Volume 2, Number 33
Friday, August 23, 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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RACISM, ANTISEMITISM RISE IN UNLIKELY PLACES

1. Neo-Nazis Make Their Presence Known in the Komi Republic.
For the first time, the local chapter of the violent neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity (RNU) has distributed leaflets in the far north Russian city of Syktyvkar, in the Komi Republic, according to UCSJ's local monitor Igor Sazhin. Between August 5 and 12, Syktyvkar residents found in their mailboxes four different types of RNU leaflets, each decorated with swastikas, calling for a war of liberation against non-Russians. Though the republic is named after the Komi minority, Russians form the majority of the population.

The RNU has existed in the city for some time, Sazhin reports, but this is the first time it aggressively announced its presence and tried to recruit followers. It is not known which of the several RNU splinter groups that formed at the end of 2000 was behind the leaflets.

2. Armenian Newspapers Print Absurd Lies About Jews.
While blatantly antisemitic articles rarely appear in the Armenian press, there are occasional expressions of frustration with Israel's friendly relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, as well as acerbic assertions that worldwide knowledge of the Holocaust minimizes the importance of the genocide of Armenians in 1915. In most cases, articles even on these subjects avoid explicit antisemitic rhetoric. However, during this summer, two Armenian newspapers have systematically defamed Jews in a land that used to be a tranquil corner for Jews of the former Soviet Union.

The most strident of the newspapers, "Azg," is a publication of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, a nationalist organization also known as the Ramkavar Azatakan Party after its leader. A daily, "Azg" has a print run of around 3,500 copies. (The two leading state newspapers in the country have print runs of 15,000 and 5,000 copies, respectively.) In an article on May 31 about the openly racist anti-Armenian policies of Governor Aleksandr Tkachyov (also spelled Tkachov) of Russia's Krasnodar Kray, the paper's Moscow correspondent, Ruben Hayrapetyan, found a way to blame the Jews. The following quote is from the English-language version of the article, as it appeared on the "Azg" web site: "Russian nationalists admit their complete helplessness to fight against Jews. They know that out of 7 billionaires in Russia 5 are Jews. The wife of the sixth, Azeri Vagit Alekperov is said to be a Jew and all of them made their fortunes not by producing something, but taking hold of the Russian national wealth -- crude oil and non-ferrous metals and selling it to the West. Nothing is changed when they are called Jew mug, nothing. The point is that according to some sources the mother of governor Tkachov is also Jew, though I do not have enough grounds to insist on it, but many steps of the governor could be explained by this fact. Let us recall that the leaders of the October Revolution in 1917 were all Jews, who built a new Russia by ruthlessly destroying Russian nobility, professional military and Orthodox Christians. Now there are wonderful conditions in Russia to plunder the country making Armenians, Azeris, Kurds and other minorities the scapegoat. By the way, chief of migration department in the administration of governor Tkachov is a pureblooded Jew."

What is especially absurd in this concatenation of antisemitic propaganda is the allegation that Jews control the policies of the Krasnodar Kray regional administration directed against ethnic minorities. The region is widely regarded as the most antisemitic part of Russia.

On July 13, "Azg's" Moscow correspondent Hayrapetyan claimed that Russia's friendlier relations with Israel are a result of years of pressure on the part of Russia's "Judafied" media and Russian Jewish organizations, which he claimed are controlled by Israeli intelligence. On August 1, his article titled "Hitler Would Applaud the Government of Israel" compared the actions of the Israeli military in the occupied territories to those of Nazi Germany ("Hitler also promised his people living space") and attributed to the late president of the World Jewish Congress Nahum Goldman a statement to the effect that antisemites hate Jews "only a little more than we deserve." The article was prompted by the Israeli army's occupation of land belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church in order to construct a wall separating Israel from the West Bank, which set off a firestorm of protest in the Armenian media and official circles. However, most of the criticism was phrased in ways that did not seek to defame Jews.

On July 23, the same land seizure issue was the subject of an article in "Golos Armenii," a leading independent publication with a circulation of around 5,000. In the opening paragraph of the article titled "Ghosts of the Past: They Don't Just Exist, They Rule the World," the author implied that the Armenian government should link Israeli policies to Armenia's Jewish community. Shouldn't the government retaliate against Israel's land confiscation, the author asked, by seizing the "luxurious jeep of the chief rabbi of Armenia"? The article went on to contend that the land confiscation was motivated by:

"[T]he Armeniaphobia of Israeli, and more broadly, Jewish political and public circles who drew attention to themselves starting with their furious opposition to international recognition of the Armenian genocide and ending in the openly pro-Turkish regional policies of Israel, which in the end, are especially targeted against Armenia."

