Volume 2, Number 31
Friday, August 9, 2002

BIGOTRY MONITOR
A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, andReligious 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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West European democracies have different historical experiences with extremist groups, and the measures now being applied in the European Union to counter the threats extremism represents are not coordinated. The legal systems of two of the largest countries on the continent are moving in different directions.

1. FRANCE TAKES ACTION AGAINST FAR-RIGHT RADICAL GROUP. France's new right-of-center government is taking the lead in applying harsh measures to curb the resurgence of far-right extremism, a phenomenon observed across Europe. "It's necessary to be particularly vigilant about everything that could lead to the development of extremism, everything that could lead to xenophobia, antisemitism, and racism,'' Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said recently. On August 8, his cabinet agreed to outlaw Radical Unity, a far-right group allegedly linked to the man who, eyewitnesses say, attempted to shoot President Jacques Chirac at the Bastille Day parade on July 14. Radical Unity, an umbrella group of several extremist movements, was banned in accordance with a 1936 law which was also intended to thwart the rise of extremist combat groups and militias at the time. In justifying the ban, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said: "Radical Unity preaches, notably through its publications, a hostility as a matter of principle to all forms of immigration, and its ideology is founded on the exaltation of the white race and a hatred of the foreigner.''

The cabinet decision still requires approval from the Council of State, France's highest administrative body.

2. GERMANY SEES DANGER IN HATE SPEECH BUT NO CRIME. Under Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, German authorities have engaged in a number of investigations, but they are unwilling to take to court individuals because they engage in hate speech or organize extremist cells.

An investigation into the Hamburg mosque Al Quds, where September 11 hijackers prayed, has found "hostile rhetoric but no criminal activity," a top police official announced on August 7. Last month, Hamburg police seized videos shot in the mosque and other evidence on the suspicion that a new terrorist cell had formed in the northern German city where Mohamed Atta and two other lead hijackers lived before the World Trade Center attacks.

Bodo Franz, head of the Hamburg police's investigative division, told Reuters that radical imams at the Al Quds mosque may have inspired terrorist action, but that the sermons themselves did not break the law. "Some of them speak against the United States, they speak against the Jewish people, but, as we now know, not in a way that is punishable," he said. He acknowledged that the imams are "important" in turning people "into fundamentalists or terrorists" and that what the imams say "is dangerous, because it gives the idea that other people should, for example, act against the United States." Nevertheless, Franz insisted, "no crime" was committed.

One of the men detained in the July 3 police raid and subsequently released was a former roommate of Atta's, Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan student. In that raid, Hamburg police searched six apartments and a bookstore near Al Quds that sold videotapes of speeches at the mosque. Police suspected that the bookstore might have been a meeting place for a fledgling terrorist group. "They came together, they talked about ideas," Franz said, "but that is not enough because we need a special activity or information that they have concretely planned something."

He added: "We cannot prove that there is any terrorist group." He said that the investigation would continue, and he expressed the hope that the police action has served as "a warning" that would deter future criminal activity.

RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES BEGIN TO APPLY ANTI-EXTREMISM LAW. In a series of federal and regional government actions that seems to draw its inspiration from the passage of a tough anti-extremism law in July, the Russian authorities have launched a crackdown on antisemitic andextremist publications.

On August 7, Moscow’s RTR television ran a video report that showed Moscow police raiding two bookstalls that sell banned books. The police confiscated copies of “Mein Kampf” and other Nazi printed matter. On August 8, the same television station ran a report on a sting operation in a major center of extremist publishing, the Moscow office of the Union of Writers, an organization dominated by notorious antisemites. When writer/sales clerk Anatoly Yakovenko realized that he had just sold a copy of "Mein Kampf" to an undercover police officer, he tried to retrieve it, but quickly gave up. He then took out his anger at journalists who appeared shortly after the arrest, which made it likely that the police invited them to record the sting. "You guys from Israeli television come here, but I am a real Russian writer!" Yakovenko reportedly told the Russian news crew from the Vesti-Moskva program.

