Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Bigotry Monitor: Volume One, Number 18

News

Bigotry Monitor: Volume One, Number 18

(November 9, 2001)

Volume One, Number 18
Friday, November 9, 2001

BIGOTRY MONITOR
A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Religious 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
_____________________________________________________________

PUTIN MOVES AGAINST EXTREMIST GROUPS. President Vladimir Putin told Justice Minister Yuri Chayka to speed up work on the anti-extremism bill under preparation for some time, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. "Unfortunately, the authorities' anti-extremism efforts have proved inefficient," Putin said, and he stressed that Chayka needs to spell out what the law-enforcement agencies must do. The two met on November 2 to discuss the attacks by a mob of some 300 mostly young people who on October 30 had attacked dark-skinned traders in a Moscow street market, as well as passengers riding the metro, and a group of Afghan refugees. (See Bigotry Monitor #17, November 2.) In a cabinet meeting on November 5 Putin ordered Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov to crack down on extremist violence, the "Moscow Times" reported, following the death of the third victim of the racist rampage, an ethnic Tajik. Also on November 5, the Justice Ministry asked the Supreme Court to overturn a Moscow Region court decision of September 27 and ban the National Bolshevik Party.

Observers point out the lack of comprehensive statistics as one problem in coping with racist violence. "Each and every committee or organization has its own data on attacks on its particular community, but at this point there is no nationwide project or effort to collect data or monitor the situation," the "Moscow Times" quoted Yury Dzhibladze, president of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights. Last year Dzhibladze and others created the Russian NGO Network Against Racism, Ethnic Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Intolerance, which now has 70 members and is coordinating the compilation of data on hate crimes nationwide, Dzhibladze said. Not only is the project expensive, he added, but it requires human rights and ethnic minorities to agree on what constitutes a hate crime.

EYEWITNESS TALKS ABOUT OCTOBER 30 RAID. "Moskovsky Komsomolets" of November 1 quoted an eyewitness to the October 30 attack on the market: "My husband was on the street, and he saw how they fell upon that unlucky soul who died on the spot. They were yelling, 'Beat the blacks!' with eyes as if they were on drugs - there was nothing human in them. They suddenly appeared everywhere. A Kurdish woman selling flowers saw how one of them threatened her 5-year-old daughter with a weapon. She was barely able in time to cover her daughter with her own body. They broke her nose and her ribs. One Afghani, trying to escape the pogromists, ran into our cafe. They ran after him. Luckily, our employees were able to close the door just in time. The terrified Afghan hid in the kitchen. Our people and clients held shut the door while that mob bashed it with a bat. Almost everybody was cut by the flying glass. It was really good that we had bars on the windows."

On November 3, in a story about child abuse, the newspaper profiled a skinhead who brutally murdered his parents after a lifetime of torturous abuse at their hands. The skinhead could not hold down a job, but he was good with his fists: "Twice, he was detained for beating people from the Caucasus. He would go into battle along with a bunch of other scum, screaming the slogan: 'Beat the Kikes, save the racists!'"

FSB UNINTERESTED IN FIGHTING EXTREMISM AMONG THE YOUNG, DAILY SAYS. Despite President Putin's call for a crackdown on extremism, "Russian law enforcement officials say that Russia has bigger problems to deal with than to chase after racist and other extremist groups," "Izvestiya" reported on November 6. "No one at the Federal Security Service (FSB) deals with such cases." The same day, "Moskovskie novosti" speculated that the FSB might have been behind the October 30 riot as part of an effort to set the "pogromists" against the "anti-globalists" who were expected, incorrectly, it turns out, to converge on Moscow in large numbers to protest a meeting of the World Economic Forum late last month.