According to the author, a connection exists between the Israeli government's refusal to recognize the 1915 massacre of Armenians as a genocide and the supposedly hidden Jews in the Turkish government at the time. He also quoted as an authority the antisemitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." He charged that the sinister motive behind the Israeli stance on the Armenian genocide has to do with "the ethnic origins of a number of leading members of the Young Turks who held during the First World War key positions in the Ottoman Empire and were thereby directly involved in the misdeeds of the Turkish authorities towards Armenians. The chief ideologues and conductors of Pan-Turkism, everybody knows, were hardly Turks."

3. Kyrgyz Newspaper Credits Infamous Antisemitic Forgery.
The Kyrgyz newspaper "Kyrgyz Ordo" published an article titled "Under Whose Influence Are the Kyrgyz Authorities?" contending that "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" correctly predicted Kyrgyzstan's contemporary problems, according to an August 15 report by the Kyrgyz Press News Agency. The article claimed: "Over the years following the collapse of the USSR, events in the countries of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] are surprisingly similar to the scenario of the Zionist protocols. This is especially clear in our Kyrgyzstan, where democracy has turned into anarchy and where corruption has seized not just the people, but also our rulers, and where the economy has collapsed, people have become poor and officials have stolen the people's wealth."

ANTI-FASCISTS AND FASCISTS SQUARE OFF IN PERM. Activists from the Perm chapter of the Russian human rights group Memorial joined with volunteers from Germany to cleanse walls and fences throughout the city of antisemitic and racist graffiti, according to an August 12 report by the "Regions.ru" news agency. Like a similar campaign in Yekaterinburg earlier this month, the anti-fascists erased numerous swastikas and extremist slogans.

The local fascists responded. An unregistered organization calling itself the Russian Orthodox National-Socialist Party distributed leaflets, insulting non-Russians, homosexuals, and President Vladimir Putin, according to the web site of the newspaper "Izvestiya" posted on August 14. The leaflets, distributed throughout the city, contained contact information as well as the time and place where party members meet. The local FSB has started an investigation of the incident.

ORYOL AUTHORITIES IGNORE NEO-NAZIS, HARASS ANTI-FASCISTS. After lodging several complaints about the inactivity of local law enforcement agencies in the face of extremist activity, an Oryol regional nongovernmental organization (NGO) called United Europe at long last received a response from the prosecutor's office. But the response turned out to be an investigation of the NGO itself. According to United Europe, the prosecutor is demanding legal documents from the NGO, along with copies of all complaints that United Europe has sent to the authorities over the past few years. The NGO expressed disbelief that law enforcement agencies were targeting them instead of the local extremists.

FOREIGN STUDENTS ASK VORONEZH GOVERNOR FOR PROTECTION. Students from 65 nations studying in Voronezh appealed to the region's governor for protection against skinheads, according to an August 20 report by the Voronezh Online news agency. "We are constantly being beaten by nationalists; there have even been murders," the letter reads. "We have appealed to law enforcement agencies many times, but they don't do anything." The president of the African students in the city, Alberto Sebastian Mendesh, accused the police of tolerating extremists: "None of us foreigners go out onto the street -- we are just scared. And the police, who know where to find the nationalists, for some reason are in no hurry to do so." The local leader of the liberal political party Yabloko, Sergey Naumov, told the news media that the racist violence damages the city's reputation and appealed to the authorities to take action against extremists.

ANTISEMITIC LEAFLETS DISTRIBUTED IN MOSCOW SUBWAY. Antisemitic leaflets were handed out in Moscow subway trains on August 21, according to UCSJ's Moscow Bureau Chief Aleksandr Brod. The leaflets read "Down with rule by kikes!" and "As long as Zionists are in power, the war in Chechnya will not end!" Ten days earlier, leaflets written by the staff of the skinhead magazine "Russian Master," recently shut down, were placed at 20 metro stations. The leaflets insulted Jews and Tatars, called for the deportation of non-Russians, and a war to save the Russian people.

