Volume One, Number 25
Friday, December 28, 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
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PUTIN HAILS FSB AS THE PROTECTOR OF THE CITIZEN'S RIGHTS. The most important of the many tasks of the Russian state security agencies (now called the FSB or Federal Security Service) is "to protect the rights and liberties of our citizens," President Vladimir Putin stated on December 20. "This is the key to understanding the very essence of state and public security and to earning our citizens' trust." Putin spoke at what Moscow TV6 described as "a festive soiree devoted to Security Services Day" in Moscow's Rossiya concert hall. His speech opened the gala celebration that according to a TV reporter included "an elderly man with a strong resemblance to former KGB boss Vladimir Kryuchkov," a key plotter in the unsuccessful August 1991 putsch against his one-time mentor, President Mikhail Gorbachev.

In addressing gatherings of special-interest groups, Putin is developing a style that blends an American politician's flattery of the audience with Soviet-type admonitions of the listeners' responsibilities. His improvement on both is a succinct, sharp-honed diction more fit for a marble plaque than a newspaper report. Without mentioning the more than seven decades of infamy by "the special organs," Putin emphasized the positive and heaped praise. He said that "the main result of the special services' work over the last ten years is the fact that they have organically integrated themselves with the system of democratic governance and become a natural and indispensable part of it." He concluded with a reminder that Russia still has "some very serious work to do to ensure that democracy and legality are anchored once and for all in society and the state, that citizens' rights and freedoms… are reliably protected."

But five days later, on December 25, a behind-closed-doors trial by a military court in Vladivostok ended with a four-year prison sentence for journalist Grigory Pasko who had provided a Japanese television station with a video of Russia's Pacific Fleet illegally dumping nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. The charge was espionage, pressed by the FSB despite an acquittal after the first trial. A large number of human rights organizations, Russian newspapers, and even the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Sergei Mironov, dismissed the charges as bogus. On December 27 "The Washington Post" reacted with an editorial calling on Western governments and especially the Bush administration to remind Putin that "his government cannot simultaneously conduct secret espionage trials of journalists and intellectuals, and demand the right to take part as an equal partner in decision-making by the Western democracies inside NATO." A former naval captain, Pasko has been in and out of detention since November 1997.

LUKASHENKO PRAISES KGB FOR 'SAFEGUARDING NATIONAL INTERESTS.' In Belarus, the KGB is still called the KGB, its day is celebrated on the same day as in Russia, and talk about a citizen's rights and liberties could send the speaker to jail. President Alexander Lukashenko addressed the festivities with a rambling speech in Russian, expressing confidence in the KGB's ability to "continue safeguarding national interests." Among the organization's main tasks, Lukashenko named combating crime, and he pointed out that while organized crime is "one of the most dangerous phenomena," Belarus has not allowed it to become "a political force." Commenting on the events of September 11, he said that they proved that "there are no strong or weak countries nowadays." Without going into details, he suggested that the events show a need for "a new architecture of world and European security" and hinted that Belarus now has "new opportunities to cooperate with the West."

While Lukashenko praised the KGB's contribution to state security, neo-Nazis operate in the country with impunity. According to a UCSJ report from Belarus, a young man was recently arrested, suspected of repeatedly vandalizing an obelisk erected in memory of 34,000 Jews the Nazis killed in the town of Brest. Locals believe that the police did not search for him; the man was arrested because he kept boasting of having defaced the memorial with the slogan "Kill the kikes!" and gallows carved next to stars of David. But the suspect soon disappeared, and the police have been supposedly unable to find him. The report also profiles a Jewish family in Minsk whose members have been terrorized by neo-Nazis. It notes the appearance of numerous swastikas on fences, entrance doors, underground pedestrian crossings, and apartment buildings. The authorities make no effort to remove them.

STALIN'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED. The following day, on December 21, communists and nationalists gathered at the Baku movie theater in Moscow to celebrate Stalin's 122nd birthday, according to UCSJ Moscow Bureau Chief Aleksandr Brod. Speakers, including the editor of the stridently antisemitic newspaper "Duel" Yuri Mukhin, blasted "democrats" and "Zionists," while eulogizing Stalin. Among the antisemitic publications distributed at the event was a list of the "true" Jewish names of prominent Russian politicians, which claimed that the President of Russia in fact bears the name "Shalomov." A group calling itself "The Army of the People's Will" organized the celebration.

MURDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER IN CHECHNYA PROTESTED. The killing of a human rights defender in Chechnya should be investigated, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on December 22. Luiza Betergirieva, 44, of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, was reportedly shot to death while riding in a car near a Russian military checkpoint outside Argun on December 13. "This killing would appear to be a horrifying tactic to silence those who expose abuses," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia division. "And in Chechnya, continued abuses must be exposed." According to an unconfirmed report, Betergirieva, together with Umar Musaev, another Russian-Chechen Friendship Society monitor, set out by car for Argun, a town east of Grozny, on an assignment to document human rights violations. A few days earlier, fighting had broken out between Russian and Chechen forces in the town, also involving civilians. The Russian "sweep" operation that followed drew many civilian complaints of abuse and prompted the head of the local FSB to order an investigation. The shooting reportedly took place near one of the town's checkpoints, immediately after Russian troops manning the checkpoint had turned back Betergirieva's car.

RUSSIAN NEO-NAZIS MEET TO FORM 'A UNION OF ALL PATRIOTS.' Neo-Nazis and other antisemitic groups convened a joint congress in Stavropol last week, according to a December 19 report by the Glasnost Media Center. Representatives of "Russian Rebirth" -- a successor to Russian National Unity, which was especially strong in Stavropol -- the Russian All-People's Union, and local Cossacks shared the hope of eventually creating a national organization that would be "the union of all patriots who are ready to act for the good of Russia."

AFRICAN STUDENTS BEATEN IN NIZHNY NOVGOROD. "Local racists" beat up African students at the Nizny Novgorod Medical Academy on December 17 and one student from Sudan has been hospitalized in serious condition, according to the IMA Press news agency. This is the second time such an attack has taken place. The Africans are convinced that the local police will not solve their problem and have appealed to their embassies in Moscow for help.

KRASNOYARSK SYNAGOGUE VANDALIZED. Unidentified vandals painted swastikas and the letters "RNU" -- the abbreviation for the violent neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity -- on the walls of a synagogue in Krasnoyarsk, according to Nakhman Rashkovsky, head of the "Gaskala" Krasnoyarsk Kray Jewish Autonomy and UCSJ's monitor in the region. The swastikas were discovered on the morning of December 24. Rashkovsky adds that the local FSB believes that the RNU is "passive" in Krasnoyarsk and that the vandalism was probably by local youths. The incident is under investigation. On August 19, thirty-two headstones in Krasnoyarsk's Jewish cemetery were smeared with paint, swastikas, and antisemitic slogans. The police investigation has failed to yield a single arrest.

JEWISH MP IN LATVIA LOSES PATIENCE WITH ANTISEMITES. Yakov Pliner, a Jewish member of Latvia's parliament, regularly receives antisemitic letters, says a December 17 article in "Vesti Segodnya," a Russian language newspaper published in Latvia. But toward the middle of December, he received two anonymous letters so filled with hate that he handed them over to the security police, demanding that they investigate and bring charges against the letter-writers based on laws banning the incitement of ethnic hatred. "These last two letters were especially offensive to me," he told the newspaper. "Insults directed at me were accompanied by the word 'kike.' In the opinion of the author of the letter, all 'kikes' are 'murderers,' 'scum,' 'filth,' etc."

ETHNIC HUNGARIANS TO BE PROSECUTED FOR SINGING HUNGARIAN ANTHEM. On December 17, Romanian Prosecutor-General Joita Tanase announced that he has begun the prosecution process against members of the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR) for singing the Hungarian anthem, Romanian media reported. Two days earlier, participants at UDMR meeting in Targu-Mures sang the anthem, which locals interpreted as a protest against a recent government ordinance that bans unauthorized singing of other states' anthems and the display of symbols of foreign sovereignty. Premier Adrian Nastase said the UDMR members will be punished if they broke the law, but that it "shouldn't be turned into a big problem." UDMR Chairman Bela Marko asked the chief prosecutor to reconsider his decision. Marko said: "We consider the Hungarian national anthem and flag to be ours. This is the way we have used it so far, and this is how we will use it in the future too." Hungarian foreign affairs spokesman Gabor Horvath said that Hungary agreed with Marko's position. Horvath said the bilateral basic treaty and European documents on the free choice of identity and freedom to express it did not ban the use of such symbols.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * * "The main social background of Islamic fundamentalists is the most deprived section of the population," an Uzbek religious affairs official told Keston News Service. The Keston correspondent visiting Uzbekistan also heard young radicals express the conclusion they have arrived at: "Only an Islamic state can give people a life of dignity".

FROM THE BIG BANG OF FERTILE CHAOS TO PATIENT DEALMAKING
The Roma Quest for Identity and Recognition

The Roma, also known as Gypsies, make up the largest minority in Europe, with estimates of their number ranging from 8 to 15 million. Over the past few years the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has begun to call the improvement of their status "a high priority." Usually isolated from the mainstream and often despised as alien and unassimilable, Roma live in every European country and are targets of widespread bigotry. Hitler condemned them as "a criminal people" but deemed them so unimportant that the SS seldom bothered to count those they massacred.

