethnic or religious discord; humiliation of national dignity; organization of massive unrest, rioting or acts of vandalism motivated by ideological, political, ethnic or religious hatred, as well as the propaganda of supremacy, superiority or inferiority of citizens on the account of creed, social status, race or language. As amended, the term extremism now covers any public show of Nazi symbols and emblems, public calls for extremist activity, the financing of extremist organizations, and promotion of extremist activities.

The Communist Party, the Duma's largest single faction, and the liberal Yabloko Party charged that the law is open to abuse. "This law means that anyone defending the interests of workers against, for instance, the cliques which have plundered the country could be deemed guilty of fomenting social dissent," Communist veteran Anatoly Lukyanov said. According to Reuters, much of the opposition found too sweeping the banning the incitement of "ideological, political, racial, national or religious hatred or differences."

Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the legislation committee, said the bill did not concern political parties and mass media. He clarified that activities by extremist organizations eliminated under court decisions will be banned. In fact, even before courts step in, the Justice Ministry or the Prosecutor General's Office can suspend the operation of organizations suspected of extremism. On June 21, “The Christian Science Monitor’s” man in Moscow Fred Weir cited experts who say it is unlikely that the pro-Kremlin Duma majority will force key amendments to narrow the scope for potential abuses in the law. He concluded with a quote by Alexander Konovalov, director of the independent Institute for Strategic Assessments in Moscow: "The question is, in practice, will this legislation tighten the noose around those who would overthrow the government by force, or will it just be used against anyone who criticizes? I fear it'll be the latter."

DUMA TABLES RESOLUTION AGAINST EXTREMISM. On June 14, Russia's State Duma tabled a draft resolution against antisemitism, nationalism, and extremism, proposed by Deputy Andrei Vulf of the Union of Rightist Forces, according to news agency reports. The draft resolution called upon President Putin to take urgent measures in the light of recent extremist actions, such the May 27 explosion that injured a 28-year-old Russian woman who removed a booby-trapped antisemitic sign and the May 30 vandalization of the mural memorializing Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov. Speaking against the resolution, Communist Deputy Yurii Nikiforenko said that it "ignores the negative consequences of Zionism." Fellow Communist Ivan Nikitichuk said that in Russia charges of antisemitism are "inflated," while the problems of the Russian people "are kept quiet."

OUTSIDE MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION IS 'DE-RUSSIFIED.' Russia's uneven demographic decline combined with internal migration patterns is creating an increasingly unstable Russian Federation, Graeme P. Herd, deputy director of the Scottish Centre for International Security, said at a briefing arranged last week in Washington by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He predicted that "Slavic concerns" would increasingly drive federal policy. Herd noted that while the Russian Federation as a whole is experiencing an "unprecedented decline" in population, internal migrants -- mostly orthodox Slavs -- are flocking to Moscow and the "core" of European Russia. As for the rest of the federation, it is not only being depopulated but also "de-russified," Herd said. Migrants would fuel the "re-centralization of power and reduction of sovereignty in the regions" that is already occurring under President Putin. The question Herd poses is whether this "asymmetry in political representation" will "radicalize" the non-Russian population.

"If an economic miracle happens," Herd cautioned, the central government could provide subsidies to re-populate the Russian Federation's northern territories and Far East, or encourage the Slavic diaspora to return to Russia. He cited government estimates that there are now more than 500,000 illegal Russian migrants in Western countries.

VOLGOGRAD NEO-NAZI GROUP CHARGED WITH INCITING ETHNIC HATRED. Charges under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, which bans the incitement of ethnic or religious hatred, have been brought against members of a youth club founded by the violent neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity (RNU). According to local Jewish activists contacted by UCSJ who wish to remain anonymous, the "Vityaz" ("Knight") youth club in the city of Volgograd's Red Army District consists of about 15 members, all but one of whom are under-aged. They meet to read antisemitic literature, train in hand-to-hand combat, and collect arms and munitions dug up from the city's extensive World War II battlefields. The "Knights" also work in local schools to recruit students and threaten teachers. According to a June 14 report on NTV, "threatening notices have appeared in local schools. The military and patriotic club promised to 'deal with' the teachers. Residents of the Caucasus and Jews were also on the black list."

