Bigotry Monitor: Volume 5, Number 35

UCSJ ^ | Friday, September 9, 2005 | CHARLES FENYVESI

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Bigotry Monitor: Volume 5, Number 35

(September 9, 2005) Volume 5, Number 35 Friday, September 9, 2005

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

‘WE HAVE TO BE LISTENED TO,’ PUTIN TELLS WEST. Addressing a group of Western academics and journalists in the Kremlin on September 5, President Vladimir Putin denied that he was an authoritarian and ruled himself out as a candidate for the presidency in 2008. He reiterated that each state should work out its democratic system according to the norms of its culture and society. He added, “We simply cannot copy everything. That would be counter-productive.” He also attacked the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yushchenko, charged that it was rife with corruption and caused the collapse of an agreement on a Russian gas pipeline to Western Europe. He had warned Europeans about Yushchenko, he said, but “no one wanted to listen to us and we have to be listened to.”

When asked if he was trying to introduce some kind of “managed democracy” in Russia, Putin replied: “I don’t know what that is. Democracy either exists or it doesn’t exist. It cannot be set apart from the rule of law.” Religion has a large role to play in Russia, and the government, without dictating to churches or mosques, will do everything to restore property to them and help them to expand, Putin told his audience. Russia has built dozens of new mosques and synagogues recently, including the largest synagogue in Europe, he said. He was considering an appropriate commemoration of the Holocaust, he disclosed, including perhaps even the building of a Holocaust museum. PROSECUTOR REFUSES TO PRESS CHARGES OF HATE INCITEMENT. The Cheremushkinskaya Inter-Regional Prosecutor's Office of Moscow has refused to bring charges of inciting ethnic hatred against the author of several antisemitic publications, according to the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, UCSJ's Russia affiliate. The Bureau, which sent an official request to the Prosecutor's Office in the hope that charges would be brought against Mikhail Nazarov, has been officially notified of the August 31 decision, which found that Nazarov's book, “Russia's Secret,” did not incite ethnic hatred against Jews. Nazarov is best known as the author of a January 2005 open letter to the Prosecutor General's Office which called for a ban on Jewish organizations in Russia because of the “Satanic” features of Judaism. Some 19 members of the State Duma signed the letter that also cited the medieval blood libel.

The Prosecutor's Office slanted the proceedings from the beginning by sending the book to “an expert on transpersonal psychology” to determine whether or not it incites ethnic hatred. The expert found that it did not. The Prosecutor's Office then added its own spin, arguing that because some Russian Orthodox clergy have blessed the publication of this book, it cannot be antisemitic: “[The book] was not just officially sold by the Church, it was also recognized as a bestseller in 1999. Books that incite ethnic hatred don't receive the blessing of top level Orthodox clergy.” The Prosecutor's Office seemed to be unaware that some Orthodox churches have in the recent past distributed antisemitic works such as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

COLONEL ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTED MURDER BERATES MINORITIES. Charged with the crime of participating in the attempted assassination of Anatoly Chubais, retired GRU (military intelligence) Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov delivered in court a 20-minute tirade about the need to defend Russia against the “aliens” who “overflow” the country, according to the daily “Komsomolskaya Pravda” of September 7. Chubais, who presided over the controversial privatizations of the 1990s, is a highly unpopular official in Russia, and extreme nationalists often point to his Jewish heritage when berating him. To the despair of his attorney, Kvachkov told the court that though he had nothing to do with the March 17, 2005 murder attempt, “Killing him is the least he deserves!”

The courthouse was filled with the defendant's supporters, among them “simple Russian Orthodox believers” and priests holding icons, though it is doubtful that the Moscow Patriarchate sanctioned this show of support for Kvachkov. While one other suspect in the attempted assassination has been apprehended, two suspects remain at large. He is the son of former Press Minister Boris Mironov, the author of numerous antisemitic tracts.

RACIST VIOLENCE ON MOSCOW METRO. Two racist attacks have taken place on the Moscow metro. On September 2, the Russian Muslim web site Islam.ru reported that on a metro platform two elderly Tatars were accosted by a man who said that he did not like their “Muslim” appearance. After aggressively asking the men, who happened to be both World War II veterans, “What are you?” the man threatened to push them onto the tracks and punched one of the Tatars in the chest before fleeing. A policeman arrived at the scene but did not file a report, arguing that as the suspect had fled, there was nothing he could do. In the second incident, on September 3, a group of youths attacked a man, 40, of mixed Russian and African heritage, and his female Russian companion, according to the Regnum news agency. Both victims were taken to a first aid center, and police promptly arrested some suspects.

VLADIVOSTOK SKINHEAD GETS LONG SENTENCE FOR MURDERS. For the first time, a Primorsky Region court has convicted a person of murder motivated by ethnic hatred, giving local skinhead leader Ivan Nazarenko a “long sentence” on August 31, according to the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The report left the precise length of the sentence unspecified. Nazarenko, 19, was found guilty of murdering a Korean and a Chinese man in separate attacks in September 2004. Officials say that the local skinhead gang that counts Nazarenko among its leaders numbers about 40, has its own web site, subscribes to neo-Nazi publications from European Russia, and divides its members into brigades assigned to distribute publications and to attack members of ethnic minorities.

