Volume 2, Number 42
Friday, October 25, 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 OR HOOLIGANISM, PROSECUTOR GENERAL CAN’T DECIDE. Speaking to the State Duma on October 23, Russia's Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov sounded an alarm about the growth of nationalism and racism, while at the same time warning against exaggerating the importance of that phenomenon. The official Itar-Tass news agency began its report on Ustinov’s speech as having “pointed with alarm to what he described as ‘growing nationalist sentiment and spontaneous outbreaks of violence in society.’” Then the report went on to say Ustinov found that “although the level of extremism in society had not acquired the scale of total threat, it had already gone ‘beyond the bounds of hooliganism by soccer fans and marginal youth or casual statements by notorious politicians.’”

Ustinov minimized the importance of crimes driven by nationalist or racist sentiments by declaring: “In an overwhelming majority of cases we have to deal with ordinary burglaries, robberies, and other crimes.” Of a total of 7,000-8,000 crimes he cited as having been committed against foreigners every year, he asserted that “only some are nationalism-related.”

Avoiding a direct quote, Itar-Tass paraphrased Ustinov’s assessment thus: “The threat posted by growing nationalism should not be either exaggerated or underestimated.” According to Ustinov, over 2,000 nationalist crimes were committed last year, including acts of vandalism and defilement of graves and monuments. He blamed youth unemployment and poor performance by law enforcement agencies. The report quotes him as having said: “We still do not know how many extremism-related crimes are committed in Russian regions because in many cases such cases are not put on record. We have encountered this practice in all regions of Russia.” That criticism of local authorities seemed to put in doubt the accuracy and the relevance of the surprisingly low numbers he offered on investigations by the Prosecutors' Offices. He listed investigations of only 37 criminal cases involving nationalist, racist, and religious discord this year, as against 39 last year.

TWO RACIST PAPERS RECEIVE WARNINGS, A THIRD GETS OFF THE HOOK. There are signs that the Russian law banning the propagation of ethnic and communal hatred is beginning to be enforced -- but not everywhere.

The newspapers “Era Rossii” (Era of Russia) and “Ya-Russky” (I'm Russian) have received stern official warnings for publishing materials that incites ethnic hatred, Deputy Minister for the Mass Media Valeri Sirozhenko told Itar-Tass on October 18. The warnings were prompted by court verdicts that found the two newspapers guilty under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of having published articles disseminating ideas and views that undermine “trust and respect for other nationalities, races, and religions.” The verdicts found items in the two newspapers that “evoked contempt and enmity towards the way of life, culture, and traditions of non-Russians.” Thus, the editorial boards abused the freedom of the press and breached Article 4 of the Federal Law on the Mass Media. The ministry warned that repeated violations of this article give grounds for a court order to close down the publications. According to an item on the “Jewish.ru” web site published a day earlier, the antisemitic “Era Rossii” is the organ of the People’s Socialist Party of Russia, formerly known as the National Socialist Party of Russia.

On the other hand, Sverdlovsk Oblast prosecutors continue to show contempt for the law and for the Ministry of the Mass Media that issued a warning in August against the racist and antisemitic newspaper “Russkaya Obshchina Yekaterinburga” for inciting ethnic hatred. According to documents provided to UCSJ by Mikhail Oshtrakh -- head of the Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy of Sverdlovsk Oblast -- the Sverdlovsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office has found that “Russkaya Obshchina Yekaterinburga” does not incite ethnic hatred. An October 3 letter from the Sverdlovsk Prosecutor's Office informed Oshtrakh that its decision was based on a series of “social-psychological expert studies.” The letter also stated that the Prosecutor's Office found no evidence that a book by pre-revolutionary theologian Sergey Nilus containing the antisemitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” incites ethnic hatred. (The local Russian Orthodox Church diocese has been distributing the book.) Members of the Sverdlovsk Oblast branch of the Congress of National Organizations of Russia – an umbrella organization of minority community groups that include the Jewish National-Cultural Autonomy -- plan to appeal to President Vladimir Putin.

