Volume 9, Number 32
August 28, 2009
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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As the nation mourns Sen. Edward Kennedy, the worldwide human rights community remembers him as a passionate champion of human rights, a devoted friend of Soviet Jewry from the beginning of the struggle, and a spirited opponent of ethnic and racial discrimination. The causes of democracy and social justice have lost a tireless advocate.
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TWO MORE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS MURDERED IN CHECHNYA. On August 10 in Chechnya, unidentified individuals murdered human rights defender Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband Alik Dzhabrailov. Their bullet-ridden bodies were found in the trunk of a car on August 11, hours after they were kidnapped from the office of the Save the Generations charity in the regional capital Grozny.
On August 13, the European Union’s (EU) current president Sweden condemned the murderers. Its statement cited the previous killings of human rights defenders in Russia, including Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, Stanislav Markelov in January 2009, and Natalya Estemirova last month. "It is important that an investigation into these latest murders is conducted promptly, transparently, and thoroughly,” the statement said. “The perpetrators must be brought to justice. These latest crimes demonstrate again the dangers faced by human rights defenders. The EU urges the Russian authorities to do everything in their power to ensure the protection of human rights defenders."
The Save the Generations charity provides medical and psychological help to young people who have suffered as a result of violence in Chechnya.
DEADLY INTER-ETHNIC BRAWL IN STAVROPOL REGION. An inter-ethnic clash in Russia's Stavropol Region left one dead and several injured, according to an August 20 report by Ekho Moskvy radio. On August 19, a group of Dargins--an ethnic minority from Dagestan--reportedly beat an ethnic Russian man in the village of Peladiada. He called relatives and friends to help, and the conflict snowballed into an inter-ethnic brawl involving up to 300 people, some of them armed with automatic weapons. One Dargin was killed and several other people, including an ethnic Russian storekeeper, were injured.
Earlier this summer, Dargins and Nogays were involved in a similar brawl in the Stavropol Region which borders the restive Northern Caucasus.
LIKELY HATE CRIME MURDER IN ST. PETERSBURG. Police believe that the murder of an Azeri man in St. Petersburg may have been the work of extreme nationalists, according to an August 23 report on the web site Kavkazsky Uzel. On August 20, a group of unknown assailants stabbed Vasif Odzhagverdiev to death near his home. Another Azeri, Arza Dzhafarov, survived the attack and was hospitalized in serious condition.
RACISTS BEAT CHILDREN. Two young men armed with sharp metal objects attacked a pair of ethnic minority children in Moscow while reportedly making racist insults, according to an August 19 report by the Sova Center for Information and Analysis. On August 16, the men--aged 18-20, according to witnesses—attacked the eight graders, one from Armenia, the other from Chechnya. The arrival of a police patrol scared off the attackers, whom the boys were fighting off with some success using skills they learned in kickboxing classes. Both boys were slightly injured. Police failed to capture the assailants.
NEO-NAZIS ATTACK ANTI-FASCIST CONCERT. Neo-Nazis attacked an anti-fascist concert in Kirov, according to an August 25 report by the Sova Center for Information and Analysis. The brawl took place on August 14 in a bar. Police detained youths from both sides, but then let them go.
MOSCOW POLICE NAB NEO-NAZI BOMBER. Police in Moscow attached to an anti-extremism unit detained a neo-Nazi, age 16, after thwarting his attempt to set off a bomb near a World War II memorial, according to an August 25 report by the news web site Gazeta.ru. The suspect, who was not named, was reportedly in possession of two kilograms of explosives and has confessed to wanting to "scare the city's population." Investigators have linked him to other bombings, details of which he allegedly kept on his computer. According to police sources, the suspect attempted to burn down a church in Kolomenskoe, set off a bomb targeting market traders at the Tushinsky market on September 23 which injured five people, and bombed a market stall inside an underpass on May 2 that resulted in two injuries. Prosecutors have not yet filed charges against the suspect, who may be linked to more bombing attempts.
This May, Moscow police detained another teenage neo-Nazi and charged him with planning to set off a bomb during Victory Day celebrations. In January, police detained two teenage neo-Nazis suspected of responsibility in a series of bombings targeting churches and a McDonalds, as well as for several hate crime murders.
NEO-NAZI FUGITIVE DETAINED. A purported neo-Nazi gang leader allegedly responsible for 15 murders, including that of a well-known Jewish violinist and an ethnic Yakut chess master, was detained at a Moscow train station as he prepared to leave for Ukraine, according to the national daily "Kommersant" dated August 15. Vasily Krivets was arrested last year but escaped custody under suspicious circumstances. On October 20, police investigators led him in handcuffs to the place where he allegedly killed the violinist. Krivets slipped off his handcuffs and ran away, and subsequently eluded police for almost a year.