The outside world knows little about their national awakening, internal politics, as well as frustrations and achievements in the non-Roma world. The publication "Roma Rights 4/2001," published by the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center, recently interviewed one highly regarded Roma leader, Nicolae Gheorghe, now advisor on Roma and Sinti issues to OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

The interview opened with an account of the recent past when Roma sallied forth into public life, affirming their identity, and forming political groups. It was an exhilarating process in which Gheorghe played a role as a Roma rights activist. "The chaos at the beginning of the 1990s was productive," he said, comparing it to "a big bang: There was heat, light, energy -- for good and bad -- and a lot of us drew a lot of creative activist strength from the years immediately after 1989." Activity took different forms in different countries, depending on the political climate. In Czechoslovakia for instance, Gheorghe recalled the ROI -- the Romani Civic Initiative -- which he characterized as "a sort of junior partner to the dissident group Charter 77, which took power. They were on a progressive track; President [Vaclav] Havel shook [Roma leader] Emil Scuka's hand in Bratislava and the ROI came in with something like eleven Members of Parliament in the three parliaments - the Czechoslovak Federal Parliament and the Czech and Slovak lower houses."

But today there is no more ROI in the parliaments of the split Czech and Slovak republics, Gheorghe noted, and there is only one Roma in both parliamentary structures. "The Romani party is almost defunct," he added. "There is a growing rejection of Roma in the wider society -- as shown by the 1993 citizenship law and the flight of many Roma from the country."

The solution, Gheorghe said, is to play a role in the mainstream politics of individual countries, and he is encouraged by the examples of Monika Horakova in the Czech Republic ("she came like a meteor into Romani politics") and Normunds Rudevics in Latvia. Then Gheorghe listed two Roma in the Bulgarian parliament from different parties and one Romani representative in Romania's mainstream Social Democratic Party, in addition to the one seat in parliament reserved for a Roma. He explained how in Romania, the Romani Party, in existence for ten years, decided before the last election not to try getting elected on the strength of the Romani constituency alone and formed an alliance with the Social Democrats. "On a local level, this strategy lost to some extent," Gheorghe conceded, "but on a national level, this strategy paid off." He pointed to the second Romani MP -- now serving as the head of the Parliamentary Commission for Human Rights, Minority Rights, and Churches - and to about 40 Roma in local governments. He suggested that "the deal will pay off."

Gheorghe finds "a kind of maturation" among Romani politicians. He cited the example of Macedonia, with one strong Romani constituency, in the Suto Orizari municipality in Skopje. "The MP from the district is Romani," he says. "The local council and the mayor are Romani. Competition is now between three Romani parties, plus the mainstream parties have Roma on the ground competing. This reflects the development of pragmatic political thinking. There is an electoral success of Roma -- still very limited, but success nonetheless."

He sees "a new growth" of successful Romani politicians in Western Europe, and cites the new Romani representative, Rudolf Sarkozi, on a Vienna district council. He looks forward to next year's elections in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

Gheorghe voiced skepticism about Roma political ideologies dominated by ethnic thinking, as exemplified by phrases such as, "We are Roma, we are an ethnic Romani party, we need to go forward as Roma." What he finds missing is a debate as to who is a social democrat or a liberal or a Christian Democrat. "This is a mistake," he said. "Roma are pushed all the time onto an ethnic ticket, rather than into a wider debate about political philosophies and where we stand. We are still at the beginning of fleshing out our ideologies."

The interviewer asked: Now that you advise the OSCE, how will you increase Romani power?

Gheorghe offered a list: organizing roundtables to bring together rival international Romani organizations and assisting them to shape programs; fostering Romani electoral politics aimed at increasing the number of elected Roma representatives in the OSCE region; devising transnational Romani elections to foster accountability and legitimacy; and ending the self-appointed leadership model. He acknowledged a sad fact: "Today we choose undemocratically among the self-appointed." But he reported "one small step" forward: Finnish President Tarja Halonen's initiative to create a Roma constituent assembly at a pan-European level, with links to the Council of Europe.

Another plan Gheorghe revealed is a search for "mechanisms for the international recognition of Roma as a people in diaspora." He is thinking of a peace conference "to make peace between Roma and the wider societies" -- for instance to secure the status of Roma as a constituent member of the Balkan peoples. The "deal" he seeks is "to implement human rights principles in reality" and to find a place for the work of anti-discrimination activists. By harmonizing the different perspectives, he intends to "work out a draft of our deal - of our peace treaty."
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