Volume 9, Number 38
October 9, 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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Freedom of speech faces more attacks in Russia.
1. KREMLIN COUNCIL BLASTS NASHI PICKET OUTSIDE PODRABINEK’S HOME. On October 5, the Kremlin’s human rights council charged that members of the Kremlin-created youth organization “Nashi” (Russian for “ours”) picketing outside the home of journalist and human rights activist Alexander Podrabinek are violating five articles of the Russian Constitution and are inciting hatred, “The Moscow Times” reported. The watchdog group, led by Ella Pamfilova, condemned the pickets as “a persecution campaign … organized by irresponsible adventurists from Nashi” and accused them of “extremism.”
On October 5, the pro-Kremlin youth group enlisted about 100 veterans to continue their protest which began on September 29 after Podrabinek published an article criticizing the Moscow Union of Veterans, the newspaper added. Municipal authorities have authorized the ongoing rally.
Podrabinek’s article suggested that members of the veterans group were former “camp guards” and “executioners” for demanding that a Moscow restaurant change its name from “Antisovetskaya” (Anti-Soviet) to Sovetskaya. The restaurant’s owner said he was forced to make the change under pressure from Oleg Mitvol, prefect for the Northern Administrative District and an official with a long history of populist campaigns. The veterans’ group had complained to Mitvol.
According to the Kremlin’s human rights council, formally known as Council for Promoting the Development of the Institutions of Civil Society and Human Rights, Nashi was in violation of Articles 23, 24, 25, 27, and 29 of the Constitution. The articles guarantee the inviolability of personal life and home; ensure that a citizen’s personal information will not be spread without his consent; as well as the right to choose one’s residence; and the rights to freedom of thought and conscience, including a freedom from pressure to retract or alter one’s beliefs. The council advised that those who disagree with Podrabinek should answer his article in kind, and if they feel that his criticism infringed on anyone’s rights or broke the law, they should turn to the courts.
“The council expresses its deep regret and disturbance over Nashi’s actions, which not only recall the shameful Soviet persecution campaigns against dissenters [and] they also give Russia’s young people an unabashed example of legal nihilism,”—a contemptuous term used by President Dmitry Medvedev referring to disregard for the law. The council called on the authorities to investigate if Nashi is guilty of “extremism” and to protect Podrabinek.
On September 28, Podrabinek wrote in his blog that he had received “information from credible sources that a decision has been made at quite a high level to dispose of me in any possible way.” The campaign against him has drawn international attention. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he had raised the issue during his Moscow visit on October 1.
Podrabinek has gone into hiding. A human rights activist since the 1970s, Podrabinek heads the Prima-News news agency and contributes to publications such as Radio France International and “Novaya Gazeta.”
Nashi, which has maintained close ties to its founder Vasily Yakemenko, now head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, “has been known to hound opponents in the past, including opposition politicians and foreign dignitaries,” “The Moscow Times” noted. Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov defended the picket as part of an attempt to hold journalists and human rights activists responsible for their writings. “Respect for old age and the trials these people went through are natural for any decent person, and when he loses it, he ceases to be a person.The Nashi movement is a patriotic organization and one of its tasks … is to defend the honor and dignity of veterans,” Borovikov said in a statement on the group’s web site. “We won’t let Podrabinek continue posing as a victim.”
On October 6, the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ) posted a statement expressing deep concern for Podrabinek’s safety and pointing out that “in recent years, anti-fascists and human rights advocates have been threatened, assaulted, and even killed after receiving death threats from neo-Nazis and others.” UCSJ observed that Nashi’s involvement “raises the level of danger” for Podrabinek.
2. RULING PARTY DEMANDS PAMFILOVA’S FIRING FOR DEFENDING PODRABINEK. Leaders of the ruling party, United Russia, said that they will ask President Dmitriy Medvedev to remove Ella Pamfilova from her post as head of the Council for Promoting the Development of the Institutions of Civil Society and Human Rights which works under the president. Pamfilova said that she is not afraid of threats from United Russia. "I have been persecuted on more than one occasion and, no doubt, I will survive this one. But not everyone is that strong and not everyone can do this. I sympathize with those who for different reasons can't cope with this persecution," Pamfilova told Ekho Moskvy radio on October 6.
Pamfilova said that her point is not about the essence of Podrabinek’s article, which she disagrees with. To her mind, “the point is that a person cannot be persecuted for this article." She said Podrabinek had the right to express his opinion and be responsible for it, but within the framework of the law.
Frants Klintsevich, State Duma deputy of United Russia and chairman of its Central Council, as well as a leader of the Russian Union of Afghan Veterans, told Interfax that besides Pamfilova’s resignation, he demands that she apologize to the veterans of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) whom, in his opinion, she "deeply and absolutely undeservedly insulted." According to Klintsevich, Pamfilova’s statement "expresses support for those who at present not just openly insult veterans but call for a revision of the whole history of the country." Andrey Isayev, first deputy secretary of the presidium of the General Council of One Russia, defended Nashi. He said: "The activists of the Nashi movement have the right to express their position by all legal means in no lesser degree than Mr. Podrabinek, and attempts to introduce censorship in favor of some privileged 'human rights campaigners' seem rather strange.”
