Volume 2, Number 37
Friday, September 20, 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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SKINHEADS VIDEOTAPE THEIR MURDER OF AZERI TRADER. After what the Russian news media have dubbed "a three-day war between skinheads and Azeris" in St. Petersburg, one Azerbaijani national is dead and another is in the hospital, recovering from multiple stab wounds. Citing police sources, the web site "lenta-ru" reported that the skinheads who allegedly beat to death an Azeri watermelon dealer also videotaped the murder, and police seized the videotape in the home of a suspect. The first victim, Magomed Magomedov, in his early 50s, was reportedly beaten to death by five young men armed with metal bars on September 13. The following day, the second victim was beaten and slashed with razors by several young men dressed in army fatigues.

Police arrested 120 suspects from the streets, "according to their appearance: camouflage uniforms, soldier's boots, and shaven heads," NTV reported. "Nevertheless, these crude methods yielded results. Nearly all of the 20 or so people directly involved in the attacks have been arrested." According to the police, they are between 14 and 18 years of age, students at technical and vocational schools, and some of them come from well-to-do families. The police have concluded from its interrogations that "it would not be entirely correct to talk of strictly disciplined nationalist organizations in St Petersburg." The police believe "that Petersburg fascism is not an organization but a social phenomenon." They told NTV that they find it "difficult to define fascism or skinheads." They added their usual claim: The incidents are not related, and they are not racially motivated.

Cassettes seized by the police are said to be on sale at most of the city’s markets. They show a concert on Hitler's birthday, with a swastika in the background. They also show a march after the concert, and the beating of victims. Young people on a wide city street give Hitler salutes, accompanied by men with megaphones and Ku-Klux-Klan outfits. They shout "Glory to Russia!"

Recent attacks against representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora in St Petersburg must be thoroughly investigated, Russia's Minister for Nationalities Policy Vladimir Zorin said on Ekho Moskvy radio on September 15. "We must have a full picture of what has happened," he said. "The knowledge of the cause of a disease makes its treatment easier." Zorin said that in early 2003, his ministry will examine how the federal program for the inculcation of ethnic tolerance and counteraction to extremist activities is being implemented. "We must carry out a set of measures aimed against extremism and radicalism among the young people," he said. "Schoolmasters, sport and public organizations should participate in this work." He named youth unemployment as one of the reasons behind the current upsurge of violence.

NTV interviewed some extremists. One unidentified person with his back to the camera boasted that the attacks on the Azeris are "just the beginning" and that "things will get much tougher." He said that "they should be beaten and driven away from here."

SKINHEADS BEAT UKRAINIAN BOY MISTAKENLY IDENTIFIED AS A JEW. On September 12, the day before the Azeri watermelon dealer was killed, the St. Petersburg newspaper "Smena" published an article about earlier skinhead violence in the same neighborhood—the Vasileostrovsky District. According to "Smena," on July 29, a 15-year-old boy identified as "Evgeny M" was walking with a friend along Morskaya Naberezhnaya street. In the middle of the day, in front of numerous witnesses, the two friends were suddenly surrounded by three older skinheads who identified themselves as members of the "Slavic Legion." Asked what his ethnicity is, "Evgeny M" said "Ukrainian." The skinheads demanded to see his identity card. Because "Evgeny M's" name ends with an "s," the skinheads thought him Jewish. Warning him about the consequences of lying, the skinheads forced "Evgeny M" to take off his pants to check if he is circumcised. Unfortunately for "Evgeny M," he had undergone surgery for a urological problem. That was all the evidence the skinheads needed to classify him as a Jew.

Before they started beating "Evgeny M," the skinheads told his Russian friend: "Get out of here. If we catch you again with kikes, we will punish you!" "Evgeny M" ended up in the hospital with a concussion and other serious injuries.

Police investigated the incident and interrogated nine members of the Slavic Legion in connection with the beating. The gang was known to the police because on April 23, ten of its members were detained after they vandalized a neighborhood dormitory where many foreign students live. Police found the gang's headquarters in the basement of an apartment building, filled with Nazi posters, swastikas, and leaflets urging "patriotic youth" to join the legion in its war against non-Slavs.

Earlier this month, the St. Petersburg prosecutor's office held a press conference on extremism in the city, during which they presented the arrest of some Slavic Legion members as a victory. However, the "Smena" article warned: "It is too early to speak about victory. First of all, there hasn't been a trial yet. Secondly, there are at least ten such groups as the 'legionnaires' in the city."

