Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Bigotry Monitor: Volume 7, Number 5

News

Bigotry Monitor: Volume 7, Number 5

(February 2, 2007)

Volume 7, Number 5
Friday, February 2, 2007

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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FAR RIGHT RALLY IN MOSCOW DRAWS ONLY HUNDREDS. Some 400 ultranationalists gathered in downtown Moscow on a Sunday afternoon rally marked by anti-Kremlin invective and blatant antisemitism, “The Moscow Times” reported on January 29. Their numbers were matched by journalists and members of civilian patrols, but the presence of 2,000 police officers and Interior Ministry troops overshadowed all of them.

The authorities and the state-owned media presented the event as a demonstration in support of prisoners' rights which was the purpose indicated in papers filed by the organizers. However, the newspaper noted, the speakers showed little interest in the rights of the incarcerated. “They focused instead on savaging the country's leadership, people from the Caucasus and Jews,” the paper reported. Speakers called for a halt to “the genocide” of Russians perpetrated by Jews and folks from the Caucasus.

“Are you ready to tear the heads off the douche bags who are hiding behind the Kremlin walls,” Alexander Belov, head of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, shouted from the pedestal of the Vladimir Mayakovsky monument. The crowd of mostly young people responded with loud applause and fiercely antisemitic slogans. Belov urged Russians to obtain firearms and prepare for the day “when people from the Southern Federal District come to take away your homes.” He declared: “We have a right to hatred.”

“We have gathered here in Moscow to defend Russians in Russia,” said Dmitry Rogozin, former head of the nationalist Rodina faction in the State Duma. “Isn't it clear that for Russians this is the last stand?” Rogozin, described by “The Moscow Times” as “once a widely popular mainstream political figure,” said that most nationalists persecuted by the authorities were military officers, a trend he explained as an attempt to eliminate anyone capable of resistance. He called Colonel Yury Budanov, who is currently serving a 10-year term for the murder of a young Chechen woman, a “model Russian officer.”

Duma Deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich, expelled last year from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party, called for the elimination of prison sentences for the crime of inciting ethnic hatred. “We call it the Russian article [in the Criminal Code], because only Russians are prosecuted under it,” Kuryanovich said and concluded by claiming that “the only thing the Russian leadership fears is the growth of a nationalist consciousness among the Russian people.”

The ultranationalist organizations planned to show support for what they called political prisoners, including the four men charged with attempting to kill Unified Energy Systems CEO Anatoly Chubais, military officers currently on trial for the killing of Chechen civilians, and a handful of ultranationalist activists convicted of inciting ethnic hatred. Organizers that included the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and the National Imperial Party claimed that similar events were staged in 20 cities across Russia.

A police spokesman told Interfax that they had detained four people for attempting to speak out on issues not originally announced by the organizers. The spokesman also said “radicals could not join the rally to advance their nationalist slogans.”

Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Sova Information-Analytical Center that monitors nationalism and xenophobia, said the rallies were not a major success, since no new organizations turned out along with the usual suspects. “The rallies were nothing more than a reminder that these groups exist,” he said. The test of the Kremlin's tolerance of ultranationalist groups will come when the authorities decide whether to press charges against the most inflammatory speakers, Verkhovsky said.

GYPSIES ROUNDED UP BY POLICE. Police in the city of Volzhsk, Russia (Volgograd Region) have launched a massive operation to round up Roma (also known as Gypsies), according to a January 30 report by the Russian human rights web site hro.org. Citing a local Roma leader, the article reports that since January 24 police have singled out Roma in an operation called “Tabor” (Gypsy camp). Roma have been detained on the street and in their homes. Police officials have reportedly told the local Roma leader, Elena Nikolaevna, that the operation was inspired by reports of fraud. “This is ethnic discrimination, pure and simple,” Nikolaevna said. “Why are Gypsies being singled out? Are they saying that fraud is an ethnic trait only of Gypsies?” She plans to hold a meeting of local Roma to educate them about their legal rights. Most of those detained by police are reluctant to file complaints for fear of the consequences.