YAROSLAVL JEWS DEFY DEATH THREATS. A Jewish family in Yaroslavl, Russia has received death threats, Nadezhda Nosova, the manager of the Yaroslavl Public Center "Tse Ulmad," informed UCSJ on August 14. On the night of August 10, a member of the local Jewish community named Elena Chernova received deaths threats on the telephone. Graffiti appeared on the wall of her apartment building reading "Death to the kikes in apartment 17!" Local police and the FSB have started a criminal investigation. Interviewed on local television on August 11, Nosova said: "We are deeply upset by this crude antisemitic attack. We say in response: You cannot scare us! We will continue our public educational work despite these threats."

RUSSIA REVERSES DECISION TO ALLOW VISIT BY THE DALAI LAMA. Russia's reversal of a decision to allow the Dalai Lama to visit next month the historically Buddhist Russian republics of Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tyva "is certainly because of Chinese pressure," the Tibetan government in exile told Keston News Service. Russia's Foreign Ministry acknowledged that "in considering the question of a visit by the Dalai Lama, the position of the People's Republic of China, whose government holds a fiercely negative view of the political activities of the Dalai Lama, must be taken into account."

Russia's Buddhists have protested the government's U-turn. On August 16 Interfax quoted the Buryatia-based leader of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha, Damba Ayusheyev, as saying that "the ban on the Dalai Lama's entry to Russia will mean the violation of the constitutional rights of all Buddhists in this country." The same day, police dispersed an unsanctioned demonstration by Buddhists outside the Foreign Ministry. On August 17 Interfax reported that the leaders of the Buddhist communities in Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tyva had written a joint letter of complaint to President Vladimir Putin. Pointing out that Buddhism is a traditional religion in Russia, the three leaders wrote that, when the Dalai Lama last visited Russia in 1994, "no criteria can measure the spiritual power that we Russian Buddhists received." Now, however, they pointed out, "our fathers and mothers, our near and dear, are in danger of departing this life without pastoral blessing from His Holiness."

Representatives of Russia's other traditional religions have expressed notably different views, according to Interfax reports on August 19. "We respect the government's right to decide who will receive a visa and who will not, who is desirable and who is undesirable on our territory," said deputy head of the External Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate Father Vsevolod Chaplin. He recalled that in the course of the Dalai Lama's previous visit, he met with high-ranking clergymen of the Orthodox Church. "The Moscow Patriarchate and the Dalai Lama maintain certain relations and exchange letters," he said. "The Church might have had some contacts with Dalai Lama if he visited Russia, but their level is unknown."

"It is the government's business to admit or refuse the Dalai Lama to Russia," Supreme Mufti of Russia and CIS European Countries Talgat Tadzhuddin said. However, he added, the authorities should have considered the opinion of the Buddhist community.

Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar sharply disagreed with the refusal to grant the Dalai Lama a visa. "It is impossible to apply the regular bureaucratic manner to leaders of the country's traditional religions," he said. "The overall area of religious feelings requires a huge amount of tact. One must deal with things that concern the interests of the deepest aspects of life of an enormous number of people. Such aspects must not be mixed with politics. This approach is true only for traditional religions, but not for destructive sects whose influence may harm the nation."

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL IN BELARUS WRECKED. Vandals severely damaged a Holocaust memorial in the village of Lida, Belarus, according to UCSJ's Minsk Bureau. On August 18, ten people from Israel and the United States visiting the site where the Nazis murdered more than 8,500 Jews saw smashed statues and fences surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol. The day before, local Jews had cleaned the memorial in preparation for the visit. The memorial was destroyed twice before: in 1988 and four years ago.

ANTISEMITIC LEAFLETS REAPPEAR IN UKRAINE. For at least the third time this summer, antisemitic leaflets have been posted throughout the city of Lviv, Ukraine, according to UCSJ's local monitor. The latest leaflets read: "Kuchma and his kike clique are horrible enemies of the Ukrainian nation! Death to the kike-communist oligarchs and the Ukrainian Kuchmanoids!" Leonid Kuchma is the president of the republic.