The article ends by disclosing yet another incident that the Vasileostrovsky District police have been investigating. On May 9, during the annual celebration of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, skinheads staged a demonstration holding up swastikas. When an enraged passerby criticized the neo-Nazis for using a swastika, one skinhead broke a bottle on a lamppost and stabbed the passerby in the eye, damaging it irreparably.

ANTI-ARMENIAN RIOT IN KRASNODAR KRAY. A riot directed against the Armenian minority took place in the evening of September 14 in the town of Slavyansk-na-Kubani in Krasnodar Kray, the Armenian news agency Arminfo reported on the basis of information published in the local newspaper "Yerkramas." According to locals, some 300 teenagers, with some adults among them, walked down the streets of the town where various shops and cafes belong to Armenians. The crowd threw stones at these establishments and beat Armenians whom they came across. Apparently, the police had been sent to the town of Anapa for unknown reasons.

The Armenian church, which opened recently in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, was not damaged, as Armenians immediately took up its defense. "The situation was stabilized" the following day, and reinforced police units were soon in control.

Another ethnically motivated clash took place this week in the city of Essentuki. On September 16, the web site of “Izvestiya” reported that Cossacks working as security guards in a bar threw out an ethnic Greek man who later returned with around 30 other Greeks. (Greeks have lived in the Black Sea coast region for centuries). In the brawl that ensued, five people were hospitalized and police made some arrests. Local officials denied that the incident had anything to do with inter-ethnic tension.

LEFTISTS MARCH UNDER NAZI BANNERS IN MOSCOW. On September 15 in Moscow, some 1,000 left-wing radicals, most of them young, took part in a march protesting capitalism, the radio Ekho Moskvy reported from the scene. The reporter took note of "many banners with Nazi slogans and flags with swastikas." UCSJ’s Moscow bureau chief Aleksandr Brod spotted in the crowd several members of the neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity, along with followers of the National Bolshevik Party. He reported that some demonstrators shouted “Down with the kike Mafia,” “Kikes out of Russia,” and “Send the Chechens to Auschwitz!” The rally, authorized by the Moscow city administration, started at noon on Manezh Square and proceeded along Tverskaya Ulitsa to Triumfalnaya Square. A mass brawl, in which several people were injured, began after police had detained “several violators of public order.” According to the police, the radicals were armed with clubs, electric shockers, and shields.

RYBINSK JEWISH CEMETERY DESTROYED. For the third time in recent years, the Rybinsk Jewish cemetery in Yaroslavl Oblast was vandalized, according to a September 16 report on the Rybinsk-40 television station. The head of the local Jewish community characterized this most recent attack as by the far the largest, destroying almost every gravestone.

KRASNODAR COURT DEPORTS SWEDISH PASTOR. Swedish Protestant Leo Martensson, who arrived in Frankfurt on September 11 on a flight from Moscow, is the most recent "religious deportee" as the authorities step up their campaign against foreigners working in Russia at the invitation of local believers, the Keston News Service reports. For nearly nine years, Martensson worked in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar. A Krasnodar court ordered his deportation on September 10 and canceled his visa. His lawyer, Aleksandr Antipyonok, told Keston that the decision was illegal and will be appealed to a higher court. "If we don't register our protest and make our voice heard, such precedents will become the norm," he said. "This is a great danger to our democratic state." He said that if the authorities had any complaint against Martensson, they should have gone to the inviting organization, the Krasnodar Kray diocese of the Evangelical Christian Missionary Union, a Protestant denomination that is registered both nationally and locally.

Speaking to Keston from Germany, Martensson said that his multi-entry visa, valid until July 15, 2003, was immediately cancelled in the wake of the court hearing. "The head of the visa office wrote across the visa by hand 'annulled in connection with expulsion' and the internal affairs directorate of the Krasnodar city executive committee stamped the passport with the same message." The court also fined him 500 roubles.

Martensson said he did not know why he had been expelled. He told Keston that he could only guess that the authorities wanted to get rid of him, "an active missionary." He thought it likely that Muslim clergy in the republic of Adygea, a region surrounded by Krasnodar Kray, instigated his expulsion.

CATHOLIC CLERGY DENIED RUSSIAN VISAS NOW NUMBER SEVEN. A French Catholic monk, Brother Bruno Maziolek, was denied an entry visa to Russia in December last year in a previously unpublicized case, bringing to seven the number of foreign Catholic clergy known to have been barred from the country, Keston News Service reports. Since 1991, Brother Bruno had run a social ministry in a village called Novoe, close to the town of Pereslavl-Zalessky, 75 miles northeast of Moscow. In March 2001, the Russian security services informed him that he was a danger to the Russian Federation. A Catholic source in Moscow maintains that a local Orthodox priest, Oleg Razumov, was behind the expulsion. Razumov denies the charge.