Criminal charges of negligence were filed against the escorting officers, but it is not clear if any convictions have been achieved. Thirteen of Krivets' fellow gang members have been convicted of participating in the 15 murders, but received shockingly mild sentences of 3-to-9 years in prison, according to "Kommersant."
ARSON ATTACK ON BAPTIST CHURCH IN VLADIVOSTOK. Someone threw two Molotov cocktails at a Baptist church in Vladivostok on August 22, but the firebombs did not ignite, according to the local supplement to the national daily "Komsomolskaya Pravda." It is not clear if police are investigating the crime as a hate crime or as an ordinary arson.
RAZING OF CHERKIZOVSKY MARKET BEGAN. On August 18, Moscow city authorities began demolishing the sprawling Cherkizovsky Market that City Hall had shut down on June 29, citing sanitary and safety violations, along with smuggling charges against traders, “The Moscow Times” reported on August 19. The once-bustling, 300-hectare bazaar was deserted except for several photographers and reporters, a few guards, and some migrants helping to clean up the site.
“Several migrants hung onto a fence surrounding the market and silently watched a crane lifting an empty pavilion onto a truck,” “The Times” reported. “They said they came to see the market one last time.”
For years, the popular market complex employed tens of thousands of migrants, but only a few dozen were there to witness the demolition. Some of them found jobs elsewhere in the city, but many have left for their homes in the Far East or Central Asia amid signals that City Hall wants them out of the capital.
Dozens of illegal migrants were deported following the shutdown and many others were left in financial straits. The city has promised to help find new trading space for Russians who had been selling domestically made goods, but Mayor Yury Luzhkov said in July that helping accommodate “our friends from China is not our job.”
Denis Saakyan, 38, and Artur Sarkisyan, 32, told “The Times” that they were going home to Armenia after working at the market for nine years because they did not expect to find other jobs in Moscow. Saakyan said renting space at other Moscow markets was too expensive and lambasted city authorities for shutting down the market. “They closed all of our options,” he said.
“Windows of many kiosks showed merchandise--boxes of cigarettes, cookies and candy--scattered on floors,” “The Times” noted. “A man in sunglasses and a baseball cap sat on a chair, waving a large Russian flag.” When asked if he was guarding the kiosks from looters, he nodded but refused to talk.
LEADING KAZAKH HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST FACES CRIMINAL CHARGES. UCSJ has appealed to the State Department “to pay immediate attention to the criminal case against Eugene Zhovtis that has a political character.” In a letter signed by national director Micah H. Naftalin, UCSJ identified the Kazakh government’s aim as taking a revenge on Zhovtis for his human rights activities of many years. In 1993, UCSJ organized the Kazakhstan-American Bureau on Human Rights and Rule of Law, later renamed Kazakhstan International Bureau, the first and most prominent human rights organization to achieve registration in the country and Zhovtis has been its director since that time.
“During more than 15 years we have worked closely with Mr. Zhovtis who expressed honesty, bravery, and high principles and received many international awards,” the letter stated and explained that a criminal case against Zhovtis was opened because of an accident. According to the lawyers, during the night of July 27, 2009, Zhovtis was driving on the highway when he noticed a man walking ahead in the same direction as the car. Zhovtis applied the brakes, but the distance was too short, and the car hit the man who died immediately. According to one expert’s conclusion, Zhovtis did not violate traffic rules and was not drunk. However, other experts received some misleading and faulty information, and a criminal case is now being constructed against Zhovtis. “Many articles of the Criminal-Procedure Code of Kazakhstan were violated by the officials during the investigation and their expedited submission of the case to the court,” the letter noted. A trial is expected momentarily, and it will be watched anxiously by Kazakh human rights activists who are afraid that the case will be politicized in order to put Zhovtis in jail and force him into silence.
BELARUS KEEPS PUNISHING RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY. The official in the western Belarus town of Baranovichi who arranged for two local Baptists to be fined about one month's average wages each for using their home for religious worship defends his action, Forum 18 News Service reported on August 25. "They violated the religion law," ideology official Sergei Puzikov insisted. When told that the Belarus Constitution guarantees religious freedom, he responded: "In any country there is not only the Constitution, but individual laws." Puzikov was also involved in a fine handed down to another Baranovichi church in July.
Police in nearby Malorita tried to have Baptists punished for singing hymns on the street, but the judge threw out the case. On August 20, fifty Protestant pastors, many of them previously punished for religious activity, wrote to President Aleksandr Lukashenko complaining of long-standing restrictions.