Aleksandr Prokhanov, editor of "Zavtra," Russia's leading antisemitic newspaper, came out of his Union of Writers office to witness the arrest and took the opportunity to criticize the new anti-extremism law. He told RTR television: "Thanks to such laws, only 60 million Russians will be left and nobody will be around to read 'Mein Kampf.'" It remains to be seen if Prokhanov will face prosecution since the latest issue of "Zavtra" contains an article referring to Judaism as "the only racist religion in the world" and another article calling Jews fascists and accusing them of committing genocide against Russians in language that evokes the Holocaust, but with the Jews playing the role of the Nazis and the Russians as the victims. The article describes "the burning up” of millions of Russian people “in the crematoria of reforms." Next, police arrested Nadezhda Sharova, a bookseller at the Olympic Stadium market who had gotten into trouble with the police in the past for selling Nazi literature. Twelve copies of "Mein Kampf" were confiscated.

Both detainees face stiff fines, according to the RTR report, which added that police plan to raid another dozen addresses throughout Moscow in the near future to search for more Nazi publications.

In response to a request from the Ministry of the Press, the Cheremushkinsky Inter-Municipal Court of Moscow ordered the closing of the antisemitic and racist magazine "Russian Master." In recent months, the ministry had warned the magazine four times that its articles incite ethnic hatred, an illegal activity. Staff members of "Russian Master" are currently on trial for their participation in a mass skinhead attack on the Yasenevo market in April 2001 in honor of Hitler's birthday.

NEWSPAPER 'LIMONKA' DEFIES COURT ORDER TO SHUT DOWN. Despite a July 26 Moscow court order granting a Ministry of Press request to close down the extremist newspaper "Limonka," the paper continues to publish, and its 201st issue is scheduled to appear this week, according to the web site "dni.ru." "Limonka" is the official organ of Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party. The court ordered the shutdown after the newspaper ignored two warnings not to publish materials that inflame ethnic tension and call for the violent overthrow of the constitutional system. While the appeal process is on, the paper will continue to come out, the web site reports.

According to RIA-Novosti on August 5, an article in "Limonka" says that if it loses the case, the paper will continue to appear in electronic form on the "apn.ru" web site, which is associated with controversial journalist Sergei Dorenko.

RUSSIAN TEXTBOOK ANTISEMITIC, XENOPHOBIC, RIGHTS ACTIVIST SAYS. A textbook recommended by the Ministry of Education for high school students in Moscow, Moscow Oblast, and Voronezh Oblast incites antisemitism and other forms of religious and ethnic intolerance, according to a statement by Lev Ponomaryov, executive director of a group called For Human Rights. In a letter to the Prosecutor General of Russia, Ponomaryov called for charges based on Article 282 of the Criminal Code that bans incitement of ethnic and religious hatred to be filed against the author of the textbook "Fundamentals of Russian Orthodox Culture," A. V. Borodin, as well as officials at the Ministry of Education who recommended it. Citing the constitutional separation of church and state, Ponomaryov also called for a legal review of the activities of a council within the ministry whose cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church led to the decision to recommend the textbook.

According to Ponomaryov, the textbook takes a "primitive antisemitic position" on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, arguing that the crucifixion happened because the Jews were obsessed with "earthly well-being and power over other peoples" instead of spiritual values. Ponomaryov compared this claim to Nazi propaganda, which also attributed "amoral qualities to a defined ethnic group." Yuri Tabak, a noted expert on religion whose opinion on the textbook was solicited by UCSJ, added another objection: The textbook asks students "Why did the Jews crucify Christ?" even though the New Testament clearly states that Roman soldiers, not Jews, crucified Jesus.

Ponomaryov found the author hostile to other religions as well. For instance, the author sees the principles of “freedom of speech and religious conviction” as solely “terror against the Russian Orthodox Church, its priests and parishioners.” At the same time, the repressive actions of the Bolsheviks against other confessions are not mentioned. Moreover, the textbook defines a "sect" as a group that separates itself from the "ruling church" -- presumably the Russian Orthodox Church - and blames these "sects" for the "many misfortunes and the suffering of Russians." An openly racist comment is directed against non-Russians, described as "new residents" of Russia who "don't always behave as positively as Russians do on the territory of a traditionally Orthodox state."

