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.

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.”

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.

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.

Also:

April 9, 2012

(JTA) — A Jewish man was attacked after he left a seder at a synagogue in Kiev.

The man, 25, was found on Sunday night, nearly a full day after the attack, with serious head injuries believed to have been inflicted by glass bottles, Ynet reported. He is in critical condition in a Kiev hospital

After a day of searching he was found in an area near the synagogue, where attacks by neo-Nazi groups have occurred in the past, Yaakov Zilberman, director of the Jewish community in Kiev, told Ynet.

The Kiev Jewish community is working to have the injured man flown to Israel for treatment.

Local police are reluctant to investigate the attack as an anti-Semitic hate crime, Zilberman told Ynet.

Zilberman says he believes the man was targeted because he was wearing a yarmulke when he left the synagogue.

UPDATE:

In the early morning of April 8, 2012,  an unconscious man was found near Bessarabsky Market in downtown Kyiv. The young man had brain trauma that resulted from being hit in the head with a  bottle. A Jew, he was at the celebratuion of the second Seder in the Brodsky synagogue and was on his way home. On April 11, still in critical condition, he was moved by air to Israel for intensive medical treatment. The Kiev Jewish community officially asked police to investigate the case. Yesterday Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich issued a special statement asking the Interior Ministry to find the criminals and bring them to justice. He wrote that tolerance to people of different religions was the biggest achievement of Ukrainian society. We need to do the best for saving it, we need to stop radical intolerance and hate crimes on the base of religion, language, ethnic origin. We will absolutely stop all such provocations.”

Yuriy Kuzheliuk stated that nothing could be built at the Citadel, especially recreational facilities. “It was one of the largest concentration camps for POWs in Eastern Europe,   – said the deputy. – 288 thousand prisoners of different nationalities had been interned there between 1941 and 1944. 150 thousand people were executed. Most of those who perished without proper burial are still lying in mass graves. Just last year the first prayer was held at the Citadel and a memorial cross was put in place. According to the decree by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the territory of the Citadel was added to the State Register of the Monuments of Ukraine in 2010. Despite the strict laws for the preservation of the Citadel site, Lviv businessman Yuhim Poliakov plans to build a hostel there.” “Surely there is no one else out there who could have thought of running a hostel in the barracks of Majdanek, Oświęcim, or the crematorium of the Zacksenhaus,  – noted Yuriy Kuzheliuk. We need to once and for all cease all attempts at construction on the territory of the Citadel.” In an interview with the correspondent of Vysoky Zamok, businessman Yuhim Poliakov acts surprised. He says that he has all permits to build a hostel, but deputies are blocking this project by pointing to political and historical issues. “I can show you the documentation, I have all the permits,   – says Mr. Poliakov. – There was never a kitchen on this spot (the building was erected in the 70s and the concentration camp was set up in 1943). There had always been a boiler house. I have documents from the archives, Prosecutor’s Office and the SBU (Ukrainian secret service) demonstrating that there are no burials. I have permits for the reconstruction of the building. This is pure politics. Someone is interested in spinning a certain issue against the authorities in order to reap the dividends.” Mr. Poliakov considers that crumbling buildings do not embellish the site of the Citadel, while some deputies refrain from saying from else could be developed there besides the hostel. Ivan Svarnyk, historian, told the Vysoky Zamok Newspaper that every concentration camp had a kitchen. “Most of the victims were buried on the adjacent territory – at the foothills of the Citadel – he explains. – The Germans buried them in long trenches. Before building or reconstructing anything there, one has to carry out an archaeological research: to determine whether there are any burials? I find it unfitting to do construction on the site of the Citadel because it is a place where numerous prisoners laid down their lives.” Commentary for Vysoky Zamok Newspaper from Lilia Onyshchenko, head of the Department for the Preservation of Historical Environment at the Lviv City Council Everytime someone wants to build something in Lviv, a scandal springs up. There is always someone against it. There will be no new construction at the Citadel. The businessman, who is going to create a hostel currently, owns the building of the kitchen (it has a shape of a barrack with high ceiling). He is just planning on remodel to accommodate a hostel. It is hard to react to this since it is his private property. Electron, a large factory, has at one point distributed its buildings to various owners. Even the barracks and the run-down tower are privately owned. If one were to create a historical complex at the Citadel, he would first have to buy out all the buildings from their owners. I don’t envisage such funds to be in the budget… There are two alternatives: either the structures continue to site there until they collapse, or the owners are going to remodel them as they see fit.