UKRAINIAN MAYOR CHARGED WITH STIRRING ETHNIC HATRED. Prosecutors charged a Ukrainian mayor with inciting ethnic hatred after complaints were filed by Jewish groups, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on August 16. Sergey Ratushnyak, the mayor of Uzhgorod, was charged with hooliganism, abuse of office and violating racial and national equality of citizens after allegedly using antisemitic rhetoric, and beating a campaigner for a presidential candidate who has an ethnically Jewish background.
On August 6, Ratushnyak is alleged to have attacked a campaigner for Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the Front of Changes initiative. But Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko told the media in Vinnitsa on August 14 that law enforcement has not received any medical reports to support the accusation that the campaigner was beaten, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.
According MIGnews.com.ua, Vadim Rabinovich, president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, in his letter addressed to law enforcement agencies asked the Prosecutor's Office to control the movement of Ratushnyak in order “to prevent the mayor’s escape from the country.” Vyacheslav Likhachyov, UCSJ's monitor in Kiev, reported that Ratushnyak made several antisemitic statements in a television interview with “Ukrainskaya Pravda.”
VANDALS DEFACE HOLOCAUST MASSACRE SITE IN LITHUANIA. Someone painted a swastika and the Nazi slogan "Juden raus" on the information board set up to commemorate a site where Nazis murdered Jews near Vezaiciai, Lithuania, according to a report by UCSJ's Baltic Bureau. The entrance to the Vezaityne massacre site is reportedly in poor condition, filled with human waste and antisemitic graffiti. It is not clear from the report if police are investigating the incident.
POLICE BREAK UP FAR-RIGHT MEETING. Hungarian police broke up an induction ceremony of the paramilitary Hungarian Guard, a far-right organization banned last month by a Budapest court saying that the Guard’s activities incited fear and threatened public order, the BBC reported on August 22. The Guard is backed by the political party Jobbik that won nearly 15% of the vote in the European parliamentary elections in June. Both groups campaign on the theme of "Gypsy crime." Critics accuse them of inciting racial hatred.
The Guard has appealed, arguing that the law on freedom of assembly and the country’s Constitution guaranteed their right to exist. In a similar case, plans for an international neo-Nazi rally were suspended after Hungarian police refused permission for a demonstration on August 15, to mark the death of Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. After decades of communist rule, society and especially the courts have been eager to uphold the right of free expression. However, police spokeswoman Eva Tafferner explained that “The right of political assembly enshrined in the Constitution must not be abused to facilitate or promote violations of the law or to injure the rights and freedom of other parties.”
SUSPECTED KILLERS OF 6 HUNGARIAN ROMA ARRESTED. Hungarian police arrested four men suspected of murdering a total of six Roma in a carefully planned series of attacks over the past 13 months, news agencies reported on August 25. "The execution of the attacks was characterized by strategic planning and professional experience in arms use," said Hungarian National Investigation Office chief Attila Petofi. The four men, aged between 28 and 42, were arrested in a bar where they all worked in the city of Debrecen. Six hunting rifles, other guns, and ammunition were confiscated. The case involved 120 detectives and the Europol, the Interpol and the FBI.
Petofi said that DNA evidence linked two of the suspects whose motives are presumed to be racist. The arrests may help to dispel the widespread speculation that the killers were also Roma. (In Hungary, the word “Gypsy” is used interchangeably with “Roma,” the word preferred elsewhere.) Petofi told reporters at a press conference that the suspected killers fired shots at 16 houses, threatening 55 people, and that 11 Molotov cocktails were thrown at four other houses. "The attacks typically occurred against the last Roma-populated houses in settlements, close to a highway, between midnight and 2 a.m.," he added.
Hungary's National Roma Authority (OCO) has called on Roma communities not to take the law in their own hands but organize their protection together with local police and municipal guards, OCO spokesman Janos Bogdan Jr told the Hungarian news agency MTI on August 18. OCO issued its statement after a number of incidents in which members of Roma communities in small villages stopped cars that they thought suspicious and asked the travelers to identify themselves. According to an MTI dispatch, on August 23 a dozen local Roma armed with axes and rakes in the village of Nyirlugos stopped a jeep and forced its driver and passengers to get out. Members of the group later told police they were on "voluntary patrol duty."
According to an August 25 MTI item, several hundred Roma have signed a petition handed to OCO asking for help to emigrate, OCO chairman Orban Kolompar said. He explained that people of Roma origin had asked him to provide certification that they are potential targets of political and serial terror attacks in Hungary.
