Volume One, Number 4

Volume One, Number 4
Friday, July 20, 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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STATE DEPARTMENT URGES THE WORLD TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING. The State Department's first annual report on human trafficking by criminals estimates that at least 700,000 people, most of them women and children, are victimized every year. Releasing the report on July 12, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "Deprived of the most fundamental human rights, subjected to threats and violence, victims of trafficking are made to toil under horrific conditions in sweat shops and on construction sites, in fields and in brothels." Human rights specialists welcome the report as a milestone in the global awareness of this modern form of slavery that the State Department's annual human rights report first included in 1994 and has singled out for special attention over the past two years.

U.S. Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) and Commissioner Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) praised the report. Smith said it sends "a clear message to all countries, including even some of our closest allies: ‘If you do not make ending the trafficking in human beings a top priority, you will place at jeopardy your relations with the United States.’" Brownback said that trafficking in human beings "includes the classic and awful elements associated with historic slavery such as abduction from family and home, use of false promises, transport to a strange country, loss of freedom and personal dignity, extreme physical abuse and depravation." Smith and Brownback coauthored the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, signed into law on October 28, 2000, with a view to withholding U.S. aid from nations that fail to address the issue by 2003.

There are several U.S. allies among the 23 countries the State Department criticizes. Israel is described as a destination for women from ex-Soviet states, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and Asia. But, the report adds, Israel's government has "begun to take some steps" to deal with the problem. ("We take the issue very seriously," said Israeli embassy spokesman Mark Regev in Washington. "We are engaged in efforts to update the laws and to enhance policing.") On the other hand, Greece, identified as a transit and destination point, is one of the countries the report singles out for having "not yet acknowledged publicly that trafficking is a problem." ("We were surprised by the report," said Greek embassy spokesman Achilles Paparsenos. "The report does not reflect our many efforts, including the adoption of new laws and setting the trafficking problem as a priority for the police.") The report takes Saudi Arabia to task for forcing expatriate workers "into domestic servitude and sexual exploitation" and names South Korea as a source of women forced into the sex industry, primarily in the United States as well as in other Western countries and Japan.

The report notes that between 40,000 and 50,000 victims end up in the United States every year. Experts estimate that 30,000 are from Southeast Asia, 10,000 from Latin America and 4,000 from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Maureen Walsh, the U.S. Helsinki Commission's general counsel, recalls that as recently as two years ago Russian officials flatly denied the existence of human trafficking in Russia. "American officials have been talking about the problem regularly for several years and emphasized its seriousness," Walsh said. "But now at OSCE forums and elsewhere Russian government representatives acknowledge that Russia is both a 'source country' as well as a destination point for Ukrainians and Central Asians. " She finds that while on the political level, Russian statements have improved, still not enough is being done in law enforcement and training.

LONDON APPEALS COURT REBUKES HOLOCAUST DENIER. British writer David Irving has often quipped that "more women died in the backseat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz" and declared that Adolf Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust. On April 11, 2000 in London, he lost a libel case against American scholar Deborah Lipstadt, who in her book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," had called him "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial." In rejecting Irving's charge that Lipstadt slandered him and thus destroyed his livelihood, High Court Judge Charles Gray ruled that Lipstadt was "substantially justified" and that Irving "deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence." The judge also cited Irving's links with neo-Nazis and antisemitic organizations, and ruled that his political agenda was responsible for his distortions of history. Irving appealed, but on July 20 this year, he lost his bid. The Court of Appeal agreed with Judge Gray's ruling and ordered Irving to pay within 21 days a first installment of $210,000 on Lipstadt's $2.7million legal expenses or face bankruptcy proceedings. The two London rulings not only punish a writer who made a career out of deliberately misrepresenting critical facts of 20th century history but also set a legal standard for a historian's responsibility to the truth.

