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Volume One, Number 5
Friday, July 27,
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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RUSSIANS THREATEN TO SHUT DOWN SALVATION ARMY,
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Russian authorities are threatening the
Salvation Army with closure of its
Moscow branch. Colonel Kenneth Baillie,
commander in Russia of the
British-based church, told Reuters on July 25 that
Russian courts are
cranking up pressure on non-traditional religions and
misunderstand the
purpose of the Salvation Army's military-style ranks and
uniforms by
labeling it a "paramilitary organization." In rejecting an
appeal, the
Moscow city court confirmed that the Salvation Army had applied
too late to
register as a religious organization and does not fit that
criterion in any
event. Also facing a shut down are the Jehovah's Witnesses,
after the city
court in May upheld charges accusing them of breaking up
families,
infringing on individual rights and converting minors without
parental
permission. Both organizations say they suffer under a 1997 law
that
requires all religious groupings to submit to a tortuous
registration
process which, non-traditional groups charge, throws numerous
obstacles in
their way. Russia's Orthodox church rejects criticisms of the
law as
discriminatory, contending that the law is needed to stop "dangerous
sects"
that "flood the spiritual vacuum" created by 70 years of Communist
rule.
The Salvation Army is considering an appeal to the European Court of
Human
Rights. Baillie told Reuters: "We feel like the sword is poised
overhead,
and our necks are on the block."
ORTHODOX MONASTERY SCORES JUDAISM AS A RELIGION
OF SATAN
There is yet another dark side to the religious
revival in countries of the former
Soviet Union. Commenting in the Kiev
newspaper "Den" on the recent papal
visit to Ukraine, Prof. Vladimir Voytenko
mentions in passing that Kiev's
Monastery of the Caves, the holiest shrine of
the Russian Orthodox Church,
recently published a brochure accusing Jews of
being devil worshipers.
Voytenko cites one passage in the brochure, which has
the monastery's
imprimatur: "Russian Orthodoxy is called upon to preserve the
wholeness of
the Church's teachings, as opposed to the kike religion of
Satan."
MOSCOW VIGILANTES PLAN TO DRIVE OUT VENDORS FROM
THE CAUCASUS
Viktor Gosudarev, deputy chief of the Moscow
Interior Ministry's criminal
investigation unit, said that young people have
formed vigilante groups to
drive out of Moscow markets vendors who come from
the Caucasus, according
to an article in "Rossiiskaya Gazeta" on July 10
cited by Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty. Gosudarev added that the vigilantes
fall under the
category of "extremist groups" and suggested that the FSB (the
former KGB)
"will take care of them."
EXTREMISTS SUE REGISTRATION
OFFICE AFTER TURNDOWN
The Latvian branch of the neo-Nazi organization
Russian National Unity (RNU) filed
a lawsuit in Riga on July 23, contending that the
Latvian government's Enterprises
Register had no legal grounds to turn down
its application, according to
the local Russian-language newspaper "Vesti
Segodnya." In refusing
registration, the Enterprises Register explained that
the group carries the
same name as "a radical extremist organization in
Russia, the activities of
which are aimed against the sovereignty of Latvia."
RNU leader Yevgeny
Osipov told the newspaper that after the court starts
considering the case,
he will resubmit the application again, for the third
time.
LATVIAN OPINION LEADERS CONDEMN RACIST BOOK.
Representatives of Latvia's non-governmental
organizations and higher education
institutions have asked nationalist parties to
condemn the racism and xenophobia
expressed in a book of essays entitled "We Will Not
Give Latvia to Anybody" recently
published in Latvian and circulated among
the country's elite. According to
the Baltic News Service, the July 26 open
letter was signed by the director
of Latvia's Human Rights and Ethnic Studies
Center, Nils Muiznieks; the
president of the European Movement in Latvia,
Ainars Dimants; the chairman
of the Free Trade Unions Association, Juris
Radzevics; the director of the
Latvian Foreign Policy Institute, Atis Lejins;
the chairman of the Riga
Jewish Community, Grigorijs Krupnikovs; and the
chairman of Transparency
International subsidiary Delna, Inese Voika. The
addressees were leaders of
the For the Fatherland and Freedom Party and the
Social Democrats - two
parties whose MPs have praised the book. The letter
called the book a
"provocation" by the Vieda publishing house, which put the
book together
from essays written by young people who were offered cash
prizes in a
contest. The Russian Foreign Ministry protested, calling the
announced
themes of the contest "openly chauvinistic" and "Russophobic,"
and
describing the book as "full of racist and fascist remarks which
lay
grounds for future ethnic cleansing in young souls." According to a July
14
article in the leading Russian newspaper "Chas" published in Latvia,
one
essay says the following: "We are fighting so that every race and
nation
lives on its own soil, and in that way we are for peace in the whole
world.
