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Volume 2, Number 38
Friday, September 27, 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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RUSSIA’S PROSECUTOR GENERAL WARNS ABOUT EXTREMIST SURGE. “Extremism grows every day,” Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass on September 18. “This can be seen with a naked eye.” He added that extremism goes beyond hooliganism by sport fans. He said that behind the hooligans are others who control the movement. He warned that “the next step will be terrorism.”
The semi-official news agency also reported that President Vladimir Putin asked Ustinov to prepare a summary on how the law against extremism, adopted by the State Duma earlier this year, is being applied. Putin asked Ustinov to present his proposals to improve that law and discuss them at an upcoming meeting with judicial leaders.
DUMA LEADER CONDEMNS SKINHEAD ATTACKS ON FOREIGNERS. In a press conference in Baku on September 22, Russian State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev condemned the violence against Azerbaijanis in Russia, according to the local news agency Turan. “These latest cases when a representative of Azerbaijan was killed in St. Petersburg and Azerbaijanis were badly beaten up in Moscow are a cause of concern for us,” Seleznev said, describing the incidents earlier this month as “political hooliganism.” He expressed concern over skinhead violence directed against foreigners, aiming to drive them out of Russia. “This is not Russian policy and we are taking all possible measures to stop this,” he said, adding that the Russian authorities were trying to ensure that the law enforcement bodies “do not hush these things up” but try to find the culprits.
INTERIOR MINISTER CALLS FOR TOUGHENING RULES ON MIGRATION. The toughening of migration rules will not adversely affect the cause of human rights in Russia, and the government is seeking a migration policy similar to those on the western half of the continent, Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov told the press on September 20. In a carefully reasoned policy statement delivered on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Russia’s Interior Ministry, Gryzlov warned that “chaotic migration creates as serious a threat to human rights as its complete banning. This is why the toughening of migration rules does not run counter to democratic norms. The recent practices showed that this is an important way of upholding national security.”
As quoted by Itar-Tass, Gryzlov said that in the 1990s, there was no migration policy in Russia, and the consequences negatively affected the Russian economy and created social tension. “Spontaneous migration” created a lot of new problems for Russia, he stressed, and such migration can kindle social, economic, and inter-ethnic tension and can create a threat of the violation of human rights, “which we should avoid.” He said that the measures taken recently in migration policy should help develop an approach that would be the same as in the West and in Central Europe – and that is one of the main objectives of Russia’s migration policy. He did not specify the country whose policies Russia should emulate.
PATRIARCH, KREMLIN AIDE, SOLZHENITSYN OPPOSE DZERZHINSKY STATUE. On September 20, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russian Alexy II told journalists that returning the monument to secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanka Square might undermine “the fragile consent we have today in our society.” That consent “should be preserved and maintained by all possible means,” he urged. He reminded reporters that he had repeatedly voiced a similar position on the issue of removing Lenin's body from his mausoleum.
On September 19, six days after Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov suggested the restoration of the statue dismantled in 1991, a senior Kremlin official voiced an opinion. Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration, said the proposal is “not good” and can only bring “unnecessary disruption to society,” according to NTV. On September 17, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told “Izvestiya” that the return of the monument would be an outrage to the millions who perished in the gulag. He called Dzerzhinsky “a symbol of the punitive organs of the USSR.”
However, 44 percent of Muscovites favor restoring the monument, the web site “polit.ru” reported on September 23, citing a recent poll of 500 respondents by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion. Only 36 percent of respondents opposed the proposal. In 1998, a poll found 27 percent supporting the idea and 56 percent opposed.
RYBINSK AUTHORITIES IGNORE VANDALISM IN CEMETERIES AND GRAFFITI IN TOWN. As this newsletter reported last week, unknown vandals destroyed the graves in Rybinsk’s old Jewish cemetery. UCSJ's local contact Ayzik Zilbershteyn has added that the vandalism took place on the night of September 12, and all but one monument were damaged, along with nearly every tombstone. According to the chairman of the Rybinsk Jewish community, Leonid Berkovsky, “the cemetery is almost completely destroyed.” He said that the cemetery, founded in 1885, fell into disrepair during the Soviet period when a bar was constructed on its grounds. Drunks used to urinate on the gravestones. However, starting in the mid-1990s, the local Jewish community, which numbers up to 300, restored the cemetery by April this year. The cemetery was last vandalized in 1998 when vandals poured white paint on a monument and did the same in the town's other Jewish cemetery. As upsetting as those incidents were, the scale of the damage was nothing compared to what happened this month.