WILL FRANCE BAN ORIANA FALLACI'S BOOK ON ISLAM? A French group called the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between People (MRAP), is seeking a legal ban on the French translation of a book by renowned Italian author and journalist Oriana Fallaci attacking Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The book "La rabbia e l'orgoiglio" ("Rage and Pride") published in Italy has sold one million copies, and its French version, by Editions Plon, went on sale a few weeks ago. In her inimitably uninhibited, sparkling style, Fallaci explores the connections linking Islamic tradition to today's fundamentalist revival and terrorist surge. MRAP condemned the book as "a scathing Islamophobe attack,'' and MRAP Secretary General Mouloud Aounit charged that it is "racist delirium'' that "incites racial violence.''

Fallaci responded that she may sue MRAP for the insult "racist" and reminded Aounit that "in France as in the West, there is freedom of thought and of opinion and of expression and of the press.'' In a column for the daily "Le Figaro" on June 14, Fallaci rejected charges of racism and pointed to the recent spate of anti-Jewish violence in France. She wrote: "I find it shameful that in France, the France of liberty, equality, and fraternity, synagogues are burned, Jews are terrorized, their cemeteries are profaned." She revealed that she has been receiving death threats.

Rizzoli, the book's Italian publisher, said an English translation was scheduled to come out in the United States in September but refused to disclose the publisher's name. Fallaci, who first won fame in the 1970s with her provocative interviews with world leaders ranging from Henry Kissinger to Yassir Arafat, thrives on flouting conventions such as political correctness.

EU FOREIGN MINISTERS FAIL TO AGREE ON IMMIGRATION. European Union (EU) foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg earlier this week failed to reach an agreement over Spain's call for tough new anti-immigration measures, according to the German news agency DPA. Finland, Belgium, and Luxembourg joined France and Sweden in opposing Spanish calls to make EU trade agreements and aid programs to Third World countries conditional on measures to curb immigration. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the current EU president, demands that the upcoming Seville summit “declare war" on illegal immigrants and "bogus" asylum seekers. Combating illegal immigration is scheduled to be the key item of that summit that opens on June 21. Apparently, the majority of EU countries back Aznar.

Many of the countries whose nationals come to Europe as illegal immigrants are either "failed states" like Somalia where the EU provides only humanitarian aid or countries like India where EU aid constitutes only one percent of the national budget, European Development Commissioner Poul Nielson argued. He called for "a spirit of cooperative partnership" and for programs that discourage people from leaving their homelands. Nielson said the EU should focus on negotiating with Third World countries "readmission agreements" that oblige them to take back their nationals found to be residing illegally in Europe but do not alter the EU's commitment to shelter individuals fleeing persecution. "Addressing illegal immigration requires more than reinforcing border controls," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "Migrants and refugees are people with fundamental rights who deserve certain protections, whether or not they are entitled to remain in Western Europe." According to DPA, human rights agencies have warned that the current EU focus on migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers is fueling the fires of intolerance and xenophobia across the continent.

GERMAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS TO FOCUS ON CURBING IMMIGRATION. In Germany, politicians have locked horns in a debate whether it is right to allow immigration to become an issue in the national elections scheduled for September. While the center-left coalition of Social Democrats and Greens favors liberalizing immigration laws, the Christian Democratic alliance and their chancellor candidate, Edmund Stoiber, are determined to tighten controls. Worried that putting immigration on the agenda could veer the campaign to the right with calls to keep foreigners out, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) have called for the issue to be kept out of the election. However, last week the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), who lead in the opinion polls, turned up the heat on Schroeder by announcing their intention to make immigration a central issue in the campaign. "Steering and limiting immigration will naturally be an election issue," CDU leader Angela Merkel announced at the party's convention in Frankfurt. Only addressing immigration head-on could prevent it from being seized by "populist Pied Pipers" of the far right, she said. With 4 million unemployed, she added, Germany must limit immigrants to those with needed skills rather than people to do manual labor.