Ensuring the safety of the Roma community is a moral obligation for the nation, President Laszlo Solyom told reporters on August 24. He called the situation “explosive.” The murders are "not a Roma affair; they impact the stability of Hungary," Solyom said, adding that the whole of society must take sides with the Roma community. "What happened cannot be belittled but condemned; there is no absolution for the perpetrators," Solyom said.
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, A CALL FOR A NEW RELATIONSHIP * * * Both the majority
and the Gypsies must want a change in their relationship, said Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, in an address to the nation on August 20, a national holiday honoring the country’s first Christian king. “We must realize that there is no path other than integration and that the majority must change as much as those who need to adjust to the majority. Both sides have their fears and responsibilities. We cannot follow the unsuccessful integration policy of the past decades. But in the current dramatic situation in which killers of innocent people and children intimidate a group of Hungarian citizens—Gypsies--manifestations of sympathy and assistance must come before everything else. Perhaps the shared shock will help in laying new foundations for the relationship between the Gypsies and the rest of society.”
TENSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS SEETHES
The 70TH Anniversary of the Soviet-Nazi Pact Opens Wounds that Do Not Heal
August is the month to recall one of history’s shameful bargains, struck in 1939 by Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and Yosif Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As Ahto Lobjakas of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) succinctly explains in a personal commentary, “The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact gave Germany a free hand to attack Western Europe without having to fear a war on two fronts. In return, its secret protocol consigned Finland, Estonia, Latvia, the Romanian territory of Bessarabia, and a little later Lithuania, to the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. Poland was partitioned between Germany and the USSR. As a result of the pact, the Soviet Union won back the territory lost by tsarist Russia after World War I.”
Lobjakas, the Brussels correspondent of RFE/RL, states the unvarnished truth: “Measured against the mortal threat posed by Germany, the independence and territorial integrity of the Baltic states and Poland were of minimal significance to the man in the street in Britain or France at the time.”
But then Lobjakas begins to turn the knife in a wound that does not heal. He says that “little has changed since. While the moral evaluation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has never really been in doubt, its practical ramifications have been ambiguous enough to have prevented an unambiguous political reckoning--which, from the victims' point of view, would have needed to translate into an unequivocal and universal condemnation of the Soviet Union (as long as it existed), or, later, pressure on Russia to atone in some fashion for the crimes of its legal precursor.”
Lobjakas notes among the victims of the pact “a deeper neurosis” that “has to do with a desire to be recognized as equal and permanent entities under the international system” which enshrines the principle of nation-state sovereignty. The pact and its consequences “seem to say not all sovereignty is equal, and in some instances it may be reversible. What the Baltic countries in particular want is for the international community to atone for the violation and denial, as epitomized by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, of their fundamental right to sovereign existence.” From the standpoint of Russia’s western neighbors, the current state of affairs “constitutes an intolerable iniquity, a travesty of justice which retains an immense contemporary relevance. The pact effectively condemned the citizens of the Baltic countries, Moldova, and later Poland (after the defeat of Germany) to 50 years of servitude on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.” The wound does not heal, Lobjakas makes it clear; instead, it festers.
He charges that “insularity and indifference” have imbued West European responses to this chapter in the continent's history. He insists that the past is not over, as “Russia remains the only conceivable threat to the independence of its neighbors in Eastern Europe. Equally, for the foreseeable future, Eastern Europeans are likely to be denied the satisfaction of a full, definitive, and unequivocal Western condemnation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and everything it has come to stand for.”
2. THE KREMLIN STICKS TO THE SOVIET LINE. As for Russia’s rulers, the anniversary has not brought about any movement toward a reappraisal, let alone the atonement that Lobjakas called for. The interpretation of the pact as defined by Stalin still stands as the official truth. No deviations are permitted.
“In the run-up to the anniversary, Russia's state television and newspapers pushed a version of historical events that saw the pact as a logical extension of the pan-European negotiations that preceded the start of World War II in 1939,” writes another RFE/RL reporter, Kevin O’Flynn. He cites polls that show that close to half of all Russians remain unaware of the secret protocol which divided the region between German and Soviet spheres of interest. (Until1989, Soviet officials refused even to acknowledge the secret protocol.) But even those who are aware of the deal “feel little sympathy for the people caught in the middle,” the reporter notes. He cites a Levada public opinion survey conducted in July: 61% of Russians said they did not know that Soviet troops invaded eastern Poland in September 1939.
O’Flynn quotes a 32-year-old Russian: "If the Baltics think that we are invaders, it's a mistake. We saved them. They were a poor country that we raised up from nothing. It's political intrigue. You can't listen to that seriously."
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