UCSJ

I thought of the old ILGWU fight song while recently meeting with the directors

of the US State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL

division) in Washington DC to discuss how to counter the new Russian Extremism

law which has targeted religions that don’t conform with the Russian Orthodox

Church or standard Muslim teachings.  We were with representatives of the

Baptists, Catholics, Falun Gang, the Scientologists, the atheists, Jehovah

Witnesses, Hindus, and other human rights activists.  We’re all part of an

International Religious Freedom Round Table (IRF) which informally works

together to fight for religious freedom.  We support each other all around the

world. 

It made me think of the Union of Councils purpose, the UNION LABEL.  In the 70s

and the 80s we represented the Refusenik movement in the USSR and did not

ignore the human rights activities such as Scharansky and Sacharov who were

abandoned by the Jewish establishment. We recognized that anti=Semitism

religious discrimination and xenophobia were interconnected with abuse of

human rights and the absence of the rule of law.  This is what led us in the 1990s

to form human rights in the various parts of the former Soviet Union creating

the Moscow Helsinki Group with Ludmilla Alexeeva and other such NGOs.  Today

we consider ourselves the unofficial representative of 55+ NGOs in the FSU.

What was most notable of the meeting with DRL was that we were the only

Jewish organization at the table. The lawyer for the Human Rights Law

Foundation representing the Fulan Gang in their struggle in China and Russia

Said to  me she was so proud that a Jewish organization was at the table.  She

remarked that all the human rights lawyers she runs into are Jewish. She thinks

its part of our genetic nature to support these issues.   I told her that it was the

UNION LABEL.  We pride ourselves in recognizing the interconnection between

all forms of discrimination and the abuse of human rights.

The DRL division is prepared to act on the abuses of the new Russian Extremism

Law and will be engaged with their Russian counterparts to prevent abuses

Such as have already occurred.  Its good to know we have friends in the human

rights community and at the State Department.  We at the UCSJ have taken on a

mini grant with the MHG to teach tolerance to college age youth in Russia with

funding of the USAID and are hoping for even larger grants from the US

government to push forward our fight against religious discrimination,

xenophobia, and abuse of human rights and to further the Rule of law.

Urgent reforms were called within the Ukrainian police ahead of the Euro 2012 soccer competition, in the wake of the robbery and severe beating of two men by six officers in Lviv on April 21.

With only 38 days to go until Euro 2012 kicks off the Ukrainian government is urged to publically commit to creating an independent body to investigate complaints of police abuse, sending a clear message that rights abuses will no longer be tolerated.

“The Ukrainian government must take action now to stop widespread police criminality,” said John Dalhuisen, director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International. “Failure to do so will encourage police to continue acting as a law unto themselves, and put Euro 2012 fans in danger.”

Ihor Savchyshyn and Andrei Semenyuk were arrested following a disagreement in a bar, and CCTV footage shows the men being robbed by six officers of $2,075.

The police also subjected the men to a brutal assault in which they were punched, kicked, sprayed with tear gas and then handcuffed. Police repeatedly struck the pair with batons as they lay restrained on the floor.

The men were taken to Sykhivskiy police station at 6 a.m. and kept in custody, without medical care or access to a lawyer, for 12 hours.  Following their released, the pair were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, as neither was able to walk. No explanation was given for their detention.

Local prosecutors refused to open a criminal case against the officers until the victims’ lawyer gave an interview to a local television channel. Five of the policemen were arrested on April 25. The other officer admitted himself to the hospital the same day, claiming that he had been injured by the two men days earlier.

“This case is yet another example of how the current system allows criminal behavior by police officers to go unchecked in Ukraine — the authorities only took action when the media became involved,” said Dalhuisen. “The country desperately needs a new and robust system for investigating crimes by police.”

In a briefing released today on human rights violations in Ukraine, Ukraine: Euro 2012 Jeopardized by Criminal Police Force, there have been documents of numerous cases in Euro 2012 host cities in which police have tortured people in an attempt to extort money, extract a confession, or simply due to the victims’ sexuality or ethnic origin.