There is no information to indicate if other members of the group will also be put on trial.

SYNAGOGUE ATTACKED; SKINHEADS JEER MUSLIMS. In Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, unidentified individuals threw rocks through the windows of a synagogue on the evening of September 4, according to a report posted on the Russian Jewish Congress's web site Antisemitizmu.net. The local Jewish community noted that this is just the most recent incident of vandalism directed against the building, a historic structure in the downtown area.

A day earlier, a group of skinheads jeered and whistled at local Muslims who gathered to publicly pray for the victims of the Beslan terrorist attack, which had taken place a year before on that day. The neo-Nazis shadowed the ceremony's participants, at times screaming threats such as “Beat the Muslims, Save Russia!” and “Russia for Russians!”

TAMBOV JEWISH CEMETERY VANDALIZED. Gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in Tambov, Russia were vandalized, most likely by skinheads, according to a September 2 report posted on the web site of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Community of Independent States (CIS). On the night of August 29, two gravestones were knocked over and a swastika was daubed on one of them. Two nights later, another headstone was knocked over. Police are investigating the incident. Witnesses reported seeing two youths dressed like skinheads walking in the cemetery the night of the vandalism.

FOREIGN MISSIONARIES DENIED VISAS. While Moscow-based religious rights lawyer Anatoli Pchelintsev believes that the number of foreign religious workers barred from Russia is on the rise, their exact number is uncertain as many prefer not to report visa denials, Forum 18 News Service reported on September 7. Catholic bishop Clemens Pickel told Forum 18 that the denial of a new visa to Fr. Janusz Blaut in October 2004 after ten years in Russia (the eighth such Catholic visa denial) has left his Vladikavkaz parish without a priest. Yet this summer’s rejection of visas for Lutheran bishop Siegfried Springer and Protestant overseer Hugo Van Niekerk has been recently reversed. Of the 52 excluded religious workers since 1998 known to Forum 18 -- Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, and Mormon -- only a handful have been allowed to return to Russia. The news service noted that officials and the news media continue to stoke fears of “religious expansion” they claim threatens “national security.”

POLICE INVESTIGATE DISTRIBUTORS OF ANTISEMITIC BOOKS. A spokesman for the Kiev police has announced that a criminal investigation has been launched against distributors of antisemitic publications who ply their trade on Kiev's Independence Square, according to a September 2 report posted on the web site Antisemitizmu.net, a project of the Russian Jewish Congress. However, the web site added: “Right now, antisemitic literature continues to be sold with impunity both on the square and in dozens of MAUP [a Ukrainian university whose rector regularly publishes antisemitic literature] kiosks at trolleybus stops.”

By September 20, prosecutors will make a decision on whether or not to bring charges, the police spokesman added. Although not noted in the report, the recent stabbing of a Kiev yeshiva student may have motivated local police to take action against a problem that Jewish activists have been complaining about for some time. The victim of that attack is still in a coma.

UZBEK COURT ORDERS CHRISTIAN LITERATURE DESTROYED. On August 12, a court in Tashkent region ordered the destruction of nearly 600 Uzbek-language Christian leaflets for children, the third time Baptists have had confiscated literature destroyed on court orders, Forum 18 News Service reported on September 6. Other books, including New Testaments, seized from a group of Baptists in July were ordered to be handed over to the government's Religious Affairs Committee. The four Baptists found guilty of “illegally” bringing in the books were each fined some $35, members of Tashkent Baptist church told Forum 18 News Service. Senior religious affairs official Begzot Kadyrov claimed to Forum 18 that religious literature banned from distribution in Uzbekistan is not destroyed, but returned to the country from which it was brought, though he admitted that on occasion, religious literature has been destroyed. The Uzbek government censors all religious literature. Other Protestants, independent Muslims, Hare Krishna devotees, and Jehovah's Witnesses have also faced literature seizures and destruction in recent years.

GERMANY BANS TWO MUSLIM EXTREMIST GROUPS. Germany banned two Islamic organizations as part of its crackdown on supporters of extremist groups, the Interior Ministry announced on September 5, Reuters reported. The groups are YATIM Kinderhilfe, a charitable group that collects donations for the militant Palestinian organization Hamas, and E. Xani Presse und Verlag, publisher of a Turkish language newspaper affiliated with the radical Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. “The federal government takes decisive action against any activities that have an extremist or terrorist background,” the ministry said in a statement. “This applies to all extremist organizations, whether these have a religious orientation or not.”

“The freedom of the press that has been affected by the ban on this newspaper is very valuable but in the present instance, this has to take second place behind the security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany,” the statement said.

DUTCH FIGHT ISLAMIC MILITANCY. Three Amsterdam mosques have adopted a code of conduct to combat radicalism, promote democratic values, and encourage Muslim clerics to use the Dutch language, “The New York Times” reported on September 6. In turn, the government has pledged to combat anti-Muslim discrimination. The mosques began work on a code of conduct following the murder in November of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a man of Moroccan origin. Mosques adopting the code pledge to consult with the family of a radical, and if such actions fail to change the person’s attitudes, the mosques will report the person to the Dutch authorities.