BELARUS ORTHODOX GIVEN PREEMINENCE, OTHER CHURCHES TO SHUT DOWN. The draft of Belarus' new religion law features a provision specifically recognizing the Orthodox Church as having a pre-eminent role, Keston News Service reports. Religious minority leaders say that this could lead to even closer ties between the Orthodox Church and the state --to the detriment of minority faiths. The draft also requires that religious groups have to have had ten registered religious congregations in 1982, when Soviet restrictions on religion were still tight. That means that only the Russian Orthodox, the Catholics, and the main Orthodox Jewish organization will be able to gain re-registration. Re-registration will be obligatory under a process that will last two years, and immediately on the law's adoption, religious organizations will only be able to conduct activities that are consistent with the new law, regardless of what their current statutes allow. Keston quotes one parliamentary deputy as saying that: "Hundreds of religious organizations won't get re-registration and will immediately be declared outside the law."

UZBEK COURT FINES BELIEVER FOR PRAYING AT A FRIEND'S WAKE. On May 28, a court in the Uzbek capital Tashkent found a Jehovah's Witness, Igor Morozov, guilty of "illegal" religious teaching "without holding the corresponding authorization from the relevant agency" and fined him the equivalent of $27, according to Keston News Service. Morozov denied that he broke the law. Anatoly Melnik, a member of the Governing Committee of Jehovah's Witnesses of Kazakhstan, told Keston that Morozov's "crime" was that he, along with other believers, prayed at the wake for a dead friend in February. Melnik said that he recently spoke with the head of the government department for liaison with non-Muslim confessions, Kamol Kamilov, who warned "that if just three believers of an unregistered religious community started to talk about God or to pray together, that could be interpreted as breaking the law."

EUROPEAN COURT FINDS BULGARIA GUILTY IN POLICE ABUSE CASE. On June 13, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found Bulgaria in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights in a case involving the death of a young Roma (Gypsy) while in police custody. The case, Anguelova v. Bulgaria, could become a landmark. It was filed with help from the European Roma Rights Center, a Budapest-based international public interest law organization, which also reported it.

The applicant's son, 17-year-old Anguel Zabchikov, was allegedly trying to break into cars in a neighborhood in Razgrad, Bulgaria, after midnight on January 28, 1996. Neighbors alerted an off-duty police officer, Sergeant Mutafov. Mutafov chased Anguel Zabchikov, arrested him for attempted theft, and took him to the police station shortly before 1:00 a.m. By 3:00 a.m., Zabchikov fell ill and was taken to the local hospital, where he died around 5:00 a.m. An autopsy indicated that a skull fracture was sustained four to six hours before his death. A subsequent report, based only on documentary evidence, concluded that he had been injured ten hours before his death. Citing the second report, the investigators concluded that the police were not responsible for his injuries and death and terminated the investigation.

The Strasbourg court found a violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights, the failure to provide timely medical care, and the failure to conduct an effective investigation. The court noted that the police delayed contact between Zabchikov and a doctor and manipulated the detention records. With respect to the investigation, the court questioned the failure of the authorities to clarify the contradictions between the first and second medical reports and concluded that the investigation was neither objective nor thorough. Because there was no proper record of Zabchikov's detention, the court found a violation of Article 5 (right to liberty). Further, the Court found that the failure to conduct an effective investigation undermined the effectiveness of any other potential remedies and thus violated Article 13 (right to an effective remedy). Though finding that the applicant had raised "serious" arguments that Zabchikov's treatment by the police was in part a result of his Roma ethnicity, the court held she had not proven discrimination "beyond a reasonable doubt." In a dissenting opinion, Judge Bonello protested that the court, in over fifty years, has not found a single instance of violation induced by the victim's race, color or place of origin.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * According to the June 19 issue of Radio Free-Europe/Radio Liberty's publication “(Un)Civil Societies,” this is how Rafiq Aliev, head of Azerbaijan's State Committee for Relations With Religious Organizations, defined the mission of his committee: "To protect the people from religion and religion from the people."

FRANCE’S YEAR OF SURPRISES
But Will Paris Set the Style for the Rest of EU?