GOVERNMENT DAILY BLASTS POLICE FOR MINIMIZING ATTACKERS' CRIME. On November 2 the government newspaper "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" criticized Moscow police for insisting that the attackers were merely soccer hooligans, rather than activists of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity. The previous day, the paper blasted the police for charging the detained skinheads with murder and hooliganism, but not with inciting ethnic hatred: "It appears that our prosecutors think that there was no incitement of ethnic hatred here, despite the fact that, according to witnesses, during the fight the kids were yelling nationalistic slogans: 'Get out, this is our city!' and 'Let's cleanse Moscow of blacks and kikes!'"

POLICE RAIDS ANTISEMITIC MAGAZINE; EDITOR TO STAND TRIAL. On November 6, Moscow police searched the office-cum-bookstore of the antisemitic "Russian Master" magazine near the Yasnevo market and seized some books of "suspicious" content, such as "Mein Kampf," as well as antisemitic pamphlets, according to the Moscow office of the Anti-Defamation League. >From the remarks by the police it appears that they will pass on the publications to the Ministry of Press to determine if they violate Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code outlawing incitement of racial, religious or ethnic hatred. Observers note that this is not the first police raid on the bookstore, and on previous occasions the government failed to file a criminal complaint. However, according to a RIA-Novosti report on November 6, a deputy editor of the magazine called Semiletnikov is now in custody for inciting 150 skinheads to attack the Yasnevo market on April 20, Hitler's birthday, and will stand trial this month. The same day "Kommersant" reported that the police are looking for a chief organizer of the October 30 action, Valery Rusakov, 17, and nicknamed "The Fascist." He was detained after the Yasnevo attack, but released after he signed a statement that he would not leave the city - which is very lenient by Russian standards, as the vast majority of suspects are held in pre-trial detention for far less serious crimes. He disappeared, only to surface briefly on October 30.

EXTREMIST VIOLENCE 'SERIOUS,' MOSCOW MAYOR LUZHKOV ACKNOWLEDGES. In a meeting with journalists on November 7, Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov acknowledged that manifestations of racism and nationalism are a serious problem. Discussing the October 30 riot, Luzhkov said that the focus now must be on preventing such incidents rather than on clearing up their consequences. The reaction must be quick and forceful, Luzhkov said, so that the action is nipped in the bud. In an interview on Ekho Moskvy radio, his deputy, Valeriy Shantsev said that a special branch must be set up within the FSB for averting extremist actions. He theorized that discontented people took out their aggression on others - in this case, people from the Caucasus, and he criticized the police for not noticing in time the gathering of hundreds of young people. According to RIA-Novosti, on November 3 another mass skinhead attack was narrowly averted, after the mother of one skinhead tipped off the police.

YOUNG RADICALS TAKE OVER NOVEMBER 7 COMMEMORATION. In its report on the Communist celebration on November 7 of the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, NTV noted "more radical slogans" by supporters marching to the Teatralnaya Square. Singing an old song, they substituted the last line with "Shoot Putin!" and shouted the names of their heroes: Osama bin Laden, Stalin, and Beria - then the Taliban. In St. Petersburg, young long-haired radicals as well as skinheads in black leather took over the Communist rally. According to Center TV, up to 5,000 marchers on Nevsky Prospect seem to reject the new name of the holiday - the Day of Accord and Reconciliation - and chanted "All power to the Soviets."

RUSSIAN MUFTI THREATENS RUSSIA AND U.S. Anyone from among Russia's 20 million Muslims would be justified to take up arms and help the Taliban, Nafigulla Ashirov, co-chairman of the Russian Mufti Council, told news conference in Moscow on November 5. According to the Associated Press, Mufti Ashirov added that some Russian Muslims might have already joined and that Russia's support for the U.S.-led war against terrorism is producing a rift in Russia. He warned: "The events that are happening will predetermine Russia's future as either the future of a unified country or the future that befell Yugoslavia and the USSR.'' Ashirov called the Taliban a positive force that brought order to Afghanistan, and termed the Taliban's destruction of Buddhist statues in Bamian "their own internal affair." Referring to last week's skinhead rampage in Moscow, Ashirov warned that if similar events recur, Russia's Muslims will secede.

