Volume 2, Number 49
Friday, December 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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WAR ON TERRORISM TRUMPS HUMAN RIGHTS - YET HUMAN RIGHTS STILL MATTER.On this year's Human Rights Day - December 10 - the requirements of the increasingly global war against terrorism overshadows the cause of human rights. President George W. Bush respects human rights and brings up the issue of violations even in discussions with leaders from Central Asian republics whose assistance in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Islamic world is important. His quasi-ally, President Vladimir Putin, speaks up from time to time in praise of the struggle against racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism. But for both of them, defeating terrorism - and their definitions of terrorism are not the same -- is the top priority, and their commitments to enforcing human rights are more rhetorical than programmatic. Not directly concerned with the war on terrorism, the European Union demands from its members and aspirants to membership a high level of compliance with human rights standards. Over the past year, however, an increasing number of voters recognize a connection between the influx of illegal migrants from the Muslim world and the rapid growth of anti-Western immigrant populations susceptible to extremist ideology. In countries such as France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Austria, local law enforcement authorities have been relying on the traditional system of surveillance and personal warnings to stop attacks on synagogues and individual Jews. But concern with secret terrorist cells in Europe is mounting. The time for tension between considerations of human rights and national security has arrived, and new standards are being hammered out.

1. THE ROBERTSON DOCTRINE: WAR ALONE CANNOT DEFEAT TERRORISM.
In New York on December 10, the UN Security Council marked the 54th Human Rights Day with a debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. In Moscow, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson told Russian and Western counter-terrorism experts that a political strategy was key to defeating extremism. Speaking at the Defense Ministry on "The Role of the Military in Combating Terrorism," Robertson said poorly trained troops who fail to respect civil rights or use excessive force only exacerbate the problem they are sent to contain.

"Our military forces...cannot work in a political vacuum," Robertson said. "There must be a political strategy to accompany any military counter-terrorist offensive if there is to be a lasting victory against extremists." Clearly, he was referring to Russia's war in Chechnya, which he tactfully did not mention. But perhaps he was also hinting at what was missing from U.S.-British strategy in the war on terrorism.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, said to be close to President Putin, presented the Russian version of the Robertson Doctrine. "A blitzkrieg victory over terrorism" is impossible, he told the conference. According to Reuters, Ivanov was looking for support for a political settlement in Chechnya following a referendum next March on a new constitution that will keep the province under Russian rule but grant a broad measure of autonomy.

Ivanov repeated the Russian complaint about double standards. He criticized, without naming names, European countries that support the post-September-11 war on terrorism led by the United States but refuse to extradite Chechen guerrilla leaders wanted by Moscow. He adopted a stern tone: "We will not get anywhere if those who in Chechnya place bombs, blow up people, and at night don fatigues to kill the representatives of the local authorities are considered freedom fighters, while those who perpetrate terrorist acts in Mombasa or in other parts of the world are considered to be terrorists."

2. PUTIN SEES GAP BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS GUARANTEES AND APPLICATION.
Celebrating Human Rights Day in the Kremlin with members of the Russian Federation President's Human Rights Commission, President Vladimir Putin was not in a festive mood. His words were somber and vague, and he sounded more of an aggrieved citizen than the head of state.

Though Putin called it "a great achievement" that the Russian Constitution declares as a supreme value human rights and freedoms, he cautioned that "in fact, there is a great discrepancy between the constitutional guarantees and people's real opportunities for exercising them." He said he was referring "first and foremost" to "social rights," which are linked to "the shortage of financial resources." He spoke of "bureaucratic high-handedness." No budget can cope with that, he argued, and "it will not be able to cope because people are first and foremost clashing with the irresponsibility of the authorities and unfortunately they clash with this problem at all levels of power."

Does the word "all" include the highest level as well? Did the Russian president practice self-criticism? His brief speech offered no clues.