DISTRICT PROSECUTOR REFUSES TO INVESTIGATE SYNAGOGUE VANDALISM. The Prosecutor's Office of Saratov's Kirov District has refused a request from the local Jewish community for a criminal investigation of a series of antisemitic incidents last month. The incidents include graffiti reading "Kikes out" and "Death to the kikes" painted on the synagogue's fence and a small explosive device thrown at the synagogue during services. The device caused no damage but frightened the congregation.

In a letter dated September 20 and recently acquired by UCSJ, investigator V. A. Guzenko of the Prosecutor's Office informed Rabbi M. I. Furman that there will be no investigation based on Article 282 because the Prosecutor's Office found no evidence of a crime “since these actions were not directed at inciting ethnic, racial or religious hatred, do not undermine trust and respect towards a defined ethnicity or race or religious faith; nor do they show the harmfulness, unworthiness, unattractiveness or limitations of people of a concrete ethnicity.”

SHOTS FIRED AT JEWISH COMMUNITY BUILDING. On October 19, Saturday night, a group of unidentified individuals fired several rounds at a building in the process of being built for use by the Novosibirsk Jewish community, according to an October 22 report posted on the web site “Jewish.ru.” Workers were inside the building at the time of the shooting, which shattered a window, but nobody was injured. Police officials said that they believe the motive was either antisemitism, hooliganism, or a protest against noise generated by the construction site. An investigation is under way.

MOROCCAN STUDENT IN VORONEZH CHARGES POLICE TORTURE. Munir Fares, a Moroccan student at a medical school in Voronezh, says he was severely beaten and robbed by local police, NTV reported on October 21. Fares explained that he turned to the news media to ensure that law enforcement authorities seriously investigate the charges he filed with the Prosecutor’s Office the day after the incident. According to him, the only reason for his arrest was that he is a Muslim. Fares said that on October 16, the concierge refused to open the door of his hostel for him after midnight. The police appeared and took him to the Central District Internal Affairs Directorate. There, Fares charged, he was handcuffed and chained to a radiator pipe. Five policemen beat him on his head, chest, and back, and told him to pray to Jesus Christ for his release. He refused. In the morning he was let go. He then discovered that 7,000 rubles and $55 were missing from his rucksack.

NTV correspondent Olga Chernova noted that foreigners have complained to the mayor about the increasing number of attacks on them and the hostility of the law-enforcement agencies. ”Two years ago, there were more than 2,000 foreign students in Voronezh,” the correspondent reported. “Today, the figure is half that. Foreigners say they are being forced to leave the city, which they describe as a hotbed of racism.” The program showed graffiti on a concrete fence reading: “Russia for the Russians!”

PUTIN TRIES TO CONTROL NGOS, HUMAN RIGHTS LEADER CHARGES. The essence of President Vladimir Putin's policy toward non-governmental organizations (NGOs) critical of his policies is to “pretend to have dialogue, establish control, and marginalize,” Russian human rights leader Yuri Dzhibladze told a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty gathering in Washington on October 18. Heading the Moscow-based group, Center for Development of Democracy and Human Rights, Dzhibladze said that the problem for Russia's NGO sector is how to influence government decision-making. The presidential administration, Dzhibladze said, is now attempting to “to take control of the NGO sector and use it to support Putin and his reforms.”

The Putin administration claims to value civil society and a free press, Dzhibladze said, but it contends that Russia does “not have the luxury to allow that” because Russia needs to accelerate growth during the next decade if it is to compete in the world. Putin seeks to harness NGOs as a "political resource" to work for him rather than his opposition. His first attempt to control NGOs was the “Civic Forum” arranged late last year, where major NGOs were able to change the event's structure to allow for some genuine dialogue and “negotiation” between the NGO sector and the Russian government. “Putin made a good speech, said all the right things,” but the process since then “has been painful,” Dzhibladze said. For instance, legislative changes to the tax code, effective July 1, 2002, placed limits on grants by requiring donors and recipients to register and restricted the number of NGOs eligible for tax-free status to those active in science, culture, sports, and the environment. In violation of Russian law, a value added tax (VAT) has also been applied retroactively to services provided by NGOs. The first consequences of these changes will be evident in April 2003, Dzhibladze said, when NGOs file their annual tax reports.