On October 8, Pamfilova said that her council will not apologize for its statement condemning Nashi for “persecuting” a journalist and intends to send the matter to prosecutors.
Human rights activists said they had written a letter condemning Nashi that they would deliver to President Medvedev on October 9. “It seems Medvedev doesn’t fully control the situation in the administration,” “The Moscow Times” dated October 8 quoted human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov as saying. According to “The Times,” human rights groups believe that Nashi is coordinated by senior Kremlin and United Russia officials.
On October 7, Natalya Timakova, Medvedev’s spokeswoman, said that the fuss kicked up by Podrabinek’s article was “a normal discussion happening in a civil society.”
3. KADYROV WINS LIBEL SUIT; ORLOV TO APPEAL. On October 7, Chechnya’s President Ramzan Kadyrov won a a libel suit against Oleg Orlov, leader of the prominent human rights group Memorial who had charged him with political responsibility for the killing of human rights worker Natalya Estemirova. According to “The New York Times,” a Moscow district court’s decision ‘”seemed to reinforce a message already sent by the killings of several of Mr. Kadyrov’s prominent critics: that there were limits to the criticism of political officials that would be tolerated here.”
Orlov was ordered to pay Kadyrov about $660 in compensation and Memorial about $1,600. Kadyrov’s lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, asked for a total of $300,000. “It is a shame that the sum is so small,” Krasnenkov said. “When people begin to pay for their words, they will begin to act correctly.” But Kadyrov said that he was satisfied with the court’s decision as the lawsuit was about establishing truth, not about punishing Orlov.
“This rush to judgment in this lawsuit chills debate about things that should be open to public discussion,” “The Times” quoted Allison Gill, the Russia office director of Human Rights Watch, as saying. “The authorities should encourage people to discuss current events and be able to tolerate a certain amount of criticism.”
The court also ordered Orlov to retract his statements accusing Kadyrov of involvement in the killing. Estemirova was a Chechen who criticized the conduct of Kadyrov’s security services. She was kidnapped in July in front of her home in the Chechen capital Grozny, driven to a neighboring region, and shot to death.
Estemirova feared for her life after talking with Kadyrov, a human rights worker testified on October 6, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Memorial worker Alexander Cherkasov testified that Estemirova had described a March 2008 conversation with Kadyrov as a threat to her safety. "Kadyrov yelled at her and called her names," Cherkasov told the court. He recalled that Estemirova said that Kadyrov was angry because she had criticized his demand that women in Chechnya wear Islamic headscarves in public. "She perceived the conversation as a threat to her safety," prompting her to leave Russia for some time, and arrange for her teenage daughter to leave Chechnya, Cherkasov said. The court was also reminded that Estemirova helped Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer involved in Chechen human rights abuse cases, who was shot dead on a Moscow street in January, along with an opposition newspaper reporter.
“The New York Times” noted that Estemirova was not the first of Kadyrov’s critics to die violently. “Several who have spoken out the loudest have turned up dead, not only in Chechnya, but in places as far-flung as Moscow, Vienna, and Dubai,” the newspaper pointed out. “Like many of the others, Ms. Estemirova had accused Mr. Kadyrov … of employing kidnapping, torture, and extrajudicial killings in his Kremlin-backed drive to rid Chechnya of a violent separatist movement.”
The day after Estemirova’s death, Orlov said that Kadyrov was responsible for the killing. Later on, Orlov explained that Kadyrov was not criminally responsible but created a political climate in which such crimes were permissible. Kadyrov pointed to separatists backed by Western agents as probably responsible.
“The New York Times” observed that “as in similar killings, there has been no discernible movement in the prosecution of the Estemirova case. Officials have made no arrests and identified no suspects in the three months since her death.” In contrast, “The Times” continued, Judge Tatyana A. Fedosova required “only two hearings and 30 minutes of deliberation to decide on the libel suit” and spurned arguments by Orlov’s lawyers that their client’s comment was based on Kadyrov’s record of human rights violations and his hostility to Estemirova.
After the decision, Orlov still insisted that Kadyrov was responsible for Estemirova’s death. “A significant portion of this trial consisted of a discussion of Ramzan Kadyrov’s guilt,” Orlov said outside the courtroom. He said he would appeal and apply to the European Court of Human Rights if that appeal was rejected.
Kadyrov now plans to file a libel suit against the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta,” his lawyer Krasnenkov announced. He charged that the newspaper, which employed Anna Politkovskaya, another murdered Kadyrov critic, had published false statements about Kadyrov.