3. UN IS ASKED TO INCORPORATE HUMAN RIGHTS IN ITS WORK.
"It would be hard to find a more timely way to recognize the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," said Joanna Weschler, UN Representative for Human Rights Watch (HRW). "But the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the rest of the UN human rights machinery need to be household names around the [Security] Council every day of the year." In a statement on Human Rights Day, HRW praised the Security Council for having made "some progress incorporating humanitarian issues into its work." But, the statement continued, often the Council still acts as if the UN human rights machinery were not there. HRW said the UN has begun to recognize that conflicts cannot be addressed effectively without considering human rights aspects, and that it is vital to integrate human rights specifics into its debates and actions in conflict situations.

HRW also called on the Security Council to include human rights monitors in peace-keeping operations and require human rights analyses in all Secretary-General's reports on specific situations; to use human rights reports of UN special rapporteurs and independent experts on human rights as part of an early warning system; to develop a policy of zero tolerance for any crimes or abuses committed by peacekeepers and to revoke impunity granted to peacekeepers; and to assure full respect for human rights in the war against terrorism.

4. EU INSISTS ON TURKISH COMPLIANCE WITH HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS.
December 10 also happened to be the day the European Union (EU) agreed to offer Turkey a conditional date for accession talks. Meeting in Brussels, the foreign ministers of the 15 EU member nations backed a plan to open talks in July 2005. But first Turkey must pass a human rights review by late 2004.

Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul called the terms unjust and asked for an earlier date for the accession talks. He presented a schedule of legislation -- some adopted and others in the pipeline -- to abolish the death penalty, outlaw torture, extend freedom of expression, and grant cultural and language rights to Kurds and non-Muslims. But EU leaders say that Turkey must speedily meet EU standards and implement promised changes, such as ending torture and freeing political prisoners. "A Turkey that can join the EU will no longer be the Turkey that we know today," said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a supporter of Turkey's membership. "Many of the fears of today will then no longer exist.''

5. EU WATCHDOG GROUP WARNS ABOUT NEW ACCEPTABILITY OF RACISM.
Anti-Muslim and antisemitic views fueled by the September 11 attacks and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in danger of becoming acceptable in Europe, the EU watchdog group on racism, the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), warned in a report released on December 10 in Brussels. EUMC called on the 15-nation bloc to deal with the underlying social and economic factors that generate racial prejudice. ''Now it seems legitimate to have anti-Muslim and antisemitic views on some issues because people have mixed up the whole issue,'' said Bob Purkiss, EUMC's chairman. ''The danger is ... how it has now embedded itself.'' The report cited as victims of anti-Muslim sentiment people who "looked Muslim,"mostly women wearing headscarves, and it found the escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence as well as socio-economic problems leading to a wave of attacks on Jews and synagogues across the EU. Beate Winkler, director of the Vienna-based EUMC, praised politicians for condemning racist aggression and launching "a lot of positive initiatives" immediately after September 11, but the initiatives "did not continue."

Racism and xenophobia express fears by EU citizens about issues such as globalization, unemployment, and Islam, the report argued, and the media and politicians failed to present those issues in a balanced way. Purkiss was even more critical of mainstream politicians who allowed themselves to be pushed into a negative debate on immigration by far-right populist parties. ''People are playing politics with the immigration issue," he said, "rather than dealing with the real questions that need to be addressed." He emphasized that the EU needed to deal with the entire context of immigration.

6. FRANCE TOUGHENS PENALTIES FOR RACIST AND ANTISEMITIC ACTS.
On December 10, French lawmakers unanimously adopted a bill that toughens penalties for crimes in which "a victim's real or presumed ethnicity, race or religion'' was a factor, according to wire service reports. Officials will also face more pressure to prosecute racist and antisemitic actions. The law came in the wake of some 400 attacks on Jewish sites and individuals last winter and spring, and it is also part of a crackdown on crime instituted by the center-right government. "Racism constitutes the most severe and intolerable attack on the freedom of man," Pierre Bedier, a junior justice minister, told parliament. "Recent events indicate a worrisome increase in the number of crimes inspired by antisemitism."

