Volume 2, Number 36
Friday, September 13, 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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RUSSIAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS CONDEMN KREMLIN’S ANTI-EXTREMISM DRIVE. Some of Russia’s key human rights activists have sharply and unequivocally condemned the government’s recent anti-extremism and anti-racism campaign as a “sham” designed “to deflect criticism from the West” and “without having any intention of backing up its words with actions,” the “Moscow Times” reported on September 4. In fact, the activists asserted, federal agencies give free rein to growing instances of racially motivated crime in Russian cities and to racist initiatives by regional authorities. "A sham is the best way to describe the government's policy of strong-worded declarations combined with mild actions or total permissiveness," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), a human rights watchdog organization. "A lot is done solely to create a good image of Russia abroad. For example, when skinheads beat up the son of a diplomat, we see a flurry of activity by the authorities, but when a common Azeri falls victim, they don't care."

Tatyana Lokshina of the MHG said the law on combating extremism signed by President Vladimir Putin in July, which officials claimed would give a legal basis to prosecute racially motivated crime, was designed largely to persuade the West that Russia had become more civilized. "It was the same as the recently adopted law on alternative civil service or the order for federal troops to conduct searches in Chechnya together with local police," Lokshina said. "We thought it would be a victory for human rights but it all turned out to be a sham."

The occasion for the broad-gauge attack was the presentation to the press of the book "Nationalism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia," published by MHG. The anthology, authored by several specialists, details the rise of xenophobia, which it calls “a persisting trend throughout the 1990s”and “initially unnoticed by the domestic democratic community.” The book criticizes the government for not countering xenophobia. Instead, the authorities, especially in the regions, “moved to place constraints on the continuing flow of migrants.” The war in Chechnya is “a principal factor contributing to the institutionalizing of xenophobia,” the book notes, and it finds that extremist parties “followed popular sentiment” and “exchanged” Jews for Caucasians as “the primary enemy of the Russian people.”

The book analyzes the skinhead riots in Yasenevo and Tsaritsyno that “surprised” the central government and the central government’s “quiet support” for the racist and xenophobic views of governors and politicians at the regional level. Cited are the words of Nikolay Kondratenko, former governor of Krasnodar Kray and a fighter against "world Zionism," and Aleksandr Tkachyov, his current "stand-in."

The book argues that a core problem is the absence of the concept of "discrimination" in the Russian Constitution that only mentions the "equality of human and civil rights and freedoms irrespective of sex, race, nationality, or language." The book takes the government and law enforcement agencies to task for refusing to recognize hate crimes as racially motivated. Instead, they tend to perceive hate crimes as a manifestation of uncontrolled migration, inter-ethnic tensions or just common violence by urban youths. This approach allows officials to ignore the human rights abuses involved in the violence. The book states that in almost all criminal cases opened by federal prosecutors into skinhead attacks, which have surged over the past two years, the charges do not mention racial motives.

RUSSIA’S ROMAN CATHOLICS UNDER FIRE. Unidentified individuals opened fire on a Roman Catholic church in Rostov-on-Don, officials informed the Associated Press on September 9. No one was injured. Rostov police spokeswoman Olga Kakutkina said unknown gunmen fired on the church early Saturday, September 7, when nobody was inside. Officials at the Rostov parish said they did not believe the incident was anti-Catholic but simple hooliganism.

On September 9, Edward Mackiewicz, head of the Last Supper parish in Rostov-on-Don, became the fifth member of the Roman Catholic clergy not allowed to re-enter Russia in the past few months, Interfax reported. He had tried to enter Belarus from Poland by car, he told the Roman Catholic newspaper “Svet Yevangeliya.” After he was kept for several hours on the Polish-Belarussian border, his visa, which had been valid until December 2002, was annulled, and he was told that he was prohibited to return to Russia, Interfax learned. A border guard officer who refused to give his name told Mackiewicz that his parish had been abolished and his church closed down, so there was no longer any need for a parish priest in Rostov, Mackiewicz drove back to Warsaw.

Also on September 9, Catholic priest Jaroslaw Wiszniewski, a Polish national serving a parish in Sakhalin, was detained upon landing at Khabarovsk airport and sent back to Japan the following day. A spokesman for the border guards disclosed that Wiszniewski was expelled and put on a list of people not allowed in Russia. On its official web site the Russian Orthodox Church accused Wiszniewski of "open proselytism" after two of his parishioners distributed Catholic literature, Reuters reported.

