Volume 2, Number 51
Friday, December 27, 2002

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
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28 CHECHENS LAY DOWN THEIR ARMS BUT REBELS GO ON KILLING OTHERS. On December 25, 28 Chechen rebels, most of them under 30 years of age, laid down their arms in a ceremony in Grozny before the Russian-backed prime minister of Chechnya, Mikhail Babich, in exchange for a promise of amnesty, Itar-Tass reported. Pro-Kremlin Chechen officials claim that such “a mass surrender” has not occurred in many months, and it proves that Moscow’s new strategy is working. “The New York Times” called the event “a rare public-relations victory” for the Kremlin. The Russian government contends that the surrender signals a growing peace movement among Chechens and that fewer than a thousand fighters remain active in Chechnya. "The surrender is the result of incessant negotiations with Chechen field commanders who want to end the military campaign," said a spokesman for Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's Kremlin-installed administration.

But there is no respite in what human rights advocates call Russia’s worst human rights disaster. As the 28 fighters pledged to work with the pro-Moscow government, rebels elsewhere in the capital shot dead Emin Adizov, the leader of the Chechnya branch of Unity, the dominant pro-Kremlin political party, according to Russian news agencies. In another clash in a village near Grozny, rebels killed two policemen.

RUSSIA’S NEW VISA REGIME OFFERS NO REMEDIES. The new law, effective in 2003, requires foreigners traveling or residing in Russia to have a special card on them at all times, as long as they stay in the country. The card will be issued at the border. Russian officials reject criticisms that the new regulations are further complicating life for foreigners. "I do not think it is hard to come to Russia,” Andrei Chernenko, head of the Migration Service that will issue the cards, told the press, “I do not think it is harder than to go to any other country."

Foreigners who live or travel in Russia have long complained that the requirement of carrying passport, visa, and valid registration at all times is onerous, and corrupt police officers abuse it.

The official reason to institute a new system is the concern with the rising number of illegal immigrants, mainly from former Soviet republics. However, Chernenko acknowledged, the new law would not deal with the problem of illegal immigrants already in Russia whose number he estimated at 1.5 million. "They have absolutely no legal status," he said, according to Reuters. "It's a question that has to be resolved, everyone has to have a legal status, but how we are going to deal with this issue, only time will tell."

PUTIN PLEDGES TO EXPEDITE RUSSIAN CITIZENSHIP FOR DECORATED SOLDIER. On December 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a non-xenophobic signal to his nation. In the course of a 2 1/2-hour-long call-in show, he made one significant exception to his rule of not responding to personal pleas by individuals: He promised to comply with the request for Russian citizenship by Oleg Orlov – a noncommissioned officer serving in the 201st division stationed on the Tajik-Afghan border who had received the top Hero of Russia award in 1994 but has not been able to get Russian citizenship. "It hurts me to hear that a hero of Russia doesn't have Russian citizenship," Putin said. "That is impermissible. The president has special powers in this sphere, and your question will be solved within a week."

KEMEROVO FSB BRINGS CHARGES AGAINST EXTREMISTS. In Kemerovo Oblast, the Federal Security Service – Russia's domestic intelligence agency known as FSB -- has identified several hundred local residents belonging to extremist groups and is bringing charges against some of them under laws banning the incitement of ethnic hatred, according to a December 11 article in the local newspaper "Tom." Among the hate groups operating in the region are Russian National Unity, People's Will, the Union of the Russian People, the National Great Power Party of Russia (NDPR), and Slavic World which had its office raided in the late 1990s for distributing "Mein Kampf" and other illegal literature. A local paper called "Russian Banner" is the leading press organ of the extremist forces, most of which are explicitly antisemitic. Prosecutor Yuri Safiulin told "Tom" that local law enforcement agencies are planning a serious crackdown against hate groups. He voiced his dissatisfaction that extremist organizations are still not seen as a serious threat and warned that Russia risks repeating the mistakes of Tsarist Russia and Weimar Germany by ignoring extremist groups.

Officials refused to release the names of those they plan to charge, but two articles published on November 20 in a newspaper based in neighboring Novosibirsk Oblast may offer some clues. According to "Chestnoe Slovo," an antisemitic newspaper called "Dialog" appeared this spring in the small city of Myski, located in the south of Kemerovo Oblast. The publisher -- a former MVD officer thrown out of the force after illegally using a weapon -- calls for violence against "kike-Masons" and the Russian government. Local deputies of the city parliament have demanded that “Dialog” be shut down and several copies of it have been sent to the Ministry of the Press for examination and possible criminal charges. However, "Myski law enforcement agencies don't react in any way" to “Dialog’s” illegal activities, according "Chestnoe Slovo." The other "Chestnoe Slovo" article on the subject of extremism reported that two members of the Kemerovo Oblast branch of the NDPR have been charged with inciting ethnic hatred and founding a nationalistic organization. The local police searched the two suspects' apartments shortly after the NDPR's founding congress in Moscow in February 2002. Police found membership lists and extremist leaflets, some of which were decorated with swastikas.