ISLAMIC ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN CENTRAL ASIA. Indications of mass arrests of Islamic activists in Central Asia are reaching the outside world. More than a hundred members of the banned Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir have been arrested recently in northern Tajikistan, and they have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment of between three and 13 years, the prosecutor of Soghd Region, Qurbonali Muhabbatov, told the Tajik news agency Asia-Plus on November 2. According to experts cited by the news agency, Hizb ut-Tahrir membership is up to 4,000 in the Soghd Region alone. In the most recent arrests reported, four party members were caught distributing leaflets accusing the United States and Britain of declaring war on Islam and protesting the pro-U.S. stance of Central Asian countries. In Kyrgyzstan, the same party, also banned, has 4,000 members and maintains links with Taliban, the National Security Service told Koda news agency on November 1. While their focus used to be on the mosques - especially the estimated 2,000 unregistered mosques - they now plan street rallies to protest U.S. actions in Afghanistan. News reports say that criminal proceedings have begun against more than one hundred Kyrgyz activists, many of whom were arrested for distributing leaflets calling for an Islamic caliphate to replace the current Central Asian regimes.

JEWISH GRAVESTONES DESECRATED IN BAKU. Fifty gravestones in a Jewish cemetery were desecrated in Baku, Azerbaijan, according to a November 2 report by Radio Liberty. The head of the Religious Community of Mountain Jews of Azerbaijan, Semyon Ikhilov, was quoted as saying that this was not the first time such an attack has taken place, and he cited instances of antisemitic graffiti on the Mountain Jews' synagogue and some apartment buildings. The Azeri government recently warned that rising Islamic extremism threatened Jewish and minority Christian groups and has closed some mosques known for radical Islamic tendencies. On November 3 Armenia's AZG news agency suggested that the Islamic extremist organization Jeyshullah, which once tried to blow up the U.S. embassy, may be responsible. The report ended with the quote: "In Ikhilov's words, today's tense situation does not allow the hope that the desecration of the cemetery will be the last antisemitic attack."

LUKASHENKO IMPLIES EXISTENCE OF A DEATH SQUAD. On a visit to Homel on October 23, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko boasted that "there is now proper order in the country and all are glad," because he had let the major criminals know five years ago that their heads would be cut off if they do not stop their criminal activities. In a rambling talk carried by Belarusian Television on October 27, he suggested that he had frightened the criminals into cooperation, and they now report to the security service. But, according to RFE/RL, Lukashenko's revelations reminded many Belarusians of the charges that former Belarusian investigators Dmitry Petrushkevich and Aleh Sluchak made public in June: that Interior Minister Yury Sivakou and Security Council Secretary Viktar Sheyman organized - presumably with presidential approval - a secret death squad that proceeded to carry out some 30 killings. The investigators said that initially the death squad killed criminals but later switched to political murders. According to Petrushkevich and Sluchak, the death squad killed opposition politicians Yury Zakharanka and Viktar Hanchar, Anatol Krasouski, and ORT cameraman Dmitry Zavadsky. Lukashenko "actually admitted the existence of the death squad," Belarusian Helsinki Committee Chairwoman Tatsyana Protska told RFE/RL. "This group was really created to kill criminal leaders." One man linked to the squad is Russian National Unity (RNU) stalwart Valery Ignatovich, now on trial in Minsk along with three associates, accused of killing Zavadsky. Some observers suspect that the government is framing him to divert attention from the death squad allegations. Ignatovich is charged with several non-political murders, which he might well have committed. One alleged victim was Gleb Samoylov, then head of the Belarus RNU, and the reason might have had to do with a power struggle within RNU.