There are now five members of the Catholic clergy who have been prevented to return to Russia in the past few months. "This is a fact that is so grave that some people are already speaking of persecution," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Reuters. "It is even more grave because the Holy See has not received any official explanation about the reasons which are behind this expulsion." He said the Vatican was dealing with the problem through diplomatic channels. Felix Corley, editor of the Keston News Service and a specialist in the former Soviet Union, told Reuters that it is “unclear where the instructions come from, but even if [President Vladimir] Putin has not ordered these expulsions, he has deliberately not overturned the decisions."

“We could be left soon with no priests,” said Viktor Khrull, press secretary of Russia’s leading Catholic, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, who is currently out of the country, in an interview with Judy Augsburger of MSNBC. “All of our priests are foreign for the moment, since there are no Catholic seminaries in Russia yet. If someone is trying to impinge on the rights of Catholics, then he has chosen the best tactic, because we can’t do anything about it. Everything is done legitimately because any government can refuse to grant a visa or not extend a visa to a foreigner, without an explanation.” According to Khrull, Putin’s recent response to Pope John Paul’s query offered “virtually no explanation.” More worrisome still, Khrull said, was a phrase in the letter that implied the following argument: “the Catholic structures in Russia may develop only on the condition that these structures do not infringe on the interests of the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin made it clear that the Russian Orthodox Church will decide itself when and how its interests are being infringed upon, and the president will be on the side of the Russian Orthodox Church.”

VORONEZH FSB CHIEF SHRUGS OFF EXTREMIST PROBLEM. Asked about political extremism in the region known as a neo-Nazi stronghold, regional FSB director General Aleksandr Andreev told "Vornezhskoe Obozrenie" (Voronezh Review): "We don't have skinheads on the streets, even the Limonovites [members of the National Bolshevik Party] haven't been heard from, and the RNU is a completely familiar organization that operates legally in Voronezh [the RNU's main successor organization, Russian Rebirth, was registered inthe region a year ago]. The television hysteria about extremism is a political game."

The article, published on August 28, pointed out that while skinheads may not be on the streets, they attack foreign students, and the FSB arrested some of them armed with explosives on the eve of Hitler's birthday. In addition, the author’s commentary continued, four posters with the words "Death to the Kikes" were found in Voronezh rigged to fake explosive devices. Moreover, the police are dragging out an investigation of an illegally distributed newspaper called “Vornezhskaya Pravda" which, according to the article, incites ethnic hatred.

On September 2, just a few days after the publication of the article, two Molotov cocktails were thrown through the windows of a Voronezh State University dormitory that mostly houses foreign students. Luckily, the firebombs did not ignite properly. Police and FSB are investigating.

On September 9, in the middle of the day, about 20 skinheads gathered on a street corner bordering a Voronezh State University building that houses offices where foreign students are given orientation sessions, according to UCSJ's local monitor Roman Zholud. For half an hour, the skinheads chanted "Russia!" and "Sieg Heil!" University officials explained to Zholud that nobody saw any point in calling the police, since they so rarely respond to appeals for protection on the part of foreign students and only come if they report an assault.

VORONEZH OFFICIAL TRIES TO BLACKBALL ROSTROPOVICH AS A JEW. Last week, Voronezh’s city parliament debated whom to name an "honorary citizen of Voronezh" on the occasion of the annual "Day of the City" festival. According to UCSJ's local monitor Roman Zholud, the head of the financial committee, Sergey Fyodorov, protested vehemently against the nomination of Mstislav Rostropovich. "Who's going to vote for that kike?" Fyodorov asked his fellow deputies, under the mistaken impression that the world famous cellist and former conductor of the National Symphony in Washington is Jewish.

Viktor Davydkin, former presidential representative to Voronezh Oblast, responded angrily, retorting that words like that often lead to fist fights. However, instead of condemning Fyodorov, other MPs warned Davydkin not to disrupt the session and defended Fyodorov. In the end, Rostropovich was awarded the honorary title.