KHABAROVSK NEWSPAPER MAY BE SHUT DOWN FOR INCITING ETHNIC HATRED. In Khabarovsk, a court may shut down the unregistered newspaper "Nation" because of its incitement of ethnic hatred, according to local media reports. In June, a case was started against “Nation” after its antisemitic and racist contents were exposed by the local newspaper "Molodoy Dalnevostochnik." “Nation” dodged registration requirements by printing only 999 copies per issue -- one under the limit for registered publications. Its editor is currently free after signing an undertaking that he will not leave the city in the course of his trial.

MOSCOW SOCCER HOOLIGANS BEAT PRIEST AND THREE CONGREGANTS. In full view of indifferent police officers, a group of soccer hooligans in Moscow recently beat a dark-skinned Russian Orthodox priest, an ethnic Ossetian, while yelling "Go back to your Caucasus, you black-ass monkey, that's where priests like you belong!" according to "Novaya Gazeta" of December 19. Father Stanislav, the Father Superior of the Church of the Birth of the Virgin Mother, was set upon near his church along with three of his congregants, including a 13-year-old boy. The hooligans were said to be upset at the ethnic Ossetian coach of their favorite team (TsSKA) after a loss, and waited in ambush for the coach at the Church of the Birth of the Virgin Mother, which has an Ossetian service.

According to the article, a group of about ten armed policemen calmly watched the attack and refused to intervene, even when they saw hooligans breaking bottles on the heads of their victims and kicking them on the ground.

TANZANIAN DIPLOMAT BEATEN IN MOSCOW. In the latest attack on dark-skinned diplomats in Moscow, an official from the embassy of Tanzania was beaten near the Tretyakovskaya metro station on December 14 by three young men who told him to "go back to your Africa," according to "Moskovskaya Pravda" of December 16. Police arrested three suspects, aged 16, 19, and 28. The victim was hospitalized with head injuries.

UKRAINIAN OPPOSITION MP SAYS ANTISEMITIC LEAFLETS TARGET HIM. Member of the Ukrainian parliament Yevhen Chervonenko has requested the Prosecutor-General's Office to begin criminal proceedings under Article 161 of the Criminal Code banning racial or religious discrimination and Article 346 outlawing threats or violence against a politician or a public figure, according to a December 20 item by Interfax-Ukraine. Chervonenko also sent the open letter to President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, as well as Ukrainian parliamentarians, ambassadors, investors, and Jewish and human rights organizations abroad.

A member of the opposition faction called Our Ukraine, Chervonenko wrote: "At this time of economic instability and intense political strife, some people use racial discrimination as their final argument." He charged that earlier in December a lot of "rude and humiliating antisemitic leaflets" were distributed at the Orlan Trans Company where he serves as honorary president. He said the leaflets contained threats against him as a Ukrainian parliamentarian and a Jew.

SPAIN ARRESTS 266 MIGRANTS FROM AFRICA. On December 21, Spain’s Civil Guard intercepted 266 African immigrants – Moroccans and sub-Saharans -- who were attempting to reach Europe through the Canary Islands in flimsy launches, officials told Reuters, and called the interception one of the largest mass arrests of the year. In a rare coup, the Civil Guard also arrested four suspected smugglers in the waters off the islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. A total of nine boats were captured, and the arrests were made in several locations. But the Civil Guard acknowledged that some of the boats were able to drop people off on land. “The smugglers take immigrants in rickety boats with outboard motors to the islands off the northwest coast of Africa and are known to force them overboard at the first sight of the law,” Reuters reported.

According to official statistics, in 2002 some 18,000 illegal immigrants were arrested at sea trying to enter Spain. Those caught are usually held in a detention center until their legal status is determined, except for Moroccans who may be deported immediately under the terms of a bilateral agreement between Rabat and Madrid.

MUSLIM PHILOSOPHER LOSES LIBEL CASE IN FRANCE. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born Muslim philosopher with followers across Europe, has lost a libel case against the French magazine “Lyon Mag” that called him a dangerous fundamentalist. The article was published after the September 11 attacks. Ramadan is a university lecturer whose grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, was the founder of Egypt's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

According to a Reuters report, the Lyon court ruled that the criticisms in the monthly magazine did not break freedom of speech rules. The article, the court said, "presents Mr. Ramadan as an Islam follower who could have carried out or intended to carry out attacks. This is a study made by a magazine whose editorial line is habitually controversial. This journalistic position makes possible a certain degree of tolerance concerning words used, so long as certain limits are not breached."