DEMANDS MOUNT THAT G-8 RECONSIDER RUSSIA'S MEMBERSHIP. The decline of democratic freedoms in Russia should be a leading issue at the G-8 meeting this weekend in Genoa, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in letters sent on July 13 to the seven heads of state. The letters recalled that Russia’s membership in the G-8 has been tied to its embrace of democratic values ever since it joined the group of industrialized democracies in 1997. HRW asked that the seven leaders press for media freedoms and for ending the atrocities in Chechnya. "The policies of Vladimir Putin’s government pose the greatest long-term threat to democratic freedoms in Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of HRW’s Europe and Central Asia division. "So it’s never been more urgent for G-8 leaders to take a strong public stand." She suggested that events in Russia "should raise serious questions about Moscow’s continued membership in the G-8." In a July 19 editorial, Britain's Guardian characterized Russia's war in Chechnya as "state terrorism" and "the systematic victimizing of defenseless civilians" that "cannot be countenanced by Western leaders who subscribe to universal human rights…. Mr. Putin must stop these excesses right now, pull the troops out, and let the UN, the OSCE and aid agencies in. If he will not, then he must stop pretending to lead a modern, democratic European state and stay away from Genoa." On July 19, Aslan Maskhadov, president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, appealed to seven leaders of the group to stop "a genocidal war whose daily murder has yet to awaken the conscience of the world." On July 19, the news agency RIA Novosti reported from Moscow that according to a poll by the Public Opinion Fund, 71% of Russians attach much importance to Russia's participation in the G-8, which they consider a "prestigious" group of the "strongest states."

LUKASHENKA SET UP DEATH SQUAD, BELARUS INVESTIGATORS CHARGE. Two former Belarusian police investigators, Dmitry Petrushkevich and Oleg Sluchek, say they have evidence that Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka set up a death squad in 1997 that is responsible for more than 30 assassinations and disappearances. The victims include Major General Yuri Zakharenko, the former interior minister who went over to the opposition; Viktor Gonchar, the deputy head of the last legitimate parliament in Belarus; and Dmitry Zavadsky, a cameraman for the Russian television station ORT. Following their discovery, the two investigators fled their homeland and were granted asylum in the United States. Speaking at a July 16 briefing at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Washington office, the two investigators said that the squad is staffed by up to ten people, including current and past members of an elite anti-terrorist unit, and it acts under direct orders from Prosecutor General Viktor Sheiman, one of Lukashenka's closest associates. On July 18 State Department spokesman Charles Hunter characterized the investigators evidence as "detailed and credible." In Minsk, Lukashenka dismissed the charges as a "provocation" prepared by his opposition before the September 9 presidential election.

COMMUNISTS USE ANTISEMITIC SLOGANS IN PROTESTING NEW LAND CODE. In at least two regions of Russia, protests led by the Communist Party against the new law permitting the privatization of land have featured antisemitic slogans. In Siberia's Altay region, the July 17 issue of Altay Weekly Review reported on an antisemitic demonstration organized by local Communists to protest the new Land Code. In the regional capital Barnaul, a predominantly Russian city, the local branch of the Communist Party issued a statement supporting the protest that attracted more than 500 people. The statement warned that allowing the sale of land to private individuals would mean "surrendering to a new kind of Hitler, bidding farewell to Russia, and becoming tenant farmers to the new masters of Russia - the USA and Israel." In the Krasnodar region in Russia’s Northern Caucasus, Communists and Cossacks joined forces to protest the Land Code, blocking the Rostov-Novorossiysk highway from 5 to 7 p.m. on July 10. The rally was organized by the local Communist Party organization. Participants carried such slogans as "Russia works for Jews and Masons" and "No slave labor."

LATVIA FAILED TO COPE WITH ITS LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY, SAYS REPORT. Latvia's national language policy failed last year, according to a July 12 summary of a report by six Latvian social scientists in The Baltic Times. The researchers, sponsored by the Ethnic Harmony and Integration program of the Soros Foundation-Latvia, blamed public rallies in favor of the state's language policy for causing a "split" rather than an "integrated" society. The researchers called for funds for the promotion of minority languages that include not only Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian but also Polish, Hebrew, Roma and German. They criticized the public's lack of understanding of what is at stake in the debate over language policy and identified as a "most fatal stereotype" the idea that the Latvian nation and the Latvian language are in danger. They wrote: "The ethno-psychological stereotypes are supplemented by the exaggerated understanding of ethnic identity."

TURKMEN SECRET POLICE RAID CHURCH, THREATEN CONGREGANTS. Five officers of the Turkmen secret police raided a Baptist church in Balkanabad during a service on July 7, Keston News Service has learned. They took down the names, addresses and workplaces of those present and warned against complaining to a court, reminding them that in the capital Ashgabad the Pentecostals have failed to recover their building through a lawsuit. The officers threatened that if the Baptists meet again, their building will be confiscated, even though it had been given to them in perpetuity ten years ago, in exchange for a building originally used by them. The Baptists originally registered in 1968 but lost their registration following a new law in 1996 requiring a minimum membership of 500. As a result, only Muslims and Russian Orthodox Christians are now registered. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has recently launched a campaign to crush Islamic schools that, he complained in late June, were "unreasonably expanding."