The source says that through his independent foundation called Triumph of the Heart, Brother Bruno had set up a children's center for the surrounding villages and a rehabilitation program for drug addicts, and he distributed large quantities of humanitarian aid. All this activity was conducted independently from the Catholic parish in the regional center of Yaroslavl, with which Brother Bruno, who does not speak Russian, had no contact. Brother Bruno had never engaged in catechism -- "no one became Catholic in 10 years," the source said, -- and he offered the foundation's facilities for use by local Orthodox, even building an Orthodox chapel in the children's center and helping to fund the renovation of two nearby Orthodox churches. However, the source said, the Orthodox found this “insufferable.”

Interviewed by Keston in Yaroslavl, the regional official dealing with religious affairs, Boris Kuznetsov, maintained that while Brother Bruno had been engaged in charitable work, the Moscow Patriarchate's position was “quite hardline -- they suspected it was proselytism.”

COUNTER-DEMONSTRATORS TRUMP NEO-NAZI MARCH IN BRANDENBURG. A September 14 march against Jewish immigration into Germany by some 75 members of Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NDP) was trumped by a counter-demonstration by more than 1,000 people, including unionists, religious groups, political parties, and Matthias Platzeck, the Social Democrat governor of Brandenburg, the Associated Press reported. The NDP members marched for two hours along a heavily-policed route under banners saying, "End the mass immigration of Russian Jews -- Germany for Germans," and were then driven from the city in a bus by police. Platzeck criticized the court decision allowing the march.

DOUBTS EMERGE ABOUT AN EU DRIFT TO THE RIGHT. Is there a swing to the right or not, West Europeans ask after the Social Democrats won a third straight term at last Sunday's Swedish elections. Up to September 15, left-leaning parties had lost in Italy, Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France. Sweden was expected to follow suit. The adjectives that news agencies now routinely attach to parties of the right are "populist" and "anti-immigrant."

The single most important exception to the rightward trend in the EU is Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair's center-left Labor government won in a landslide in June 2001 with a 167-seat lead over the opposition Conservative Party in the 659-seat House of Commons. In most public opinion surveys, Labor enjoys a lead of at least 10 percent. But Blair is under a great deal of pressure to introduce restrictions to immigration, and the odds are that he eventually will.

As many as two million immigrants could go to Britain from non-European Union countries each decade for the indefinite future, predicted Andrew Green of Migration Watch UK on September 17. He cautioned that such large numbers were "placing a huge burden on schools, hospitals, transport, and housing" in Britain and called on the government to act to stop the flow. Speaking to a British parliamentary committee on immigration and asylum, Green said that according to his data, 90 percent of asylum seekers who are refused the right to remain in Britain end up staying illegally anyway. Earlier this year, the government announced that it will remove from Britain 30,000 failed asylum applicants each year. Last month, it admitted that it is unlikely to reach that target.

On September 18, during a parliamentary committee hearing on asylum and immigration, Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that Afghans and Kosovars who went to Britain fleeing turmoil or persecution should go home. "They should get back home and help recreate their countries that we freed from tyranny, whether it be Kosovo or now Afghanistan," Blunkett said. "I have no sympathy whatsoever for young men... who do not go home and help rebuild their countries and their families." Britain, a nation of 60 million inhabitants, receives 1,500 new applications for political asylum each week, with most people arriving from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

The election that will decide which way the EU is leaning will be in Germany this Sunday. The question is whether Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's center-left coalition of Social Democrats and Greens -- who won 40.9 percent and 6.7 percent of the vote, respectively, in 1998 -- will return to power. Though polls suggest that Schroeder has caught up with his opponent's early lead and now the race is too close to call, the issue of limiting immigration is expected to win votes for conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber. This week, in what seems to be a last minute effort to recapture his lead, Stoiber again raised the subject of immigration.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * Predicting that German far-right politicians will fall far short of the 5 percent vote needed to enter parliament, Prof. Frank Decker of Bonn University said: "More important than the institutional explanations or the political culture is the strong stigmatization of far-right extremists and right-wing populists in Germany."