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, FEAR OF CHAOS CONFIRMED * * * “We are not against any changes in the former Soviet Union,” President Vladimir Putin said at a two-and-a half-hour press conference in the Kremlin on September 5. “We are afraid only that those changes will be chaotic. Otherwise there will be banana republics where he who shouts loudest wins.”

PAST NOT TO BE REWRITTEN; FUTURE EXCLUDES ORANGE REVOLUTION

Recent official statements out of Russia are strident in tone, aggressive in content, and self-righteous in spirit. The specter that haunts the Kremlin and its friends is Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and they see The Enemy looming within Russia’s borders and beyond.

1. IMPERIAL AMBITIONS DENIED. The foreign enemies do not need to be named. Clearly, they include the former people’s democracies, first of all Poland, and then the Baltic states for blaming the Soviet Union for imposing its dictatorial rule on them. “One can see that several foreign states attempt to rewrite history and bill Russia for the joint past,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on September 1 in a speech at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, according to pravda.ru. He charged them with using “instruments of democracy, the free media in particular, to interfere in our internal matters.” He pledged: “Russia will continue to strengthen its positions in the world -- this will be our response to the current trend.”

According to Lavrov, anti-Russian sentiments in Western media outlets have become more pronounced recently. He took exception to foreign reporters referring “to the current changes in Russia as ‘imperial ambitions.’” The truth, Lavrov contended, is that Russia is only trying to become a worthy member of the international community. Rather than reverting to authoritarian tendencies, Lavrov said, “Russia is strengthening its state structure.”

2. ORTHODOX URGED TO ORGANIZE AGAINST ORANGE REVOLUTION. The relationship between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church is getting more and more intimate. In an interview published last week, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the deputy head of the Patriarchate’s Department of External Affairs, suggested that parish priests should take the lead in teaching young people about both “the law of God and military arts” to meet such challenges as an Orange Revolution. While cautioning that the clergy must not get involved in party politics, Chaplin called for Orthodox congregations to become “centers of social action.” He advised: “The establishment of youth groups, military-patriotic groups, and the organization of youth camps – all this will help create a community of literate and responsible laypersons.” He cited the example of a friend of his who “went to serve in a workers’ settlement in the Izhevsk eparchate. He has organized a beautiful military-patriotic camp where young people study both the law of God and the military arts.” He mentioned that local authorities provided “active help.” Chaplin was quoted as saying that Russia may indeed face the threat of an Orange Revolution which he defined as “a definite political technology or, using the language of the military, a special operation, with the help of which can be undertaken another attempt to destroy our statehood and an effort to change the historical path of our people, its faith, its culture, its manner of thinking and its way of life.” Such revolutions, he said, have “very little in common” with the free choice of the people, even though many people talk about such actions as if they did. Instead, he averred, they represent an effort to impose Western values on Russia at the price of destroying Russia’s uniqueness. “We must strive for contact with the civil authorities,” Chaplin said, “not because we agree with them in all things but because it is very important that as a result of this contact, the authorities finally understand that they must work with real forces and not with virtual social organizations which they can create and disband at will.” And even though government leaders will find it more difficult to work with “real organizations,” they must be forced to do so because according to Chaplin, that is “the very best defense against revolutions of any color” in Russia.

Chaplin’s remarks were in the form of an interview, first published in “Radonezh,” a publication that has promoted a radical form of Russian nationalism. His statements were then cited by the mainstream news media.

3. FRIENDS OF THE KREMLIN WARN OF THE RISE OF ‘OLIGARCHIC JUNTA.’ The Kremlin must form a strong anti-oligarchic coalition by the election year of 2008 to prevent a coup d’etat, Nikolay Troitsky wrote on September 7 in pravda.ru, the English web site of Russia’s historic daily. In a commentary titled “Political Experts Warn that Oligarchs Crave for Revenge,” Troitsky endorsed remarks by such heavy hitters of the regime as Institute for Political Research Director Sergey Markov, National Strategy Council Chairman Valery Khomyakov, and Institute for Regional Problems Director Maksim Dianov. At their recent joint press conference, the trio called on the Kremlin and the public to block the rise of “an oligarchic junta.”

Calling the three experts “quite logical,” Troitsky described the confrontation between the regime and big business as having become latent. President Vladimir Putin declared his strong objection to interference of foreign capital into Russia's domestic politics, Troitsky argued without specifying that Putin targeted contributions from abroad to nongovernmental organizations and civil society. “Russian oligarchs in their turn dislike the statement; in response they spread in foreign media publications aimed to form negative image of the Russian president and the Russian government in general,” Troitsky noted.

According to Troitsky, the modern history of Russia proves that the three experts do not exaggerate the threat posed by the oligarchs. “In 1996, it was a group of seven influential bankers that helped Boris Yeltsin win the second presidential term,” Troitsky wrote. “In four years, some of these bankers even attempted to dictate their will to the next president and failed. And others of the group went in hiding; today they are probably seeking restoration.” * * * *