The parliamentary vote, unusual in that it was unanimous, came a few days after unidentified individuals broke into a synagogue in southwestern France, ransacked the sanctuary, and destroyed holy books. The vandalism was the first reported violence against a Jewish target in France in several months.

7. EXTREMISTS RECRUIT YOUNG MUSLIMS IN HOLLAND.
According to news agency dispatches, on December 9, the Dutch internal intelligence service, known as AIVD, sent a report to parliament, saying that radical groups are recruiting young, disenchanted Muslims in the Netherlands for suicide missions worldwide. The recruitments -- taking place in mosques, cafes, and prisons -- began in the months after September 11 and probably continue today, the AIVD said. Muslim immigrants account for about 5 percent of the country's population of 16 million.

Although many of the past recruits for jihad were radical Muslims residing illegally in the Netherlands, recruiters now are targeting second-generation Muslims who "wrestle with their identity," the report disclosed. The AIVD warned: "The recruitment of these youths shows a violent radical Islamic current is stealthily taking root in Dutch society."
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SKINHEADS FOUND GUILTY OF MURDERS AND GRAVE DESECRATION. On December 11, a Volgograd court sentenced seven local skinheads to prison terms between seven and nine years for battering two Roma (also known as Gypsies) on August 5, 2001, according to “lenta.ru.” The judge found the skinheads, whose ages range from 16 to 22, guilty of premeditated murder. At the time, reports spoke of between 20 and 30 youths taking part in the fatal beating.

On December 9, eight skinheads were found guilty of desecrating Armenian graves in the city of Krasnodar on April 16, but none received prison sentences, according to Itar-Tass. The defendants claimed that they confessed when tortured, a claim the judge dismissed. The suspected leader of the gang, nicknamed "Sergeant," is still at large.

SEVEN MILLION EMIGRANTS LEFT RUSSIA; 3 MILLION ILLEGALS LIVE THERE. More than 7 million people have emigrated from Russia since 1991, said Minister for Nationalities Vladimir Zorin, according to "newsru.com." The emigration of highly qualified specialists and young people is a problem, he acknowledged, and he lamented that the process is still mostly unregulated. On the other hand, some 3 million illegal immigrants have taken up residence in Russia, and they take some $8 billion out of the country illegally, according to statistics released during Duma hearings on immigration. Most of the illegals come from Ukraine, China, Turkey, and Vietnam. Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dmitrii Rogozin suggested that Russia could attract young immigrants by creating a foreign legion similar to the one that exists in France.

HOLOCAUST REVISIONIST ADDRESSES PACKED HOUSE IN ESTONIA. On November 25, an overflow crowd of some 350 skinheads, elderly people, and at least one politician, Kajdo Nymmik -- head of the Estonian Independence Party -- filled a lecture hall in Tallin, Estonia, to hear historian Jurgen Graf, whose work minimizing the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust resulted in criminal charges being filed against him in his native Switzerland, according to the Russian-language Estonian newspaper "Molodyozh Estonii." Graf was hawking the new Estonian translation of his book, "The Holocaust Under a Magnifying Glass," which alleges that the number of Holocaust victims has been exaggerated by a factor of six and that Treblinka was not a death camp. Graf said he was happy to be in a free country like Estonia where people can openly discuss the Holocaust, unlike Switzerland. This statement, which he read in Estonian, marked the first of many times that he was interrupted by applause from the audience.

"Molodyozh Estonii" suggested that not everyone in the audience was interested in a revision of the historical record about Jewish victims. "More likely, they were attracted there by a common ideology, which is called xenophobia, antisemitism, and fascism," the newspaper noted. "Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to call this phenomenon marginal and non-existent. Its existence in our society needs to be recognized."

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "We must understand better who we are, if we want to save ourselves," Viktor Yerofeev, acclaimed by some as a postmodernist writer and dismissed by others as a pornographer, recently told Douglas Birch of "The Baltimore Sun" which published an interview with him on December 9. "The main topic of Russian literature was that the main evil is not inside us, but outside us. And outside us are Jews, Poles, and so on. But we have nobody to blame but ourselves."