MOSCOW MAYOR LUZHKOV EXONERATES BOLSHEVIK ICON
If Restored to its Pedestal, Dzerzhinsky's Statue Will Cast a Shadow over the New Russia

Not a week passes in Russia without skinheads beating up non-Slavs or extremists displaying the swastika or individuals who remain unidentified vandalizing Jewish tombstones. Those of us who do not close our ears to these screams of hatred and violence demand that the country's new leaders do their maximum to move Russia farther away from its totalitarian heritage and closer to a democracy where tolerance is the respected law of the land. With gains so precariously balanced against losses, it is a shock to watch an influential politician with a potentially bright future throw away his anti-Communist reputation and join up with the dark forces of the past.

The public has not as yet heard what changed Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's mind when on September 13 he suddenly called for the resurrection of an icon of the Soviet state, the towering statue of secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Bolshevik leader responsible for mass arrests, executions, and state terror. Following the failed coup by Communist hard-liners in August 1991, jubilant pro-democracy demonstrators toppled the oversize, 15-ton bronze Stalinist monstrosity from its pedestal near the former KGB headquarters.

As recently as four years ago, Luzhkov as mayor prevented the reinstatement of the monument demanded by the Communist-dominated State Duma. His turnabout this month is as inexplicable as it is ominous. "It's an excellent monument and was the highlight of Lubyanskaya Ploshchad," Luzhkov was quoted as saying at a meeting of the city's construction committee. Since then, he told the press that he would not budge from his position which he expects will prompt a fierce debate, and he praised what he called Dzerzhinsky's positive achievements. "We should remember that he solved the problem of homeless children and bailed out the railroads in a period of devastation," Luzhkov said. "There were excesses at that time, the red terror. But if all the useful things Dzerzhinsky did were taken into account, it would be worthy of making the decision to return the statue to Lubyanskaya."

Historian Robert Conquest, an authority on Soviet-era repression, estimates that during the first six years after the Bolshevik revolution Dzerzhinsky and his leather-jacketed henchmen killed 500,000 people.

Luzhkov's exoneration of Dzerzhinsky enraged many lawmakers. Union of Rightist Forces leader Boris Nemtsov said that a restoration of the monument would confirm the trend toward authoritarianism. He said his party will collect one million signatures to protest Luzhkov's proposal. One of his deputies, Alexander Barannikov, suggested that Luzhkov had experienced "a moment of temporary insanity." Grigorii Yavlinsky's Yabloko party issued a statement: "The personality of Dzerzhinsky is inseparably linked to the creation of the system of concentration camps and the destruction of millions of people, including the best representatives of the intelligentsia, the clergy, the Cossack community, the working class, and the peasantry during the period of the Red Terror." Once again, Yabloko urged the city to raise a monument to the victims of political repression on the spot where the statue had stood. However, the Kremlin's representative to the Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, sounded pragmatic rather than troubled when he said: "Monuments shouldn't be toppled but, if toppled, they should not be restored."

"Moscow Times" writer Nabi Abdullaev noted: "The federal government has no say in the matter, and Luzhkov has a reputation for getting things done once he puts his mind to it."

In an eerie coincidence that would have been declared conspiratorial in Soviet times, the day after Luzhkov's statement, investigators announced the discovery of what may turn to be the largest mass grave of victims of the Soviet regime uncovered to date, containing the remains of more than 30,000 people executed by the NKVD, a predecessor to the KGB. According to London's "Sunday Times" of September 15, the find, in the outskirts of St. Petersburg, is the result of years of archival research, the study of aerial photographs, and interviews with locals by Memorial, a group dedicated to remembering the victims of communist repression.

The first bodies were found three weeks ago, in Rzhevsky, 20 miles northwest of St. Petersburg, the newspaper reported. "We started digging and found more and more bodies," Irina Flige, a member of Memorial's team, told "The Sunday Times." "We dug a pit and found remains, then we dug another a few hundred yards away and found more." The number of bodies may surpass those in two graves uncovered in 1992 -- at Levashevo, near St. Petersburg, and Butovo, near Moscow -- each of which contained about 25,000 people. Researchers think that the victims are "ordinary Russians" killed in 1937, during the Great Terror, when the NKVD was headed by Nikolai Yezhov, who earned the epithet "the bloody dwarf." This particular heir to Dzerzhinsky may have sent one million people to their deaths between 1936 and 1938.

Memorial officials say that many other mass graves are scattered throughout the former Soviet Union and that the FSB, the successor to Dzerzhinsky's Cheka, is doing little or nothing to help uncover them. "We can say that the secret services are hampering the work to expose such mass graves, because they would like them to remain a mystery," Arseny Roginsky, the chairman of Memorial, told "The Baltimore Sun."
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