“Our government claims to be striving toward European human rights standards, but officials live on a different level,” said Andriy Golod, the lawyer representing Ihor Savchyshyn and Andrei Semenyuk. “They think they can do what they like with people.”

On April 22^nd the  Jewish organizations of Simferopol arrived at the 10th kilometer mark on the Feodosia Highway to plant seedlings in honor of the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance day.  On December 11-13 1941 over 14,000 Jews and Krymchaks were murdered by the Nazis in the tank defense moats at this location. The moat was several tens of meters wide and over 730 meters long.  After the Holocaust the moat was covered with concrete to prevent vandalism and looting by grave-diggers.  Unfortunately with the advancement of technology grave-diggers have learned how to use metal detectors and construction equipment to locate graves and dig up the precious metals beneath the concrete.

The volunteers were horrified to find freshly broken ground with human remains scattered around the gravesite. This was bizarre because the grave-diggers usually work very carefully and scatter soil in different places rather far from the actual breakage to hide their trespassing.

The volunteers immediately informed the office of Security Service of Ukraine in Crimea and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Simferopol district. Their representatives came to the site of mass burial and examined the site, meter by meter. At one point investigators from the Security Service noticed that the ground seemed springy. After removing a 10-centimetre layer of soil the officials found wooden boards, under which there were crossbars. Under the crossbars there was a pit over 3.5 meters deep, over a meter wide and over 3 meters long. Down in the pit the investigators saw more horizontal tunnels going both sides and remains of human bones and decayed shoes at the bottom of the pit. At a depth of over one meter the 30-inch slab of poured concrete was broken. It was obvious that they worked with construction machines.

While reviewing the damage done by the grave-diggers I was disheartened at the depravity of the situation. How could one do this to their fellow human beings? Whoever has committed this heinous desecration should be tried for their misdeeds by the Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In 2008 Sergei Magnitsky was detained for investigating corruption. One year later he died from mistreatment in prison at the age of 37.

The Sergei Magnitsky bill would prevent Russian authorities responsible for human rights abuses from traveling to the US and storing their ill-gotten cash overseas.

Please call your Senator and ask him or her to support this bill. Thank you.

To read about this effort in the New York Times

Bill summary.

According information from the African Ukrainian Council, on the night of April 7-8 in Kyiv a Guinea citizen and young, black, male student of Kiev University was attacked by five young men. The student was hospitalized. He still couldn’t speak after that attack. It is unclear if it was a hate crime.

Read more…

Hostel is being built at the site of the former concentration camp Read more…

On March 1, a coordination meeting of the “Diversity Initiative,” a coalition of non-governmental organizations active in promoting multiculturalism and countering xenophobia, took place in Kiev. Among the participants of the meeting were representatives of all the interested government and law-enforcement authorities of Ukraine, particularly representatives of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Read more…

Public authorities have once again shown interest in the problems of nationalism. President Dmitry Medvedev said that the fight against extremism and in particular the opposition to attempts to “play the ethnic card” Read more…

The former director of the UCSJ-founded Kazakhstan International Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, Eugeny Zhovtis was released today after two-and-a-half years in a labor camp. In a phone conversation with UCSJ International Director Leonid Stonov, Zhovtis expressed gratitude to President of UCSJ Larry Lerner and all who supported him during his struggle.

The new Israeli Ambassador does not know there are political prisoners in Belarus.

On February 15 at his press-conference in Minsk the new Israeli Ambassador to Belarus Yosef Shagal stated that he knows nothing about existence of political prisoners in Belarus.

“I am a citizen of Israel, we do not have political prisoners. As for Belarus, I do not know, I should scan through newspapers. I will answer your question in half a year,” the Ambassador said answering the question of BelaPAN. “I am a journalist, and I know perfectly well how articles are written. Have you been in camps for political prisoners yourself?”

Read the rest of the story here: http://charter97.org/en/news/2012/2/15/48045/