Reuters identified Ramadan, 40, as “an idol to a multitude of young Muslims in and around the southeastern city of Lyon and elsewhere in France and Europe” and “a standard-bearer for a new generation of media-savvy, multilingual Muslims who want their voices heard and their identity established in their adopted countries in Europe and the United States.” One of his supporters who attended the trial attacked the judgment as reflecting a post-September 11 acceptance of prejudice against Muslims. He said: “Anybody can criticize Islam, all prejudices are fine, and people who utter these criticisms are not risking anything." According to Reuters, the case occurred “amid mounting tensions in European countries with large Muslim populations, with much of the public fearful of terror attacks and showing a lack of understanding of the non-radical Muslim community.”

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * “Americans … tend to look at human rights issues through ‘litigation blinders,’” wrote Ken Roth of the Human Rights Watch last week. “Living in a society with a strong and independent judiciary, we tend to think that the solution to rights violations is always to sue the bastards. Since most repressive countries don't have functioning court systems, we despair. The dictator-rattling innovation of the human rights movement is its development of ways to defend rights even in the absence of functioning courts… Human rights investigators operate in violent and repressive countries to document abuses, expose them to public opprobrium, and generate pressure for change.”

BOOK COVER COMBINING SWASTIKA WITH SWISS FLAG UNLEASHES PROTEST

Stuart Eizenstat’s Study Traces Hidden Swiss Collaboration with Hitler

So far the controversy is about the book’s cover, not its content. A public outcry in Switzerland echoed by the government has attacked the artwork – the Swiss national flag’s white cross on a red field overlaid with Nazi-stamped gold bars making up a swastika – as a misrepresentation of history, an insult to Switzerland, and the desecration of its flag. In its report on December 25, “The New York Times” noted that while “the provocative book jacket” was posted for months on web sites and displayed at the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall, “the reaction was negligible.” Nor have the 300 reviewers worldwide who received copies of the book registered much of a shock, “The Times” reported. It took the picture of the book cover in Swiss newspapers this month to cause an eruption of “fierce anger” in that country.

The book, titled “Imperfect Justice” and subtitled “Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II,” is by Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former high official in the Clinton administration. Now an attorney with a prominent Washington law firm, Eizenstat earned a reputation in the Treasury and the State Department as a most discreet diplomat. Those who know him well characterize him as a man who avoids offending people and focuses on a meticulous choice of words.

Copies of the book are scheduled to arrive in bookstores in early January, and the publisher, PublicAffairs, has no intention to change the book jacket. The Swiss press quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying that the government had wanted to ban the book in Switzerland -- an idea that has been apparently dropped.

In 1998, Eizenstat helped put together the $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and the holders of dormant accounts and their heirs. His 1997 report asserted that the Swiss National Bank – the equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States -- changed money for the Nazis. The charge then set off Swiss fury which has abated only a little after an independent historians' blue-ribbon commission, headed by Swiss historian Jean-François Bergier, confirmed that the Swiss National Bank was indeed laundering gold the Germans looted.

However, Bergier, a highly respected scholar specializing in the Middle Ages, now condemns the Eizenstat book’s cover as "simply outrageous." Eizenstat countered that the cover was not designed to offend, but to illustrate the book’s central theme: "the Swiss National Bank accepted Nazi gold and converted it into hard currency that the Nazis used to purchase essential items to pursue their war."

In recent years, Poland, France, and Austria have moved in the direction of revising false perceptions about the supposedly positive roles of some of their citizens and institutions during World War II. In Germany, that process has been going on since the war’s end, and it continues despite strong opposition from not only neo-Nazis but those nationalistically inclined. Accepting charges of hitherto secret collaboration with the Nazis is painful, and a section of the population remains indignant, insulted by “attacks” on the nation’s honor. Denial of facts is an easy way out, and denunciations of the researcher are often reflexive.

Eizenstat’s book is unlikely to be the last word on the subject of Switzerland’s well-concealed role in profiting from Nazi Germany’s conquests and confiscations. Two more books on the subject are scheduled to be published next year: Michael J. Bazyler’s work titled “Holocaust Justice” and subtitled “The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts,” and Jane Shapiro Brown’s “Rough Justice.” As more research is completed into new documents becoming available and more books are written, truth will out. Students of history will have to find a new balance in interpreting the complex Swiss record of standing up to Hitler’s threats of military occupation while accommodating some of his demands.
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