But the real inciters of animosity and war are the global
cosmopolitans
like the kike billionaire [George] Soros, whose goal is to mix
up together
various races and peoples... People who support this deserve the
most
severe punishment, including the death penalty... We will have
faith in
the bright future of the planet, in the victory of nationalism!"
TURKMEN BAPTIST BACK IN PRISON
Turkmen Baptist prisoner Shageldy Atakov has been
returned to prison in
Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk), Keston News
Service learned. In May
he was unexpectedly transferred to the capital
Ashgabad, where the KNB
(former KGB) tried to persuade him, his wife and
his mother to agree to emigrate
to the United States. They declined. KNB chief
Muhammed Nazarov was one of
those personally pressuring Atakov, who was
arrested on what fellow Baptists
believe are fabricated charges meant to punish him
for his work in the Baptist
church in Turkmenbashi. He has been in prison since
December 1998; his sentence
runs until December next
year.
SERBIAN PROTESTANTS PROTEST DRAFT LAW ON
RELIGION
Several of Serbia's Protestant communities have
expressed concern over the
draft of the new law on religious freedom prepared
by the Ministry of Religion,
Keston News Service reports. While Baptists and
Pentecostals held press conferences
charging the introduction of a state
religion in a secular state, the
Ministry of Religion has asked for time to
work further on the law,
promising that the final draft will follow the
traditions of European
democracies. "The new commissars are wearing crosses
instead of red stars,"
Dr. Alexander Birvis, president of the Baptist Union
of Yugoslavia, told
the press conference in Novi Sad on July 18. Birvis said
that the state
should not divide religious communities into categories such
as
"traditional" and "others." The controversy was sparked by the
preamble
which singled out the "traditional" communities: the Serbian
Orthodox,
Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, Lutheran (mostly Slovak) and Reformed
(mostly
Hungarian). These communities are partners with the government in
recently
announced religion classes slated to start in September. Students
will
choose between religious education organized by individual faiths and
the
study of democracy and ethics. "We are against religious education
in
schools," Dr. Birvis told Keston, "because this should be done by
the
churches for their members and their children. The state should be
separate
from the churches, and not promote some and downgrade others."
Bishop
Aleksandar Mitrovic of the Protestant-Evangelical Church in
Vojvodina
charged that in preparing the law, the authors failed to consult
the
"non-traditional" groups.
CZECH ROMA TO SET UP SELF-DEFENSE
PATROLS
Following a recent attack on a group of Roma
(Gypsies) by right-wing youths,
Roma in Ostrava, north Moravia, are planning to
organize self-defense patrols,
the Czech news agency CTK reported on July 18. But,
according to the police,
the Roma have no reason to set up such patrols. A
police spokesman said:
"The police can handle extremism. We clear up to
100 percent of cases." On July 20, a
22-year-old skinhead stabbed to death a
Roma in a disco in Svitany in
northern Moravia. According to Czech
television, the skinhead was charged
with racially-motivated murder. The same
program quoted local Roma leader
Vaclav Miko, who predicted that Roma will
flee the country en masse and
will not be stopped by countermeasures
authorized by the Czech government,
such as the pre-clearance checks of
London-bound passengers, carried out by
British immigration officials at the
Prague airport.
LEADING FRENCH PAPER CALLS FOR FRIENDLIER
REFUGEE POLICY
France gives short shrift to the right of asylum,
declared the National Consultative
Committee on Human Rights (CNCDH), a group
attached to the prime minister's
office. On the fiftieth anniversary of the
adoption of the Geneva
Convention, which established the international norms
of refugee status,
CNCDH published a report sharply criticizing France's
policy on accepting
asylum seekers and calling for a "comprehensive overhaul"
of a long list of
practices, such as the state's failure to interview the
majority of asylum
seekers, a lazy approach by appeal judges and a shortage
of refugee
reception facilities. In an editorial on July 11, "Le Monde"
praised the
report's suggestions as "bold." The left-of-center daily wrote
that "by
allocating a mere 25 cents per head of population to the
international
protection of refugees and by nurturing suspicion of asylum
seekers at
home, France does no honor to a cause which it claims to
champion."