U.S. REPORT ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LESS THAN TRUTHFUL. The third annual State Department report on freedom of religion, released on October 26, chose diplomatic flourishes over the plain truth by listing six governments as the worst violators but dealing more kindly with U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Those given the most damning label -- "countries of particular concern"-- were Iran, China, Burma, North Korea, Sudan, and Iraq. (The report called the Taliban the world's most egregious violator of religious freedom, but the U.S. does not recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government.) State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended the report by arguing that Iran, China, and Sudan were mentioned despite their cooperation with the war on terrorism. "Things that are important to the United States in terms of human rights, in terms of religious freedom, haven't changed," Boucher contended. "Respect for human rights is essentially part of the tools we use against terrorism as well." Human Rights Watch (HRW) protested, charging that "the Administration doesn't want to offend key allies through excessive truth-telling. The irony is that getting too close to countries that crush religious freedom may be more dangerous for America right now than keeping its distance -- particularly when the religion being crushed is Islam." HRW also protested the soft language on Xinjiang, where Beijing's harsh treatment of the Muslim Uighurs has repeatedly drawn sharp condemnations from human rights groups as well as the U.S. Congress. The report grouped Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia in the second worst category of violators.

Among former Soviet countries, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan received the most serious criticisms, for failing to observe fully constitutional obligations and persecuting various religious groups, including Muslims. "A worsening situation" was noted in Belarus and Georgia, where the authorities were accused of deliberately erecting barriers to religious minorities.

The report praised Russia's government for observing, "on the whole," the right to freedom of religion established by the constitution, although in practice the government does not always comply with the law that provides for the equality of religions. For instance, "local authorities in several regions continue to restrict the rights of a number of religious minorities" such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostals, the Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Salvation Army, by refusing to register them. The report criticized the treatment of Muslims who "encountered registration problems along with societal discrimination and antagonism in some areas, apparently as a result of feelings engendered by the continuing conflict in Chechnya." The report welcomed the decisive condemnation of antisemitism by President Putin and his administration, in contrast with the previous leadership, although Putin's "government was slow to condemn some antisemitic acts and vandalism or to arrest the perpetrators." A big plus highlighted by the report was the Putin government's call for respect and tolerance with regard to all religions existing in the multi-ethnic Russian society, a statement the report listed among the chief positive events affecting freedom of religion over the past year.

SLOVAKIA THREATENS TO DE-REGISTER PROTESTANT FELLOWSHIP. Slovakia's Interior Ministry warned a group of independent Protestant congregations, known as the Christian Fellowships, that they will lose their registration as a civil association if they do not change their statute to exclude religious activity, according to Keston News Service. But the group cannot obtain registration with the Culture Ministry as a religious organization because it does not have the 20,000 members required by law to apply for such status. The head of the Christian Fellowships' board of pastors told Keston that if they lose their registration they might not be able to rent rooms or hold public meetings.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "...[W]hen Mr. Putin meets George W. Bush next week, Americans shouldn't forget that they could also miss [AN?] the opportunity if they embrace Russia too easily," writes Frederick Kempe in the "Wall Street Journal Europe." "What the West needs to avoid is a Faustian bargain that would trade Western principles in the name of addressing security interests. Whether Russia can join Europe will have more to do with what it is internally than with what it does externally in the name of fighting terrorism. The danger is that an overeager Washington will look the other way at continued business corruption, human-rights violations, press censorship or the sale of advanced, dangerous weapons to countries likely to use them in the wrong way."

'KIN-STATES': WHAT CAN THEY DO FOR 'THEIR' MINORITIES ABROAD?
Europeans Seek to Balance a Different Type of Conflict Between Majority and Minority Rights

A respected legal institution under the aegis of the Council of Europe gave its blessings to a new term, "kin-state," and offered a series of guidelines on how far a state may go in offering preferential treatment to members of its "kin" minority who are citizens of another state. In a report released on October 23, the Council of Europe Commission for Democracy Through Law - known as the Venice Commission - examined the recent practice of some European states to adopt unilateral legislative or administrative measures that confer on persons belonging to their kin-minorities abroad certain preferences and assistance. These measures range from scholarships and training for teachers to travel assistance and exemptions from residence permits required of foreigners. Some kin-states issue documents certifying the kin-identity of the bearer and entitling that person to preferential treatment and assistance.