FAR-LEFT SKINHEADS ACTIVE IN ROSTOV. A group of leftist-anarchist skinheads calling themselves Red Skins have become active in Rostov na Donu in recent months, according to UCSJ's local monitor Sergey Medvedev. The Rostov chapter of Red Skins formed after its leader, Aleksandr Kleymenov, 30, and some of his friends visited neighboring Krasnodar Kray, which has an especially active Red Skins chapter. Until earlier this year, Kleymenov headed the youth wing of the local chapter of a radical communist splinter group called Working Russia, notorious for its vociferous antisemitism. Reportedly, he left Working Russia because of his anti-fascist ideals.

The main activity of the Red Skins is to beat up neo-Nazi skinheads and members of other groups they consider "fascists." This includes Russian National Unity, the National Bolsheviks, as well as the pro-Kremlin youth group Walking Together. In March 2002, a large group of Red Skins went to the Rostov Conservatory, usually a hangout of neo-Nazis, looking for victims to avenge the beating of one of their comrades. Not finding suitable targets, the Red Skins marched to an apartment building where they knew that a young neo-Nazi lives, but they weren't able to find him either. Police observed from a safe distance as around 40 Red Skins chanted "Fascism will not pass" and "Capitalism is shit." Red Skins have also painted over nearly all neo-Nazi graffiti in the city and have harassed professors at a local university for their "corruption."

CAMEROON EMBASSY TO PROTEST ATTACK ON DIPLOMAT'S SON. Following the severe beating of the 16-year-old son of a Cameroonian diplomat, Cameroon's embassy is filing a formal protest with the Russian Foreign Ministry, NTV reported on August 6. Embassy officials say that the attack was a pre-planned action organized by skinheads and that the Russian Foreign Ministry is failing to fulfill its promise to protect foreign citizens. News agencies report that Moscow police have arrested six drunken youths charged with responsibility for the attack. The police say that none of the attackers is a skinhead and therefore they are treating the incident as "hooliganism" and "an ordinary street brawl." The Cameroon embassy told NTV that the attack was racially motivated.

According to NTV, the Prosecutor's Office of Moscow's Tsentralny district has not yet decided whether to start a criminal investigation.

ETHNIC AZERIS ATTACKED IN MOSCOW MARKET. What TV-6 described as a "mass brawl" and other sources as a "pogrom" took place in a market in the Moscow region’s Zelenograd District on August 2. The police first reported the involvement of 40 people, then reduced the number to 7. According to TV-6, most of the attackers were former paratroopers, and they beat up ethnic Azeri traders and destroyed their stalls. August 2 is the day designated in the Russian calendar to celebrate paratroopers; in recent years both former and current paratroopers have used their holiday as an excuse to attack dark-skinned market traders throughout the country.

DALAI LAMA BUCKS TREND IN RUSSIA. While earlier this year Russia blocked the entry of three foreign Catholic clergy and 15 Protestant church workers, Tibet's Dalai Lama "has managed to buck this trend," according to Keston News Service. A spokesman at the Tibet Culture and Information Center in Moscow has confirmed that the Dalai Lama will visit next month Russia's "Buddhist republics" of Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva. He last visited Russia in 1994, but since then, according to Dzhampa Tinlei who represented him in Russia from 1994 to 2000, "pressure from the Chinese government" prevented another visit, despite annual invitations from Russia's Buddhists. On July 9, Kalmyk President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov told the Russian news agency Interfax that the Dalai Lama's visit would be solely devoted to the pursuit of "religious goals".

Last August the Dalai Lama had to cancel plans to visit Mongolia after the Russians refused to give him a transit visa.

INDEPENDENT ORTHODOX PRIEST MAY FACE CHARGES IN BELARUS. Fears are mounting that the Autocephalous Orthodox priest whose church Belarus authorities bulldozed on August 1 might face criminal charges, according to Keston News Service. "I am being hunted and my car is being hunted," Father Yan Spasyuk, priest of the parish in the small town of Pahranichny close to Belarus' western border with Poland, told Keston on August 7. "I have been forced to go into hiding." He was speaking from an undisclosed location. He said his parishioners have urged him not to return to the town. But he vowed that he would hold a liturgy next to the ruins of the newly-completed church. He said: "It is important that evil does not win."

Father Spasyuk issued an urgent appeal for all "fair-minded people," be they "Baptists, Jews or whoever," to back the cause of his parish. He praised the support he had been getting from Protestants in Belarus and welcomed the August 6 statement by the United States Helsinki Commission that condemned the church demolition. He said his parish was preparing an appeal to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, even though they doubted that it would have much of an impact on him.