KALININGRAD ANTISEMITE RELEASED, CASE DROPPED. A resident of Kaliningrad arrested in July for distributing antisemitic leaflets in the city was released on bail and soon afterwards had charges against him dropped, according to UCSJ's local monitor Aleksandr Eltsov. Though the head of the regional Ministry of Interior held a press conference to announce the suspect's arrest and a large hoard of antisemitic and fascist literature was found in his apartment, the case is now closed, this time without any fanfare. Even the decision to grant bail was unusually lenient by the standards of Russian legal practice. Most of the criminal suspects are kept in detention until their trials, which may not take place for months.

The UCSJ's monitor also reported that last month about 30 youths from a group that calls itself the "Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Russians of Kaliningrad Oblast" gathered on Victory Square in the center of the city to demand the "expulsion of Jewish fascists from Russia" and an end to both the "criminal regime of the kikeocracy of Yeltsin-Putin-Chubays" and "Jewish anti-Russian rule" in Kaliningrad. Writing for the region's leading newspaper "Kaliningradskaya Pravda" on August 13, a local academic criticized the regional authorities for registering the Regional National-Cultural Autonomy of Russians of Kaliningrad Oblast. Allowing such a group to register, the academic argued, shows dangerous carelessness on the authorities' part toward the problem of extremism.

RUSSIAN JOURNALIST UNION CONDEMNS ANTISEMITIC TV PROGRAM. A committee of the Russian Journalists' Union called the Grand Jury has condemned the creators of the "Antideza" television program for their interpretation of antisemitism, Interfax reported on September 9. Shown on July 28, the program claimed that Jewish capital provoked the Bolshevik Revolution, brought Hitler to power, and set up “a new Third Reich," the state of Israel. Alla Gerber, President of the Holocaust Foundation, described these assertions as an attempt to instigate ethnic enmity. Vera Malkova, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, also criticized “Antideza.” She said that the program showed signs of intolerance and said nothing positive about Russia's Jews and their role in society.

After the debate, the Grand Jury stated that public discussions of such serious issues as antisemitism are not only possible, but necessary. "However, while dealing with this sensitive problem, journalists should demonstrate a lot of tact and professional responsibility, makeuse of verified information, and allow people to express different opinions," the Grand Jury said, adding that regardless of the authors’ intentions in terms of form and content, “a program caninstigate ethnic, social, and religious intolerance, which is incompatible with the principles and norms of the professional ethics of journalists.” The statement said that that the program contained “inaccuracies, manipulated facts, quoted phrases in a way which distorted their meaning, and interpreted the word ‘Yid’ in a biased way.” However, the Russian Journalists' Union did not deal with the legal aspects and thus will not ask the Press Ministry to take away the license from the Moskovia television channel that showed the program.

TAJIKISTAN BANS HOME-BASED RELIGIOUS SERVICES. The pastor of an evangelical Christian church in Chkalovsk on the outskirts of the city of Khojand in northern Tajikistan, has told Keston News Service that the town procuracy is preventing church members from meeting in her home. Although the country’s religion law permits meetings in private homes, it has been superseded by a government decree, which, according to Chalovsk’s chief public prosecutor, has not been enforced until recently. Harald Hartvig Jepsen of the OSCE office in Khojand believes the tightened controls are aimed primarily at the country’s Muslims but have rebounded on Christians as well.

ANTISEMITISM ON THE RISE IN GERMANY, SURVEY FINDS. A new survey shows German antisemitism on the rise, with more than a quarter of people surveyed saying they believe Jewish influence is too great and 17 percent saying they believe Hitler would be viewed as a great statesman if not for the Holocaust, researchers from University of Leipzig and Berlin's Free University told the Associated Press on September 6. In one detail that contradicts popular perceptions, the researchers found that the increase in antisemitic feelings was greater in western Germany than in the former communist east. Elmar Braehler of Leipzig University had no explanation but speculated that increased tensions in the Middle East and open criticism of Israel could be behind the loosening of inhibitions in expressing antisemitism. Diedre Berger, Berlin director of the American Jewish Committee, said the survey backs up statistically what Jewish organizations have observed anecdotally. She suggested that right-wing extremism and antisemitism in western Germany has sometimes been given less attention because of the continuing acute violence in eastern Germany.