The Venice Commission's report approved such unilateral measures, calling them "legitimate." On the other hand, the devil of discord may lurk in the thicket of small details and broad generalities that the commission added. The report specified that kin-states adopting such unilateral measures must make sure that the measures respect certain principles including the territorial sovereignty of the other state, existing agreements, friendly relations, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. Perhaps the commission's key warning is that the states concerned should avoid "taking measures with extraterritorial effects without prior consent of the affected countries, unless such consent can be assumed in the light of an international custom or such measures are authorized under a bilateral treaty. When such a treaty exists, it must be enforced and interpreted in good faith." The commission argued that kin-states should not issue documents verifying kin-identity abroad, as such action infringes on the sovereignty of the state in which the kin national resides. In a judgment balanced on a pinhead, the commission allowed kin-states to extend preferential treatment "in the fields of culture and education and, under exceptional circumstances, in other fields, as long as [the preferential treatment] pursues a legitimate aim and is proportionate." In the future, negotiations, local court actions, and appeals to the European Court of Human Rights may have to determine which preferential treatment is "legitimate" and "proportionate" and which may have harmful "extraterritorial effects."

While the commission originally responded to requests of the Romanian and Hungarian governments, in dispute over a new Hungarian law designed to assist members of the Hungarian minority in Romania, the guidelines the commission produced apply to any minority assisted by majority - or minority - kinfolk residing in other states. Strangely enough, the governments of both Romania and Hungary welcomed the report as a vindication. Romania cited the commission's disapproval of an ID that Hungary planned to produce for kin-nationals in Romania. (The reasoning cited the infringement of Romanian sovereignty.) On the other hand, Hungary pointed to the commission's legitimation of unilateral measures on behalf of kin-states. (Some experts thought that surprising.) At the moment, the guidelines are non-binding, but observers expect the Council of Europe to turn them into law. When that happens, kin-nationals charging discrimination or persecution may make use of that law as a shield against xenophobia and bigotry.

Three days after the commission released its report, another balancing act between the two sets of rights was performed by Rolf Ekeus, the high commissioner on national minorities, in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "Although a state with a titular majority population may have an interest in persons of the same ethnicity living abroad," he argued, "this does not entitle or imply, in any way, a right under international law to exercise jurisdiction over these persons. At the same time it does not preclude a state from granting certain preferences within its jurisdiction, on a non-discriminatory basis. Nor does it preclude persons belonging to a national minority from maintaining unimpeded contacts across frontiers with citizens of other states with whom they share common ethnic or national origins." Ekeus seemed to give almost equal weight to two principles. The first, emphasized by human rights activists, he defined as "the necessity of respect for the rights of persons belonging to national minorities freely to express, preserve and develop their cultural, linguistic or religious identity free of any attempts at assimilation." But he tilted slightly in favor of the second principle, which bows to the needs of central government -- and the majority: "While maintaining their identity, a minority should be integrated in harmony with others within a state as part of society at large."

One hopes that judges from those parts of Europe eager to join the European Union will work hard to set aside prejudices and strike a fair balance between the two principles. But if they fail to satisfy members of minorities with a powerful kin-state (such as Russia or Germany) - or without - a European court will be there to listen to a final appeal. * * * *

Send letters to the editor to: cfenyvesi@aol.com

How to Subscribe
Send an email to bigotrymonitor@ucsj.com with the word "subscribe" as the subject of the message.

How to Unsubscribe
Send an email to bigotrymonitor@ucsj.com with the word "unsubscribe" as the subject of the message.

All issues available at http://www.fsumonitor.com