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * *

From the Dutch seashore, within walking distance from the prison where dictator Slobodan Milosevic is held, Roger Cohen filed the following for The New York Times of July 15: "Communism promised equality. Hitler promised the 1,000-year Reich. Milosevic promised glory. All the West offers … is the rule of law. It's enough. It's more than enough on a continent that now knows, as no other, the price of the law's absence."

CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENT

A report from the heart of darkness

Russia's war in Chechnya adds new horrors to the lexicon of inhumanity. At dawn on March 12, Russian soldiers rounded up about 150 Chechen men in the town of Argun, Maura Reynolds wrote, beginning what seemed like a routine report in The Los Angeles Times on July 16. "At least 11 of them … have not been seen alive since," she continued, explaining that secrecy shrouds facts in what human rights activists describe as a "dirty war," and "many families never learn what happens to those who disappear."

However, the reporter found an exception. Marita Batsiyeva of Argun "made a pest of herself" in the local Russian kommandatura, asking everyone who passed by about her son, Muslim, 25. Her ex-husband traveled to Grozny and other cities to file missing person reports. After eleven days, she heard about four bodies in Prigorodnoye, dumped on March 16 from a truck belonging to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, without any explanation. Marita Batsiyeva's neighbor, whose son had also disappeared, just came back from Prigorodnoye and recognized one of the four corpses photographed by the villagers before their burial. The neighbor said the bodies were fresh, naked, and each had been sliced open from the neck down and sewn up with large stitches. Marita Batsiyeva drove to Prigorodnoye and identified her son from the photographs. Her ex-husband followed, exhumed the body and buried it in the family cemetery. Three other families in Argun did the same, but one family first undid the stitching and discovered that the body's insides were missing.

At this point, the newspaper report turns to Alexander Cherkasov of the Russian human rights group Memorial who assists in documenting human rights violations by Russian troops. He recounted that Memorial met with a stony silence each time it asked that military prosecutors investigate a case. But the four bodies in Prigorodnoye prompted a phone call from one investigator.

On condition that he would remain anonymous, the investigator told Cherkasov his story. On March 13, Russian soldiers on patrol noticed some freshly dug up dirt. Fearful of mines, they called for explosive experts who quickly discovered human hands and called for a military investigator. The man who phoned Cherkasov watched as four bodies were dug up, and he ordered a medical autopsy that identified gunshots through the back of the head as the cause of death in each instance. The investigator also took photos of the faces and sent them to military offices in Chechnya, asking for help in identifying the men. But he heard nothing back for two months.

The photos of the four corpses in Prigorodnoye reached Memorial's office on the Chechen border in Ingushetia and were also posted on the group's Web site. The photos prompted the military investigator's call to Cherkasov. The reporter noted that Cherkasov was relieved to learn that the men were autopsied. So the ugly rumor spreading across Chechnya about Russians robbing internal organs from corpses - and thus violating Moslem religious laws as well – was untrue.

A reader of the report may wonder if Chechens too believe the investigator's account and feel as relieved as Cherkasov did. And a reader may also wonder if Chechen suspicions, wild as they may seem, should be dismissed out of hand, given the Russian authorities’ consistent refusal to properly investigate war crimes.

Cherkasov thought the military investigator was sincere in his efforts to start a probe. Investigators face a tough job in Chechnya, Cherkasov said. Many cases languish because Russian servicemen refuse to cooperate and, fearing for their safety, military prosecutors avoid contact with Chechens.

Of the 11 men from Argun who disappeared on March 12, only the four corpses from Prigorodnoye have been identified and properly buried. "The fates of the other seven remain unknown," reporter Reynolds added, then she ended the story with a few lines that might have chilled Joseph Conrad's heart, if not Dostoyevsky's: On June 20, as he walked home from a wedding, Muslim's 20-year-old brother, Ruslan, was shot and killed along a road guarded by Russian soldiers. The reporter captured Marita Batsiyeva's words that only a mother could have offered: "I feel more at peace now because at least I know they cannot be taken away from me again. I have them right here with me, if only in their graves."

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