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK * * *
"If Russia becomes a full-blown democracy in
the next 10 years, then the
prospects for conflict between the U.S. and
Russia, be it over the Latvian
border or the balance of nuclear weapons, will be
reduced dramatically,"
writes Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace
in the Christian Science Monitor of July 26. "A
democratic Russia moving
toward entry into the European Union and even NATO
will also make possible
the unification of Europe and the final
disappearance of East-West walls
( be it through visa regimes or military alliances
) that still divide Europe."
UCSJ BOOSTS MONITORING NETWORK IN
RUSSIA
report from Moscow
by Nickolai Butkevich, UCSJ's Research and
Advocacy Director.
UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet
Union is
significantly boosting its antisemitism monitoring network in Russia
by
enlisting new monitors in 45 regions across the country. At a
training
seminar in Moscow on July 12-13, UCSJ leaders heard several hours
of
reports on antisemitism in each of the monitors' home regions. While
some
reported improvements, others noted that serious threats to Jewish
safety
persist in the Russian provinces, including active extremist
groups,
attacks on Jewish sites and widespread distribution of illegal
literature
inciting violence against Jews.
Reactions from local
authorities to such antisemitic activity are decidedly
mixed, ranging from
positive gestures toward the local Jewish community and
condemnation of
antisemitism in some regions, to indifference and even
collaboration with
hate groups in others. In Bryansk, for example, police
mount joint patrols
with the neo-Nazi group Russian National Unity, the
regional authorities
openly blame Jews for the country's economic crisis,
Jews have been fired in
some local enterprises by antisemitic bosses, and
the local Jewish school and
Jewish gravestones are regularly vandalized. In
Ryazan, skinheads responsible
for an attack on a Jewish school last year
have still not been arrested, even
though press reports suggest that the
police know who did it, but simply
don't care. Even in regions where the
situation is better and local officials
are somewhat responsive to the
anxieties of the Jewish community, problems
persist. For example, in
Yekaterinburg, skinhead groups are becoming more
active, and the local
Russian Orthodox hierarchy is spreading antisemitic
literature. UCSJ's
monitor in Yekaterinburg characterized the Jewish
situation as "relatively
stable," but expressed fears that this stability may
only be temporary and
that in Russia, the situation can change
overnight.
Oleg Mironov, the Russian
Federation's Ombudsman for Human Rights, briefed
the UCSJ meeting on his
activities, which he said were expanding. But, he
added, the Kremlin still
does not pay sufficient attention to human rights.
"Antisemitism is no longer
a government policy," he said, "but antisemitism
is unfortunately still
here." Surprising some of the activists in the
audience, he warmly praised
the work of UCSJ and the Moscow Helsinki Group,
whose chairwoman Ludmila
Alekseeva called xenophobia "a serious human
rights issue in Russia."
Later in the week, Leonid Stonov, director of UCSJ's international
bureaus,
gave a copy of the new Russian translation of a UCSJ report on
antisemitism
in 72 Russian provinces to Vice Premier Valentina Matvienko,
calling it "a
roadmap" for President Vladimir Putin to follow through on his
promises to
combat antisemitism. Matvienko said she would take the report for
Putin to
read. She acknowledged the accuracy of the antisemitic incidents
reported
by UCSJ and added that Putin and the government have resolutely
condemned
antisemitism. She assured UCSJ that a bill intended to make it
easier for
the government to crack down on manifestations of political
extremism would
be adopted soon by the State Duma, which has resisted passing
the law for
many years. Just as importantly, she acknowledged the need to
amend the
1997 law on religion, which human rights groups have blasted as a
partial
return to Soviet era controls over freedom of conscience.
UCSJ
announced that it is exploring with its Russian human rights partners
the
possibility of dropping its longstanding objection to "graduating"
Russia
from the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which ties normal trade relations
between
Russia and the U.S. to freedom of emigration, in exchange
for
yet-to-be-determined positive action by the Russian government on
the
problems of antisemitism and human rights. A menu of appropriate
actions
on the part of the Russian Federation is currently being debated
within
UCSJ, which was the amendment's earliest supporter among Jewish
activist
groups.
In contrast to the indifferent and even
hostile reception the original
English language version of the UCSJ report
received in the Russian press
at the time it was published in January, the
press coverage of the Russian
language version was both extensive and
positive. This difference perhaps
signals growing awareness in the country of
the problems of political
extremism, especially among youth, and
discrimination against Jews and
other groups.
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