NEO-NAZIS ATTACK TWO NON-RUSSIANS AND FILM THE ATTACK. Neo-Nazis videotaped an attack earlier this month on a commuter train near Moscow, according to a January 25 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Six skinheads reportedly went through the train searching for non-Russians, filming as they went from car to car. They found two men from Central Asia and attacked them. However, the train stopped soon afterwards and the men were able to escape before they were seriously injured.

NEO-NAZIS AND ANTI-FASCISTS CLASH IN MOSCOW NIGHT CLUB. Neo-Nazis reportedly provoked a brawl with anti-fascists in the Moscow nightclub “FM” on January 26, according to the Sova Information-Analytical Center. A group of neo-Nazis started making fascist salutes and provoked the fight that spilled into the street and ended up with more than 30 participants.

NEO-NAZIS SENTENCED FOR HATE CRIME. Three neo-Nazis were sentenced in Kaluga after being found guilty of a hate crime, according to a January 29 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. In March 2005, the defendants attacked a citizen of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) while screaming racist slogans and menacing their victim with a knife. One defendant was sentenced to two years in prison; the other two got off with suspended sentences.

MOSQUE VANDALIZATION INVESTIGATION CLOSED. Prosecutors in Russia’s Vladimir Region have closed their investigation of a mosque arson in December 2006 and earlier incidents of vandalism, according to a January 31 report by Interfax. “The investigation of the arson was closed because no suspects were found, and we closed the second investigation because we didn’t see the incidents as crimes,” a local police official was quoted as saying. He added that a suspect was identified in the second investigation that focused on a series of incidents involving vandalism: smashed windows, mercury (a toxic substance) placed in the mosque’s mailbox, and several instances of small-scale arson in September-October 2006. The detained suspect, Gleb Pryadko, 18, “did not even know that it was a mosque, he was just playing a prank” the police official claimed. Interfax cited a local Muslim leader as saying that “we are scared” by the attacks and asking who will defend the community in the event of repeat incidents.

NO GAY PARADE IN MOSCOW, MAYOR LUZHKOV DECLARES. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has vowed to prevent any gay pride parade “which can only be defined a satanic act,” he said at a Russian Orthodox event on January 29, according to Interfax. Last year, he explained, supporters of a gay pride parade put pressure on Moscow authorities. “We did not allow that parade then,” he said, “ and we would not do that in the future.”

Luzhkov thanked Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexi II for support in resisting “the unprecedented pressure the Moscow government and the mayor are experiencing from the West.” The mayor regretted that religious institutions and secular authorities of some European countries “bless same-sex marriages, and sexual manuals are made part of the school curriculum from the very first year of school.”

ODESSA JEWISH CEMETERY DESECRATED. City workers have desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Odessa, Ukraine that was shut down in the 1970s, according to a January 25 report by the Russian Jewish web site Jewish.ru. Responding to a tip that homeless people were living in the cemetery, a television camera crew discovered that city construction crews had used heavy equipment to dig huge holes in the cemetery, bringing up the bones of the deceased and mixing them up with refuse that is commonly dumped on the cemetery grounds. Roman Shvartsman, chairman of the city’s association of Holocaust survivors, termed the actions of the construction crews “a mockery” of the memory of those buried there. More than 30 years ago, the Soviet government shut down the cemetery and used some of its tombstones for construction material. Local metal and marble thieves continue to make a living doing the same.

KAZAKH PRESSURE ON HARE KRISHNAS MOUNTS. As official pressure on the Hare Krishna commune near the commercial Kazakh capital Almaty mounts, three more home owners have been served demolition notices, Hare Krishna sources told Forum 18 News Service. If they fail to demolish their own homes by February 2, the authorities will do so and charge them for the cost. Last November, 13 Hare Krishna-owned homes were bulldozed, though other homes in the village owned by non-Hare Krishna residents have not been touched.

Other court cases are pending. The Kazakh authorities have failed to respond to a November 2006 offer of assistance by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Advisory Council on Freedom of Religion. However, Gauhar Beyeseyeva of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry complained to the head of the Hare Krishna commune: “We were denied the OSCE chairmanship specifically because of you people.” While denying any religious motives to the moves against the commune, Amanbek Mukhashev defended the inclusion of Muslim and Orthodox clergy in the official Kazakh commission charged with examining the dispute: “The population of Karasai district is basically Orthodox and Muslim, and it follows that we should have regard for the views of the representatives of these faiths.”