FIVE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM THREATEN RUSSIAN SECURITY
Catholics Top the List but the Orthodox Are Left Unmentioned

Russia faces five threats of religious extremism, according to a sensational 15-page draft report submitted to the highest authorities dealing with state security and allegedly leaked to the Moscow daily "Gazeta." Annotated by Nadezhda Kevorkova and published on December 5 under the title "An Ideology of Total License and Egoism," the document proposes state controls on Catholics, Protestants, and "sects," but it makes no mention of Russian Orthodox extremists. It views the quantitative growth of registered religious associations over the past decade as alarming. It defines extremists as those who conduct the "propaganda of exclusivity, of the supremacy, or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude to religion and according to what social, racial, ethnic, or linguistic group they may belong." According to the document, religious extremism demonstrates "a disrespectful attitude toward traditional religions."

When interviewed by "Gazeta" four days after the publication of the document, Minister for Nationalities Vladimir Zorin, a key official among the 30-odd alleged authors, did not deny its authenticity. He explained that the first premise of "the working group" on religious extremism is that "religious extremists want to impose their own convictions by breaking the law." The second premise is that "it is very difficult to combat extremism solely by administrative methods and the force of coercion."

According to the document published in "Gazeta," the first threat to Russia's national security is the Roman Catholic Church, which has declared Russian territory to be an "ecclesiastical province" and has been trying to persuade "certain priests and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church to defect to Catholicism." Protestants constitute the second threat. "Under the guise of rendering humanitarian aid, many new Protestant organizations are molding in various groups of the population a stance of self-alienation as regards the Russian state.... national traditions, way of life, and culture," the document states.

The third threat is presented by "representatives of foreign pseudo-religious communities," (such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Moonies, and Scientologists), Satanists, and groupings based on various Eastern religious teachings. The document says: "At the instructions of their controlling centers, their representatives make attempts to penetrate the structures of the organs of authority, the army, and the law enforcement agencies for the purpose of collecting information and exerting influence on the adoption of important political decisions and of disseminating the ideology of total license and egoism."

In the fourth place are Islamic extremists, and behind them stand foreigners and hostile special services. "Their plans...include setting the interests of Russian Muslims at odds with the interests of the state and of society," the document says. Disputes among Russian Muslim leaders are "reducing the effectiveness of efforts to counter extremism." Foreigners are also to blame because they are "inspiring conflicts between representatives of various trends in Islam." The document notes that "more than 2,000 Russian citizens are undergoing instruction abroad," and “over the decade more than 20,000 have been trained." Moreover, the document observes "a tendency to drive out loyal and law-abiding clergy and replace them with younger and more educated graduates of foreign study centers." Here too there is a "threat to the interests of the country's national security." The fifth threat is represented by "attempts to impose on Russian society the idea of a conflict of civilizations and of allegedly irreconcilable contradictions between Christians and Muslims."

"Gazeta" finds it surprising that the document does not mention in its list of threats extremist Orthodox organizations. According to "Gazeta," the following words in the document are highlighted in red: "Of important significance in the context of strengthening the Russian Orthodox Church's external contacts are the decisions of its Most Holy Synod concerning the transformation of the permanent delegation of the Moscow patriarchate at the European Union into a mission of the Moscow Patriarchate... in Brussels."

In terms of effective measures against extremists, the document commends the special services for "constantly" tracking the activity of religious extremists in Arab countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Great Britain, and Italy, and also in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The document recommends that the "incitement of ethnic, racial, and religious enmity" be transferred to the category of grave crimes punishable by a term of up to six years and that criminal liability be introduced for the production and dissemination of printed matter and video recordings with an extremist content.

The document concludes that religious extremism is "a long-term factor...and it is scarcely going to prove possible to overcome it and also the concomitant terrorist threat, in the foreseeable future."
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