BELARUS COURT CHALLENGED TO APPLY LAW AGAINST ETHNIC HATRED. For the first time in Belarus's legal history, a law banning the incitement of ethnic and religious hatred may be used in court, according to UCSJ's Minsk Bureau. The KGB, as the secret police is still called in Belarus, has passed to a court in Vitebsk a request to charge four members of the violent neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity (RNU) under Article 130 of the Criminal Code. The four extremists are accused of distributing leaflets calling for violence against ethnic minorities in Vitebsk and Orsha.

The significance of the test case is that over the past several years the RNU and similar groups have enjoyed a large degree of impunity in Belarus. Opposition groups regularly accuse police and the KGB of using extremist youth groups against them.

However, attorney Artur Livshits who represents UCSJ in Minsk cautions that the extremists, accused of assaulting two African medical students, are also charged with robbery, which means that proving that the assault was motivated by hate will be more difficult, since there was a monetary motive as well.

PARIS COURT ACQUITS WRITER OF RACIAL HATRED CHARGE. France is seeking to draw a line between the criminal offense of ethnic/religious hatred and the preservation of the freedom of opinion. On October 22, a Paris court dismissed charges of racial hatred against best-selling French novelist Michel Houellebecq. “Writing that Islam is the stupidest religion does not at all amount to asserting or imply that all Muslims should be qualified as such,” the judges said in their verdict. “This statement does not contain any intended insult, contempt or outrage towards the group of persons in question.” The lawsuit was brought by the Mecca-based World Islamic League, the mosques of Paris and Lyon, and the French League of Human Rights.

In court, Houellebecq was defiant, in the grand tradition of the land of intellectual liberty. “I have never expressed the least contempt for Muslims, but I have as much contempt as ever for Islam,” he testified, and dismissed the writing in the Koran as “mediocre.” “He shouldn't have said all that he did,” said Cherif Benameir, the president of the French National Federation of Muslims, “Muslims don't tell Christians they have a God who isn't good.” Muslim groups plan to appeal.

The case represents a milestone in France, a country struggling to find a balance between apprehensions about increasing racism and the quadrupling of violent crime over the past eight years on one hand and the traditional principle of freedom of expression on the other. The atmosphere is tense, and government decision-makers and opinion-makers both have their guard up, following the show of strength by the far-right in the recent presidential elections, a series of antisemitic attacks earlier this year, and the acute sensitivities of France's Muslim community, the largest in Western Europe.

Free speech advocates find their cause tested in the press and in the courts. “It's an attempt by some people who have moral convictions to force all of society to follow their convictions,” said Agnes Tricoire, an anti-censorship lawyer with the French League of Human Rights. Initially, she agreed with the case against Houellebecq, and her group joined in the complaint against him on account of the racist tone of his remarks. But she changed her mind when the plaintiffs criticized anti-Muslim comments in his fiction, which she said must be fully protected. “Nobody can feel attacked personally by a character because he's fictional, he's not real,” she said. “It's very important that art be able to talk about what happens in society.”

Jean-Marc Varaut, lawyer for the Grand Mosque of Paris, said the verdict claiming that insulting the Koran does not insult Muslim showed that the judges did not understand Islam. He explained: “In a society that does not distinguish between public and private, insulting the Koran means insulting Islam.” The statement by defense lawyer Emmanuel Pierrat came closer to reflecting majority opinion in France: “I recognize with great satisfaction that the crime of blasphemy has not been reinstated under French law.”

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * “Releasing just a few political prisoners does not constitute significant human rights progress, although we’ll welcome it if it happens,” Mike Jendrzejczyk, Human Rights Watch’s Washington director for Asia, said on October 22. “But releasing all of China’s political prisoners would really be a significant way to mark President Jiang Zemin’s upcoming retirement as president and leader of the Communist Party. If Saddam Hussein can do it in Iraq, why not President Jiang?”