Vysoky Zamok Newspaper, April 2, 2012, p. 6

The meeting was dedicated to a number of problems: xenophobia situation in Ukraine according to the results of 2011, the findings and recommendations of the Fourth ECRI Report on Ukraine, which was released to the public on February 21, as well as on the problem of fighting xenophobia in the context of the UEFA Euro 2012 competition, which is to take place later this year in Ukraine and Poland.

The meeting was opened by the report of UCSJ expert Vyacheslav Likhachev, who presented the 2011 results of the  monitoring of xenophobia in Ukraine. According to data collected by UCSJ, last year saw an increase in hate crime, as well as in the general amount of illegal activity by the radical right. According to Vyacheslav Likhachev, the situation is especially worrying in connection with the UEFA competition soon to take place, as well as in the context of the autumn parliamentary elections. The speaker turned the attention of the representatives of the authorities to the necessity of increasing the efforts to counteract xenophobia, to at least slow the negative trend in this sphere.

The second main speaker was the sociologist Alexei Shestakovsky, who presented the conclusions and recommendations of the latest ECRI report.

The subsequent discussion was moderated by Yana Salahova, a specialist on counteracting racism and xenophobia from the International Organization of Migration representative office. The representatives of the non-governmental organizations and the state authorities discussed particular steps possible aimed to prevent a further worsening of the situation. Special interest was shown in the Ministry of Justice-approved project of a Strategy to Combat Discrimination, which is controversial.

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” must be one of the main areas of work for the recently renamed police. In response to the publication of an article by Vladimir Putin, “Russia: the National Question,” the Ministry of Regional Development has prepared a draft concept of the federal program called “Strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and the ethnic and cultural development of the peoples of Russia”.

Also, the Federal Migration Service (FMS) sent the Government a draft of the “Concept of State Migration Policy through 2025″, on the development of which experts have worked for over 10 years. The Concept is based on the necessity of foreign migrants for economic development in Russia. Accordingly, the main objective of migration policy is in the words of Konstantin Romodanovsky, director of the Federal Migration Service, “make sure profit from migration exceeds the costs.”

Questions of migration also came up in the presidential election, despite the lack of pre-election debates and discussions. On February 7, the Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said that he does not support introducing a visa regime with the republics of the former USSR. Meanwhile, presidential candidate and businessman Mikhail Prokhorov has called for the closure of the borders between Russia and Central Asian countries and the introduction of a visa system.

One reason for the lack of more disagreement among the candidates is that the energies of the opposition were not directed toward candidates but the movement “For Fair Elections” in which the nationalists also took part in meetings on February 4 in at least in 20 cities.

Nationalists also help rallies particular to their interests. A notable event was the public right-wing campaign “Mirzayev must be in prison!” held in four cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, on February 18. The reason for organizing these events was the decision of a court to free athlete Rasul Mirzaev, accused of the murder of 19-year-old Ivan Agafonov.

In Moscow, according to various estimates, from 150 to 600 people gathered at the rally, and after its completion, some participants formed a convoy and headed to Manejnaya Square, chanting anti-Caucasian and other slogans and attacking those they passed who were not of Slavic appearance.

Nationalists were further angered by the dismissal of the Supreme Court of the appeal against the life sentencing of Alexei Vojvodin, the leader of the neo-Nazi group that carried out assassinations and attacks on foreigners in St. Petersburg. Specifically, he is charged with organizing the murder of anti-fascist anthropologist Nikolai Girenko in 2004.

In worse news for human rights organizations and LGBT groups, on February 29, deputies of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly adopted a bill to ban “the propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia among minors.” Those who are found promoting homosexual activities among youth will be fined $16,000.

Unfortunately, the governor did not direct his efforts toward preventing violent crime. In February, according to the SOVA Center, as a result of racist and neo-Nazi attacks,  at least 12 people were injured, two of which (a native of Central Asia from St.Peterburg and anti-fascist Nikita Kalinin from Samara) have died. Violent incidents were reported in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir, Volgograd, Moscow and the Samara regions.

Such extreme actions may be supported by a sizable portion of the Russian people. On the eve of presidential elections the Public Opinion Foundation conducted a study which showed that the slogan “Russia – for Russians” is supported by a minority of respondents (11%). The same number supports the actions of Nazi skinheads (10%).

Still, the Federal list of extremist materials was updated four times. Its number increased from 1074 to 1081 and includes materials from the radical Islamist sites hunafa.com and djamaattakbir.com, leaflets by “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, and the book ”Russian World Order” by science fiction writer Yuri Petuhov.

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/