Volume 10, Number 27
August 6, 2010
BIGOTRY MONITOR
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
_________________________________________________
Volume 10, Number 26
July 30, 2010
BIGOTRY MONITOR
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
_________________________________________________
Neo-Nazis have again targeted Russian police, this time in Oryol,
according to a July 20, 2010 article in the regional supplement to the
national daily "Kommersant." On the night of the 19th, someone
firebombed a police post and left a neo-Nazi leaflet signed "National
Socialism/White Power" advocating other attacks on police. Police
believe that this attack may be linked to a July 16 bombing of a
prosecutor's office not far away. Nobody was injured in either attack.
Police are investigating the incidents as hate crimes.
Two more cases of persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses were uncovered by
the Sova center in a July 15, 2010 report, just the latest in a series
of local and central government actions against them. Both cases
highlight legal abuses common to the government's campaign against
Jehovah's Witnesses, but also show that in some courthouses, at least,
these specious charges are meeting with resistance.
In Belgorod, Sergey Ishchenko was detained by police in November 2009
by police asking questions about his faith. He was charged with
inciting religious hatred and one of his religious books was entered
as evidence against him. However, a court subsequently threw out the
charges, arguing that a court decision classifying that Jehovah's
Click here for story.
A round table held inside the lower house of the Russian parliament
resulted in a signed declaration accusing "Zionists" of committing
"genocide" against the Russian people, according to a July 19, 2010
report by the Sova Center. The July 10 event--entitled "On the
Question of Recognizing the Genocide of the Russian People"--was
organized by State Duma deputies from Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal
Democratic Party of Russia and featured several retired generals,
leaders of far-right groups, and at least one Communist Party deputy
with a history of antisemitic statements, Viktor Ilyukhin.
The event's culminating statement blamed "the international Zionist
financial mafia" for "genocide" against the Russian people and warned
that the struggle is now entering "its culminating stage... the battle
Prosecutors in Khabarovsk, Russia are preparing hate crimes charges
against a group of neo-Nazis, according to a July 14, 2010 article in
the regional supplement to the national daily "Komsomolskaya Pravda."
The youths allegedly wrote death threats against Jews and other
minorities on the walls of several downtown buildings in 2009. The
report does not reveal the number of suspects, or their ages.
Click here for story.
Volume 10, Number 25
July 23, 2010
BIGOTRY MONITOR
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
_________________________________________________
A court in Vladivostok, Russia handed down suspended sentences to two
youths after finding them guilty of a hate crime, according to a July
22, 2010 report by the web site VladNews. Both the youths stabbed two
citizens of Uzbekistan on a suburban train on April 24, 2008. The
court found them guilty of hooliganism motivated by ethnic hatred. The
light suspended sentence of four and two years respectively is
particularly egregious since the victims suffered serious injury,
according to the charging documents. Unfortunately, Russia's juvenile
justice system tends to hand down mild sentences to youths, a loophole
that neo-Nazi gangs regularly exploit.