Other sources report to Keston that criminal charges are being prepared against the priest, though the police will neither confirm nor deny that. They acknowledge that they are investigating whether the law has been violated. The authorities have argued that the church was built without permission and that it therefore deserved demolition.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "The worst human-rights situation [in Russia] is in Krasnodar Kray where Meskhetian Turks are being openly persecuted and where several families have been deported," Leonid Stonov, director of international bureaus for UCSJ, said on the Voice of America's Russian-language "Events & Opinions" program on August 5, on the occasion of the release of the Moscow Helsinki group’s report "Human Rights in Russian Regions" in 2001. "There have also been indications of possible mass deportations of Gypsies, Armenians, and other ethnic minorities. Anti-Jewish demonstrations are plentiful. All of this is being initiated or incited by the top local leaders, including the Governor [Alexander Tkachyov] himself, who makes it look like the Kremlin is being supportive of his actions because Moscow does not react."

ON ROMA HOLOCAUST DAY, A REMINDER TO OSCE MEMBERS
U.S. Helsinki Commission Urges States to Fulfill Their Obligations to Roma

On August 2 and 3, Roma communities throughout the world commemorated the anniversary of the Roma (also known as Gypsy) Holocaust. During the night of August 2-3, 1944, the Roma camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liquidated, and close to 3,000 men, women, and children were killed in the gas chambers. "The single most defining experience for Roma in the twentieth century was the Holocaust, known in Romani as the Porrajmos, the Devouring," said United States Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Co.). "During World War II, Roma were targeted for death by the Nazis based on their ethnicity. At least 23,000 Roma were delivered to Auschwitz. Almost all of them perished in the gas chambers or from starvation, exhaustion or disease."

"The Helsinki Commission held our third hearing on Roma in April of this year," said Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.). "Testimony at these hearings reflected the magnitude of the discrimination and violence still confronting Roma in many countries. Violent attacks against Roma, including murders, often go unpunished, such as the arson murder of a family of five in Ukraine last October." Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) recalled that at the 1999 Istanbul summit, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) participating states agreed to adopt anti-discrimination legislation to protect Roma. "The adoption in 2000 of the European Union's 'race directive,' which requires all EU member states and applicant countries to adopt comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation, should spur this effort."

Roma were among those targeted for annihilation by the Nazis; however, their suffering is not well known. Policies similar to those instituted against Germany's Jews were also implemented against Roma: race-based denial of the right to vote; forced sterilization; loss of citizenship, incarceration in work or concentration camps; deportation and subsequent annihilation at death camps. In addition to their systematic destruction at Auschwitz, Roma were killed elsewhere in German-occupied territory by SS squads, regular army units or police, often shot at the village's edge, and dumped into mass graves.

It is difficult to estimate the size of the pre-war European Romani population and wartime losses. Some scholars suggest that the Romani population in Germany and German-occupied territories was around 942,000 and that 500,000 Roma were killed during the Holocaust. After World War II, the German government strongly resisted redressing wrongs committed against Roma, seeking to limit its accountability. The first German trial decision recognizing that Roma were also genocide victims was not handed down until 1991.

In certain countries, political leaders use Nazi-era rhetoric, describing Roma as "asocial," or defending repressive measures against Roma as "social hygiene measures," implying that they are inherently unfit for European society. According to "Krasnodarskiye Izvestiya" on July 24, this is what people of Krasnodar Territory are saying in the streets, markets, and cafes about the Roma living amongst them: "They are like a social disease which has become chronic. People despise them and look at them with caution. Nothing is left from their previous reputation as freedom-loving people famous for their songs and dances. Now they go in for theft, drug trafficking, and begging. When will they be made to go away?"

"Getting away" is not as simple now as at the time when Roma lived a nomadic life. In the Czech Republic, the daily "Hospodarske noviny" reported on July 31 that nearly ten times as many Czech-passport holders have requested asylum in the United Kingdom in July as in January. The number of applicants soared to 280 in June and 186 in the first half of July. Most of the applicants are Roma, and their chances of being granted political asylum are exceedingly slim. Yet they try and try again, determined to start anew in a country where they hope they will find work and a measure of respect.
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