RUSSIA’S LATEST NEO-NAZI PARTY IS AN ENIGMA ONLY TO JUSTICE MINISTRY
Official Web Site Reveals Nazi and White Supremacist Connections

The public is still waiting to hear about the re-examination by Russia’s Ministry of Justice of its September 16 registration of the new far- right National Great Power Party of Russia (NDPR), as promised by Justice Minister Yuri Chayka at a press conference on October 2. (See Bigotry Monitor of October 4.) Addressing the State Duma on October 23, Chayka repeated his earlier statement that only after the NDPR’s registration did it become known to the ministry that calls to ethnic strife had been made at the party’s inaugural congress. He said, somewhat cryptically, that “party leaders had to officially distance themselves from these statements.” (It is not generally known how and in what form the party leaders have distanced themselves from their earlier statements.) Chayka said that information about what happened at the party congress “has been sent for legal assessment by agencies of the Prosecutor's Office.”

In the meantime, the official web site of NDPR’s Novosibirsk Branch gives an overview of its interests in organizations such as white supremacists and Cossack paramilitary formations. Last updated on October 14, the home page opens a side window with links to some of the material recently posted: two items from the “About the Genocide of the White Race” page, three articles from the “Articles by Russian Nationalists” page, the “Appeal to Russia's Cossacks,” the “Meet the NDPR Co-Chairmen” feature, and the “We Are Building a Different Party” article.

The home page defaults to a report by I.V. Kolodezenko, coordinator of the NDPR's Novosibirsk Oblast Branch, dated February 24, 2002 and titled “The National Great Power Party of Russia – The Party of Retribution.” Kolodezenko’s report summarizes the NDPR’s February 24 “constituent congress” in the city of Korolev, Moscow Oblast, and the party's virulently nationalist and antisemitic ideology.

A column on the right-hand side of the home page contains links to a long list of news reports and signed articles dating back to July 9, 2002, covering a variety of topics but focusing on crime, incidents involving Gypsies and other minorities, local politics, and nationalist mass media.

The web site proclaims NDPR’s appeal, addressed to “the Regional Branches of Russian Parties, Movements, and Unions, the Activists of the Russian Movement, and to All Russian People.” It declares that NDPR is needed “as an instrument of the Joint Russian Victory” and it concludes with the slogan “All Power to the Ethnic Russians!”

The web site also provides links to titles and authors of articles on Russian nationalism and antisemitism, and nationalist and antisemitic articles from the twice-monthly Novosibirsk newspaper “Russkaya Sibir” (Russian Siberia), which Kolodezenko edits, as well as to eleven articles dealing with white supremacy (including three by David Lane, incarcerated member of Robert J. Mathews' neo-Nazi group The Order).

The web site is in Russian, and much of the material in the site's database is not available for Internet access.

In his appearance before the State Duma on October 23, Chayka asserted that even before the new law against extremism was adopted three months ago, his ministry waged “a vigorous battle against extremism by public associations.” In 2001 and the first half of 2002, he said, the Justice Ministry carried out 10,614 checks into public organizations, issued 7,564 warnings, made 50 representations to prosecution agencies, and submitted 248 statements to the courts regarding the suspension of the activities or the closure of public organizations. He said that 110 decisions were taken to close organizations, including more than 20 because of manifestations of extremism.

Chayka said that the justice agencies gave particular attention to checking one association: Russian National Unity (RNU). As of January 1, 2002, there were 22 RNU associations operating in constituent parts of the Russian Federation. In the first six months of this year, he said, six of them were abolished by courts because of suits filed by the Justice Ministry. Moreover, he declared, a court decision abolished the Moscow inter-regional public and political RNU association.

One wonders if an itemized list of the Justice Ministry’s successes will be available to those monitoring extremist organizations. Recent meetings between UCSJ and mid-level officials at the Ministry and the FSB are grounds for some hope that the authorities are finally taking the problem of extremism seriously.
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