DRIVE TO CRIMINALIZE HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN EU RESISTED. European Union (EU) Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini has come out in favor of a German proposal to criminalize denial of the Holocaust across the 27-member bloc, but the strongest objection to the move comes from Frattini's country, Italy, Euobserver.com reported on January 29. According to the Brussels-based independent web site, Frattini said he “fully supports” the plan drawn up by Germany, which currently runs EU’s rotating presidency. Frattini said: “The commission firmly condemns and rejects all manifestations of antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia.”

Earlier this month, German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries proposed that all EU states criminalize Holocaust denial, just as Germany does, arguing that it would make a significant difference to combating racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia throughout Europe. Citing freedom-of-expression concerns, Denmark, Italy, and the United Kingdom blocked a similar plan by Luxembourg in 2005. The decisive opposition came from Italy where Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition was then in power.

Zypries said Germany had “a moral imperative” to try again for an EU-wide ban because of the Third Reich's responsibility for the Holocaust. She told her EU counterparts at a meeting in Dresden that criminalizing Holocaust denial would help to stem a rising tide of far-right extremism that is particularly visible in eastern Germany. “The steep increase in the activities of right-wing extremists and in violent crimes committed by them is worrying us,” she said. “We should at last put in place consistent measures to fight the far right.” She proposed that EU countries also criminalize the use of Nazi insignia. However, Hindu groups launched a counter-campaign, pointing out that the swastika had been their religious symbol for nearly 5,000 years before the Nazis appropriated it. On January 30, news agencies reported that Germany dropped the idea of a swastika ban.

On January 26, Germany won moral support from the U.N., which adopted a resolution urging members to “reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event.” Diplomats were quoted as saying that the resolution aimed at Iran, whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismisses as a lie the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in World War II.

But a few hours before a U.N. resolution passed, the Italian government published a draft law that proposes penalties of up to three years in jail for inciting racial hatred but stops short of making Holocaust denial a crime. Though the German government had hoped that the new government in Rome would support the German proposal, Italian Justice Minister Clemente Mastella failed to get enough deputies behind a more explicit bill. According to Agence France-Presse, his failure had to do with a statement signed by some 200 historians, saying that such a law would violate free speech. On January 30, Deutsche Welle suggested that Germany is likely to run into additional resistance. According to the radio station’s report, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Spain have laws that specifically target Holocaust deniers, thus Germany needs to convince 20 other governments to come on board by July.

ROMA TO URGE U.N. REPRESENTATIVE FOR ROMA AFFAIRS. Roma and Sinti leaders will urge the U.N. to take a greater role in protecting the rights of their ethnic groups, in a meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon scheduled for next week, a Polish Roma organization told DPA last week. Roma and Sinti leaders will ask for the appointment of a senior U.N. representative for Roma and Sinti affairs. The German news agency noted that 10 to 12 million Roma and Sinti (also known as Gypsies) live in Europe, the continent's largest ethnic minority. The delegation visiting the U.N. will be led by Romani Rose, head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and Roman Kwiatkowski, head of the Polish Roma Association. Roma survivors of Nazi death camps will accompany them. They will preside over the opening of an exhibit at the U.N. titled “The Holocaust against the Roma and Sinti and present-day racism in Europe.”

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, A TALL ORDER * * * “It is important not just to ensure the rule of law and order, but also to safeguard society from attempts to introduce extremist and racist ideas,” President Vladimir Putin told senior officers at the headquarters of the Federal Security Service or FSB (the KGB’s heir) on February 1.

CHECHEN SILENCE AND POLITKOVSKAYA’S SEARING WORDS
Grim Testimonies from Putin’s Russia

1. MURDERS AND ABDUCTIONS CONTINUE IN CHECHNYA. The human rights community's verdict has remained unchanged since the second Chechen campaign and the ensuing “restoration of peace” period: What is happening in Chechnya is a crime against humanity, says the just released report by the human rights organizations Memorial and Demos. The report acknowledges that that the current period is different from the previous periods but declares that the change is by no means positive. Clashes among Chechens are no longer confined to Chechnya -- they now take place all over Russia. The report notes the scandal over the Samson meat-processing plant in St. Petersburg, which Sulim Yamadayev's armed men tried to take over last September, as well as the shooting of Movladi Baisarov in Moscow last November.