Berkovsky decried another disturbing phenomeon. “Disgusting graffiti are appearing which nobody bothers to clean up, even the graffiti on the facades of buildings on Rybinsk's main street,” he said. “The local authorities don't want to indulge in the luxury of a can of paint. The slogan ‘Down with endless elections and kike parasites!’ was painted over only on the eve of [President] Putin's visit to Rybinsk.” Usually, he added, members of the Jewish community have to paint over the graffiti themselves.
BELARUS PROTESTANTS ASK GOVERNMENT TO STOP DEFAMATION. Leaders of Belarus's Protestant denominations have asked their government to put an end to “the false, slanderous” campaign conducted by the state mass media, the independent news agency Belapan reported on September 25. The petition was signed by the bishop of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, Mikalay Sinkavets; the bishop of the Union of Evangelical Faith Christians, Syarhey Khomich; the president of the Association of Communities of Full Gospel Christians, Alyaksandr Sakovich, and the president of the Conference of Christian Adventists, Maysey Astrowski. Submitted to the presidential administration, the cabinet, the Ministry of Information, and the Prosecutor's Office, the petition states that “over the last few years, official media has been knowingly spreading falsehoods about Protestants and their religious organizations.” The Protestants pointed out that “most” of the materials in the state-controlled media “sought to paint Protestant communities as opponents of the Orthodox Church and claimed that Orthodox Christianity is the only true and acceptable religion in Belarus. The systematic andpurposeful propagation of such views, which denigrate the traditions and religious rites of Protestants, fan religious intolerance and trample on the religious feelings of Protestants, who are law-abiding citizens of Belarus.”
ARMENIAN PREMIER REFUSES TO COMPLY WITH TREATY OBLIGATIONS. A week before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is scheduled to discuss Armenia’s compliance with the obligations it undertook when joining the organization in January 2001, Prime Minister Andranik Markarian stepped up his defiance of those obligations by declaring that his government should curb the activities of “dangerous sects” yet further, Keston News Service reports. “We will try not to contradict Council of Europe demands,” Markarian said on September 18. “But up to a point.” Armenia has already violated those commitments by continuing to sentence conscientious objectors and failing to free those already in prison. Keston has learned that the Armenian government’s failure to guarantee equality of opportunity for all religious faiths is criticized in a report noting among other things the harassment of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Markarian complained that Armenia's Council of Europe commitments regarding freedom of conscience are “too liberal.” “We respect human rights and are a member of the Council of Europe. But everything must have its limits.” He told the government religious affairs council he chairs that the government would not allow minority religious communities to seek new followers. “We will not allow those sects to act against the state,” Radio Liberty quoted him as saying. “We will not allow them to engage in proselytism.” He claimed that “dangerous sects” threaten state security. He added: “Security of the state and the people is more important than some [international] treaties.” Mikael Grigorian, the deputy defense minister, singled out the Jehovah’s Witnesses, accusing them of seeking “the disintegration and demoralization” of Armenia's armed forces.”
GERMAN ELECTIONS TAINTED WITH ANTI-AMERICANISM. In the closest election contest in modern Germany, any small segment of voters may be said to have decided the outcome. Some commentators suggest that the Social Democrats benefited from their leaders’ statements directed against President Bush and his plan to attack Iraq. The Associated Press found that the campaign run by the winner, incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, was “tainted with anti-American sentiment.” Others suggest that it was the Christian Democrats’ anti-immigrant rhetoric that sealed their defeat.
Though Germany’s Jewish population is under 100,000, the antisemitic views expressed by one leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) has alienated some voters, and that party’s loss of support deprived its partner, the Christian Democrats, of the chance to form a coalition government. On the other hand, the Green Party edged ahead, which enabled a victory by its partner, the incumbent Social Democrats, which captured the same percentage of the vote, 38.5, as its rival Christian Democrats. The Greens (8.6 percent) barely beat the FDP (7.4 percent) but enough for a win. The FDP’s vice president, Juergen Moellemann, who made statements that many considered antisemitic, resigned, as did Christian Democratic Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, who allegedly compared Bush to Hitler. (She denied having made the statement, and Schroeder repeated that denial in his letter of apology to Bush. U.S. officials disbelieve the denial, and U.S.-German ties are in need of repair.)
The margin of the center-left’s victory was too narrow to talk about a continent-wide swing back to the left, following victories by the right in other European Union countries. More noteworthy was the crushing defeat of both the far left and the far right. The reconstituted communist party, the Party of Democratic Socialism, received 4 percent of the vote nationwide, and other parties from the far left and the far right ended up with less than 3 percent combined.