The findings come after the worst antisemitic attack in years, in which neo-Nazis firebombed a museum honoring the victims of the Nazi death march through Belower Woods, northwest of Berlin in eastern Germany. The fire was discovered on September 5. The neo-Nazis also painted “SS” symbols and the swastika on a memorial. The area had not seen such a serious attack on a Holocaust memorial site since 1992, when neo-Nazis burned the rebuilt prisoner barracks inside the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin.

BELARUS JAILS HINDU BELIEVERS FOR UNAUTHORIZED PROTEST. On September 5 in Minsk, Judge Tatstsyana Pawlyuchuk found Belarusian Hindu believers Syarhey Silibin and his wife Iryna Silibina guilty of repeated participation in an unauthorized picket on August 17, according to the Belarusian news agency Belapan. She sentenced Silibin to 10 days of administrative arrest and Sibina, who is unemployed and supports an underage child, was fined the equivalent of $83. On September 4, another young couple, Ihar Yusupaw and Irina Golovina, who had married just a few days before the arrest, were sentenced to 10 days in custody. They pleaded not guilty, saying that they had gone to October Square "in accordance with the constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, in order to speak out against the new bill on religion and against discrimination of religious minorities in Belarus." They held a slogan that said: "’No’ to state Orthodox terror."

The trials were held without lawyers, and the verdicts were based on testimonies of police officers and their official reports. The trials were held without lawyers, and the verdicts were based on testimonies of police officers, Belapan reports. A total of six Hindu believers – one fourth of the community in Belarus -- have been sentenced to 10 days of arrest.

The Belarusian Helsinki Committee and a member of the Belarusian parliament’s human rights commission condemned the sentences as “illegal”. “These poor Hindus have not been targeted because of who they are,” Keston News Service. “The authorities want to send a signal to other religious groups.”

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * “Over the past decade the level of xenophobia has been rising to dangerous levels,” states the book, "Nationalism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia," just published by the Moscow Helsinki Group. “While refusing to recognize the problem’s growing relevance and pass effective measures to counter the escalation of intolerance in Russian society, the authorities have allowed racially motivated violence to grow to proportions such that the government may not be capable of handling.”

NEW MOVES ON THREE CHESSBOARDSFrom the Austrian Far-Right to U.S. Policy in Uzbekistan and Chechnya

1. Haider’s GambitHistorians have traced the worldwide crash of 1929 to the folding of one bank in Vienna, and commentators suggest that the West European lurch to the right began with the shocking second-place finish of the openly xenophobic and covertly neo-Nazi Freedom Party in the Austrian elections of 1999. Just as disturbing were the acceptance of that party as a coalition partner by the center-right People’s Party and the fizzling out of the sanctions imposed by the initially outraged European Union (EU) on Austria. Since then, the good behavior of Freedom Party leaders in the cabinet has earned them respectability, and Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel has seen his political reputation rise for arranging the deal that sent Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider back to his native province of Carinthia.

But this past weekend the unpredictable Haider, the son of two hard-core Nazis, staged one of his surprises. Though officially retired from his party’s leadership and national politics, he forced the resignations of his party’s chairwoman, Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, and two cabinet members, which in turn prompted Chancellor Schuessel to disband the coalition government on September 9 and call for new elections, in November.

Observers speculate that the athletic and photogenic Haider, 52, has more surprises up his sleeve and he is ready to whip up the placid waters of Austrian politics after his two and a half years of relative obscurity. He may well think that the EU-wide surge of the populist far-right will spill over to Austria and help his party, which has often been called the most successful far-right party in Western Europe. Those who know him have no doubt that his unchanging ultimate goal is to become chancellor. Though last weekend Haider announced that he would not return to active politics, four days later, on September 11, his party nominated him as its new leader. Observers expect him to lead his party, force its feuding factions into unity, and run an aggressive campaign berating immigrants and warning about huge job losses in Austria on account of EU’s expansion that is scheduled to include neighbors Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. He is likely to raise controversy by again opposing the entry of the Czechs unless they cancel the postwar decrees that led to the expulsion of some 2.5 million ethnic Germans from Czech lands.