This is the year of surprises from France. In the parliamentary elections on June 16, the far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen failed to get a single seat in the National Assembly. But what is almost as humiliating for the man who shocked France by trouncing Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the first round of the presidential elections on April 21 is that the French press and public opinion do not think that Le Pen's defeat was the big story. Instead, the focus has been on the puzzling eclipse of the left, or, alternatively, on the unforeseen triumph of the mainstream right (or, according to others, center-right) led by President Jacques Chirac. Grouped in the recently formed Union for a Presidential Majority, Chirac won 399 of the National Assembly's 577 seats. Analysts noted that this is the first time in 34 years that one party has had a parliamentary majority. The left, from Communists to Socialists to Greens, won only 178 seats, down from 318. Especially ominous for the left was the unexpected defeat suffered by Communist Party Chairman Robert Hue, in a supposedly safe, traditionally working-class district.

Commentators declare the end of an era and the dawn of a new populism, a quickly designed new ideology that deprived Le Pen of his xenophobia card. One conspicuous winner is an attractive young law-and-order politician, the new Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who made headlines just by appearing in crime-infested immigrant neighborhoods where previously police had feared to enter.

The French are not above thinking that they set the style for the rest of EU, but each country seems to be drifting to the right in its own way, a Reuters survey noted. Of the 15 EU countries, 11 of them now have rightist parties in the lead or participating in ruling coalitions. Only recently, leftist parties held sway in 13 EU countries. In a dispatch from Paris after Chirac's parliamentary victory, Reuters found the rise of far-right parties "apparent" but argued that they "put pressure on the new conservative governments" in ways that are not coordinated. "It would be wrong to conclude that a 'Populist International' is emerging in Europe," Reuters quoted Jean Nestor, vice-chairman of the Paris think tank Notre Europe, founded by former European Commission President Jacques Delors, a Socialist. "What we see is the rise of forces opposed to the policies of traditional parties, especially as concerns Europe. They are less integrationist than earlier governments."

Analysts agree that the shift to the right began in February 2000, after Austria's conservative People's Party teamed up with Joerg Haider's far-right Freedom Party, breaking up the traditional left-right coalition. Since then, left-wing governments have fallen in Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Germany and Sweden go to the polls in September, and the right threatens the center-left incumbents in both countries. Reuters further quoted Nestor as saying that only Britain has stood aloof from right-wing trends moving across continental Europe and suggesting that politicians elsewhere in the EU could learn a lot from Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was re-elected by a landslide a year ago. "New Labor is very strong on explaining politics to people," Nestor said. "They speak concretely and pragmatically -- not with the great lyrical rhetoric of continental politicians."

France's new government has proved that it is capable of innovation in the ethnic sphere as well. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin put a Muslim, Hamlaoui Mekachera, 71, in charge of the new veterans' affairs ministry. Moreover, he is a "harki," one of the Algerians who sided with Paris in their country's bloody independence struggle and then formed a despised minority in France.

It is an understatement that life has not been kind to the 260,000 harkis who joined the French military in Algeria as auxiliaries, many of them defending their villages from attacks by the National Liberation Front (FLN). After quitting Algeria in 1962, the French government ordered its officials not to evacuate the harkis along with the French settlers. Only 20,000 harkis were able to escape to France with their families. The victorious FLN massacred most of the rest, estimated to number 150,000, after they consented to put down their arms and expected to be pardoned.

Harkis in France had problems obtaining French citizenship and veterans' benefits. Housed in isolated barracks in rural France, they could not get jobs, and their children were sent to separate sub-standard schools. But in the 1990s, harkis and their French-born children became increasingly active politically, demanding their rights and insisting that France recognize its responsibility in leaving behind so many of their confreres to be massacred. Last September, President Chirac, once a lieutenant in the French army in Algeria, became the first French leader to acknowledge publicly his country’s failure to stop the reprisals against the harkis. "France, as it left Algerian soil, failed to stop them, it's true, we failed to save our own people," he said on the first national day of remembrance for the harkis.

Mekachera, chairman of the National Council of French Muslims, was an infantry officer in the French army during the 1954-1962 Algerian war. He is the second Muslim named to the new cabinet, after Development Minister Tokia Saifi. Hossine Cherif, head of the Harki Veterans Association, declared that Mekachera's appointment "honors us." Serge Cours, director of the Federal Union of French Veterans' Associations, welcomed Mekachera as the guardian of the interests of all veterans from all of France's wars. He added: "This amounts to the total integration of French veterans of Muslim origin."
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