U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION IN CRISIS, HRW SAYS. U.N. member states should use an upcoming review process to restore the credibility of the Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on September 24. As the world's highest-ranking human rights body meets in Geneva, HRW warned that the commission is dominated by governments intent on blocking international scrutiny of their abusive human rights practices. These governments have initiated a review of the commission's work that could radically curtail the effectiveness of U.N. human rights monitoring, HRW said. “The Commission on Human Rights is in crisis,” said Joanna Weschler, HRW’s U.N. representative. “Governments that support human rights need to head off efforts to weaken the United Nations human rights system.”
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * “[W]here antisemitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities,” said Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard University in an address at the Memorial Church in Cambridge on September 17. “Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are antisemitic in their effect if not their intent.”
NEO-NAZI SKINHEAD VIOLENCE RIPPLES ACROSS RUSSIA
An Incomplete Monthly Survey
Skinheads organizing themselves to pursue acts of violence against non-Slavs are very much in evidence across Russia, it appears from scattered reports filed this month by UCSJ monitors and regional media. Local law enforcement authorities ignore skinhead activities, and they continue to deny that there is a skinhead problem.
1. In Oryol, skinheads are operating without interference from the authorities, and some of their numerous programs have attracted the participation of some teachers and businessmen, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reported. A music album titled "The Skinheads Are Coming-7," dedicated to the skinhead “heroes” who attacked dark-skinned traders in Moscow’s Yasenevo and Tsaritsyno markets last year, is now on sale in the city. The local non-governmental organization that calls itself United Europe sent a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office, asking that criminal charges be brought against the producers of the album, but received no answer at the time the report was broadcast, on September 16.
While local law enforcement officials claim that there are no extremist groups in the city, officials in charge of youth policy warn that extremist sentiment among the youth is on the increase. For instance, an officially registered soccer fan club openly expresses fascist views, and several skinhead gangs make their appearance on city streets, according to RFE/RL. Oryol extremists have their own web site, and neo-Nazi rock bands perform regularly in the city. Local skinheads publish and distribute a magazine called “Testosterone” that brags about their violent actions. Local officials say they are not concerned that another magazine with a nationalistic cast calls for the murder of non-Russians. In fact, that magazine is printed at a plant that is under the control of the governor, the report concluded.
2. In Perm, a group of skinheads in Perm's Motovilikhinsky district beat an Arab student, according to the “Zvezda” newspaper on September 20. Despite testimony by witnesses who identified the attackers as skinheads, the police have not decided whether to investigate the beating.
3. In Saransk, a group of skinheads were sentenced to prison on September 9, marking the first time skinheads have been convicted in the city, according to the newspaper “Stolitsa S” of September 18. They were arrested in connection with a series of crimes that took place in the first half of 2002. One was found guilty of breaking a beer bottle over the head of a Pakistani student, and others were found guilty of smashing the storefront windows of a store owned by a person from the Caucasus. In two other incidents that might not have been racially motivated, skinheads were convicted for breaking windows of a kindergarten and a store. One skinhead was sentenced to two years in a prison colony, while the rest received suspended sentences of a year and a half.
4. In Voronezh, UCSJ's local monitor Roman Zholud reported further details on an attempted firebombing on September 2 of a dormitory for foreign students at Voronezh State University. According to students interviewed by him, the first of two Molotov cocktails was thrown through the window of a Chinese student's room, but landed on a table without breaking. The second bottle fell short of his window and shattered in the courtyard without causing any damage.
For two days, police did not bother to visit the scene. When they showed up, they confirmed that the bottles were filled with gasoline and that they had been thrown from the rooftop of a nearby garage. A female student from Angola who lives next door to the targeted Chinese student told Zholud: “We are afraid to go out onto the street alone. By day, you can make it to the university if you make a run for it, but after dark, it's better not to risk it. It is dangerous here, but I don't want to leave. If I do, then all my studying would be for nothing, but when I do leave, I will never come back.”
5. In Moscow, five “hooligans” who beat up non-Slavs in the metro have been detained, an officer of the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs told RIA-Novosty news agency on September 19. In one incident at the Sokolnicheskaya line, the officer said, two 20-year-old Muscovites provoked a fight and badly beat a Chinese national and a resident of Buryatia. The Chinese national was hospitalized, and the visitor from Ulan-Ude received medical treatment at the scene. Fifteen minutes later, the police detained the attackers, the official said. A similar attack took place in a metro train at the same time. Three men aged 18, 22, and 28 badly beat an Indian national who was hospitalized with numerous bruises. In half an hour, the culprits were detained, the police official said. They are charged with “hooliganism.”
According to the police official, motives and details of the attacks are under investigation. He reminded the reporter that under Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code, hooliganism is punishable with imprisonment of up to five years.
But it would be a surprise if any of them gets even half of that sentence.
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