YOUNG GERMANS UNINTERESTED IN EXTREMIST POLITICS. Fewer young Germans have joined right-wing extremist groups in recent years as youngsters turn their backs on politics in general, Professor Klaus Hurrelmann of Bielefeld University told the "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" this week. "Political activism has all but disappeared, and that includes the numbers of those belonging to right-wing extremist groups," Hurrelmann summed up his survey of 2,500 youths aged between 12 and 25. "There has been a clear trend away from ideological or even radical attitudes towards political issues." What the press hailed as the fourteenth comprehensive survey into the attitudes of the country's youth since 1952 also found that youngsters are losing interest in mainstream politics. Only 35 percent of those surveyed said they definitely planned to vote in elections.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * *"The biggest symbol of Russia's disappointment has been the Bush administration's failure to push Congress to lift Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions," Peter Baker reported from Moscow for "The Washington Post" of August 16. "Under Jackson-Vanik, a Cold War-era law intended to punish Communist countries for their repressive emigration policies, Russia must still win an annual waiver to enjoy normal trading rights with the United States -- something even China no longer must do, although it is still governed by the Communist Party."

BRITAIN AND ITALY CANNOT HOLD BACK REFUGEE TSUNAMI
New Measures Fail to Deter the Desperate

The immigration crisis in the European Union is getting worse. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, often characterized as a leftist, has joined the chorus of leaders calling for tighter restrictions on illegal migrants streaming into the continent in search of employment. A new law introduced by his Italian colleague at the other end of the European political spectrum, Silvio Berlusconi, offers no relief. Observers and refugees suggest, with rare unanimity, that the administrative measures being applied are useless.

Britain now receives 1,500 new asylum applications each week, and most of the new arrivals are from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, Reuters reported on August 18. Only 10 percent of the 70,000 refugees who have been reaching Britain annually end up winning citizenship, the news agency cited official figures, although a further 25 percent are granted "exceptional leave to remain."

In June, the British government disclosed plans to build four centers to house 3,000 people in rural England starting in 2003. It said it had long-term plans to open 15 centers for 22,000 people. The government hopes that such "accommodation centers" would help speed up decisions for genuine refugees. Refugee groups counter that the centers further isolate asylum seekers from local communities. Reuters quoted immigration solicitor Barry Clark as saying that Britain was trying in vain to stop the flow of desperate people into the country with its new policies. He said: "The government is made to believe if they make life unpleasant for asylum seekers it will stop them from coming here, but I don't think that works. People who are fleeing Iraq or Sri Lanka or Somalia first say, 'Where can I go that's safe' and then, 'How do I get there?' These things will not discourage people." The new policies, Clark said, "will just make life more difficult when they get here."

"The English language, lax rules over identity cards, and Britain's reputation as a fair country draw migrants to the country by lorry, sea, or underneath Channel Tunnel trains," Reuters wrote, summing up the lure of Britain. The dispatch cited Liliya Sazonavets, a journalist who fled Belarus last year, who said that Britain is known in the asylum-seeking community as more humane than countries such as Australia, where asylum seekers are detained in prison-like camps while their applications are processed. "Great Britain is the best country for asylum seekers because you are free here," she said.

Until their cases are determined, asylum seekers to Britain are not heavily policed, Reuters noted, then quoted Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service and a former member of parliament, as saying that the government was wrong to change its approach to the new arrivals. "We have a very diverse population and a fair society," Best said. "These are reasons we should be proud of our country."

Reuters found that the policy of dispersing immigrants to the rural population centers has been unpopular in run-down areas susceptible to racial unrest. Last summer there were riots between whites and Asians in several towns and cities in northern England. The most hopeful part of the dispatch is the statement: "But pockets of tolerance are started to emerge."

Another Reuters item reports that early on August 19 about 150 illegal immigrants landed on the Mediterranean island of Sicily. They followed hundreds of others in "a flotilla of rusty old vessels" taking advantage of the calm summer seas along Italy's southern coastline. Local authorities struggling to contain the influx called in the military over the weekend to airlift to Sicily some 250 immigrants, mostly Africans, holed up on the tiny island of Lampedusa.

A large number in this most recent wave of refugees have scabies and various communicable diseases, the dispatch continued, and officials warned about a serious health risk to locals and tourists. The immigrants were identified as having come from throughout the Third World, especially Morocco, Liberia, Pakistan, and Iraq. The daily "La Stampa" noted "the inhumane way these immigrants are treated on the boats" and called the lack of hygiene "alarming." Some of them will not say where they are from for fear that they will be forcibly repatriated.

The Italian press noted that this latest influx comes only a few days before the introduction of tough new legislation aimed at preventing illegal immigration by only allowing in people with work permits and stepping up coastal patrols. Opposition parties argue that the law would not have deterred the new arrivals. Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, leader of Italy's Green party, said that "the new immigration emergency" shows that the law, which he condemned as racist, is "totally inefficient in the fight against people traffickers."
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