Report co-author Tatiana Lapshina of Memorial told “Gazeta” that the situation in Chechnya is not stabilizing, as Ramzan Kadyrov's cult of personality is being imposed and despite the decline in the frequency of abductions. According to the latest estimates, 186 people were abducted in Chechnya in 2006: 63 of them were not seen again and 11 were found dead. Memorial says that between 2002 and September 2006, 1,976 people disappeared in Chechnya.

The report identifies a new trend: a dramatic reduction in the number of formal complaints from the families of people who have been killed, injured, or abducted. Even that, however, doesn't indicate stabilization; the fact is that people are afraid to complain. “Human rights activists get only indirect information at best on abductions,” the report states. “When we approach the family of the abducted directly, we are told as little as possible -- if anything at all.”

According to Lapshina, the Chechens’ silence began when control was turned over to Chechen law enforcement agencies. While Chechens are not afraid to complain of abuses committed by the federal forces, they keep quiet about similar incidents involving Chechen security structures, sometimes known as Kadyrov's private army. They can hardly be blamed for that: Russians come and go, but Chechens are always nearby, Lapshina said and added: “As the so-called process of Chechenization continues, the silence is getting worse. Many things are happening that we'll never know anything about.” Moreover, courts never prosecute security and law enforcement agencies.

Human rights activists say that the police themselves advise the families to take back their formal complaints about missing persons or abductions. The families reason: “Why deprive yourselves of a chance to get a missing relative back? A go-between may turn up and we will be surely able to sort it out. But if we make a fuss and use legal channels, we can forget about any such chance.”

The report concludes: “The actions the federal authorities have been taking in Chechnya and in the Caucasus under the pretext of combating terrorism since autumn 1999 cannot be termed a counter-terrorism operation.” Methods of using force “have turned the counter-terrorism operation into a criminal action resulting in mass casualties and serious human rights abuses.” Torture to obtain confessions is one form of abuse. “Young men are abducted, kept in secret prisons, and tortured to produce whatever confessions their torturers need,” Lapshina says. “Once the confession is thus obtained, the prisoners are described as captured guerrillas and transferred to official detention centers.”

The report says that there are many illegal prisons in Chechnya but the worst of them operate in Tsentoroi (the Kadyrov family's home town), Khankala, and Dzhalka in the Gudermes district. Elina Ersenoyeva, wife of the Shamil Basayev, must have been held in one of them. Ersenoyeva was abducted last summer when some people shoved her into a car in Grozny and drove off. The criminals' anger must have been caused by the fact of her marriage to Basayev, even though she had never had a say in the matter and was wed to the terrorist against her will. Ersenoyeva wrote to the human rights community shortly before her abduction, claiming to have been threatened by Kadyrov's men. Her mother, Rita Ersenoyeva, tried to find her daughter or at least find out what had happened to her; then she disappeared as well. Memorial believes that both women have been murdered.

2. HAUNTING WORDS FROM POLITKOVSKAYA. In the magazine “New Yorker” dated January 29, former “New York Times” Moscow correspondent Michael Specter revisits Russia and asks the question: “Why are Vladimir Putin’s opponents dying?” The article is accompanied by a drawing that takes up two thirds of a two-page spread, showing an evil-looking Putin in pinstripes surrounded by the ghosts of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, and journalists Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya.

Specter’s carefully argued indictment of Putin is eloquent. But he keeps the most moving statement until the article’s last paragraph, and it is a quote from an unspecified writing by Politkovskaya: “Putin has, by chance, gotten his hands on enormous power and has used it to catastrophic effect. I dislike him because he doesn’t like people. He despises us. He sees us as a means to his ends, a means for the achievement and retention of personal power, no more than that. Accordingly, he believes he can do anything he likes with us, play with us as he sees fit, destroy us as he sees fit. We are nobody, while he whom chance has enabled to clamber to the top of the pile is today Tsar and God.”

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