However, the latest poll shows that the Freedom Party’s support is now at 17 percent, down from the all-time high of 27 percent during the last elections, in 1999. Leading in the polls are the opposition Social Democrats, with 37 percent. They will not enter into coalition with the Freedom Party; nor will the Greens who claim 14 percent. The conservative People’s Party, supported by 31 percent of the electorate, is sending signals that it has had enough of Haider’s antics.

2. U.S. Sacrifices Principle for Expediency in UzbekistanThe State Department has exaggerated Uzbekistan's human rights gains in order to maintain foreign assistance to that country's government, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on September 9. HRW claims that in an August 26 document that has not been released to the public, Secretary of State Colin Powell reported to the U.S. Congress that Uzbekistan is making "substantial and continuing progress" in meeting the human rights and democracy commitments contained in a joint declaration signed with U.S. officials in March 2002. Under legislation enacted by the Congress in July, such a State Department determination is required for the release of $45 million in additional assistance to the Uzbek government.

"The State Department did not use this law as it was intended," said Tom Malinowski, HRW’s Washington advocacy director. "We expected a proactive effort. All we got was a pro-forma report."

The United States has publicly expressed concern about recent setbacks in Uzbekistan, which include deaths in custody of religious prisoners and the forced psychiatric detention of a human rights defender. However, HRW charges that the State Department has made no attempt to use the new law to leverage additional progress on those concerns before it made its positive determination.

HRW cited the U.S.-Uzbek Joint Declaration of March 2002 that committed Uzbekistan to ensure a "strong and open civil society," "respect for human rights and freedoms," a "genuine multi-party system," "free and fair elections," "political pluralism, diversity of opinions and the freedom to express them," "the independence of the media" and "independence of the courts." In determining progress in these areas, the State Department listed a number of steps taken by Uzbekistan. However, HRW asserted, for each step cited, Uzbek authorities have adopted repressive measuresthat undermine its impact. For example: The State Department cited the registration of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, the first such group permitted tofunction legally in the country, and expressed hope that other groups would be legalized soon. Yet to date, no other groups have been registered, and at least four human rights defenders have been arbitrarily detained. Another example detailed by HRW has to do with the State Department’s reference to prison sentences the government handed down against seven police and security agents for two deaths in custody. However, HRW has documented three new deaths arising from suspicious circumstances in custody since March.

"We recognize that in many ways American engagement on human rights in Uzbekistan has intensified since September 11, rather than ending as many feared," Malinowski said. "But that engagement won't be effective unless the Bush administration sends the message Congress intended: that continued U.S. support for the Uzbek government depends on greaterresponsiveness to U.S. concerns on human rights."

3. New U.S. Opening to Russia: “Increasing Skepticism" about Maskhadov The United States views separatist Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov with "increasing skepticism," U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said on September 9, according to the Agence France Press (AFP) that interpreted the statement as “a new message of support for the three-year Russian military operation in the war-torn republic.”

In the course of a round-table discussion in Moscow attended by Russian parliamentarians and top political analysts, Vershbow said that the two countries have developed an understanding of what constitutes "terrorism" following the September 11 terror attacks. Vershbow was asked why Washington has failed to criticize Georgia's futile military operation in its lawless Pankisi Gorge, aimed at eliminating Chechen rebel bases. He replied that Washington was ready to give Georgia time to catch all the Chechen rebel suspects in Pankisi. Vershbow then reminded his fellow panelists that Russia has not been able to catch all the terrorists in Chechnya and pointed out that Russia has not been able to arrest Maskhadov. AFP suggests that the comments offered “the firmest indication” to date from the U.S. administration that it views the separatist Chechen administration -- once regarded as a group of freedom fighters -- as criminals. Pressed by AFP, Vershbow backtracked, saying that he did not want to slap a "label" on Maskhadov. Then he underlined that Maskhadov, elected president of Chechnya in 1997, was losing legitimacy in the United States.

Vershbow said that Maskhadov "was clearly part of the group which launched an attack on Dagestan" in August 1999, an invasion into a neighboring Russian republic that prompted Moscow to begin the war in Chechnya two months later. Maskhadov has denied any involvement in those series of raids, which were led by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. However, Vershbow now suggested that Maskhadov and Basayev have recently formed a new alliance. "We do not have any fondness for Mr. Mashkhadov," Vershbow said, "But we still view him as a factor."
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