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SIX PEOPLE KILLED IN RACIST VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA IN SEPTEMBER. In September 2009, at least 23 people, including six fatalities, became victims of racist and neo-Nazi violence in Russia, the Sova Center for Information and Analysis reported. Besides Moscow and St. Petersburg, the attacks took place in Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Orel, and Samara. In September last year, seven people were murdered and at least 47 more were injured.
ORTHODOX CHURCH, TOP WRITERS MARK PUTIN’S BIRTHDAY WITH LAVISH PRAISE. On October 7, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin marked his 57th birthday “in the company of literary luminaries, lauded by the Orthodox Church for his wisdom, [and] viewed askance by critics sensing a nascent personality cult,” Reuters reported. The daily "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" published an "Ode to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin" recalling the panegyrics devoted to Yosif Stalin. "The country is again at a crossroads wondering whether it might perish or not," the poem noted. "We congratulate you comrade Putin and ask God to give you another 120 years."
Reuters added: “As prime minister and leader of the ruling party, Putin enjoys lavish, uncritical publicity on state television, something which critics say helps explain his high ratings.”
But not every writer showed up at the literary celebration. "I do not see myself in the role of 'congratulator' or the one who delivers flowers and gifts," Reuters quoted prominent writer Dmitry Bykov as saying.
The news agency noted that “the former KGB spy has become a devout believer since the collapse of communism and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill was among the first to congratulate Putin on his birthday.” Russian news agencies carried Kirill’s message to Putin: "Wisdom based on rich political experience, typical for you, is a guarantee of stability in our state."
Igor Yurgens, who heads a think-tank working for President Dmitry Medvedev, told Reuters recently that "the cult of personality is in our genes," citing busts and portraits that appeared after Putin's first term, despite Putin’s initial putative resistance. "I believe this is the nature of Russian power," Yurgens explained. "There is huge inertia living in this secret Kremlin, looking out on those 1,500-year-old towers and churches. Something happens inside you, I guess."
SOLDIERS’ MOTHERS URGE RUSSIA’S OMBUDSMAN TO HELP CONSCRIPTS. The Soldiers' Mothers of Petersburg, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), has appealed to Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin to look into the harsh, “non-regulation” treatment of soldiers in the Kamenka unit, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on October 6. The NGO said that 19 soldiers from the Kamenka unit, stationed near St. Petersburg, have asked for help since June, after two conscripts committed suicide and others deserted. All of the soldiers have complained about their rights being abused. The Soldiers' Mothers has also addressed the military's prosecutor-general, the defense minister, and the commander of the Leningrad military region to intervene by ordering investigations of the alleged beating and bullying of the recruits. Recruits have charged "non-regulation" behavior and humiliating treatment by junior officers as well as substandard living conditions.
RACISTS ATTACK KAZAKH MIGRANTS IN SVERDLOVSK REGION. On October 1, a group of men burst into a dormitory housing Kazakh migrant workers in Zarechny (Sverdlovsk Region) and beat them with baseball bats, according to the regional edition of the national daily "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated October 5. The attack targeted construction workers at the Beloyarsky nuclear power station. After smashing the security guard's telephone, the assailants beat four Kazakhs while shouting that only ethnic Russians should work at the station. Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
UKRAINIAN POLICE DETAIN NEO-NAZIS IN MURDER CASE. Police in Simferopol, in Ukraine’s Republic of Crimea, detained four neo-Nazis in connection with the murder of a man and a woman in late September, according to an October 5 report posted on Jewish.ru. Police reportedly found photographs of Nazi leaders in the home of one of the suspects, along with items decorated with swastikas. Both of the victims--not identified in the report--were beaten to death, and a third victim was hospitalized in serious condition. It is not clear from the report if the suspects will be charged with a hate crime.
SUPPORT FOR GERMAN FAR-RIGHT DROPS. Votes for far-right parties in Germany's recent general election diminished sharply compared to four years ago, according to official results, as reported by the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The National Democratic Party (NPD) and the German People's Union (DVU) between them won support from 681,000 voters, down from the 858,000 who voted for them in 2005 when they were joined by an electoral pact. Only 1.5% of the 44 million Germans who voted this year supported the extreme right, although in some states, such as Saxony, support reached 4%.
ITALIAN COURT ACQUITS GERMANS CHARGED WITH AIDING ILLEGAL MIGRANTS. An Italian court refused to jail three men from the German refugee aid organization Cap Anamur, Deutsche Welle reported on October 7. The men, who helped rescue 37 refugees from a sinking boat, had been charged with facilitating illegal immigration which could have sent Captain Stefan Schmidt, first officer Vladimir Daschkewitschwere, and former Cap Anamur President Elias Bierdel to prison for four years. All three were acquitted. The case dramatized the clash of interests of human rights organizations and those who argue for harsh penalties for illegal migrants. In June 2004, the Cap Anamur II was en route to Iraq to deliver relief supplies when the crew spotted a sinking ship between Libya and Sicily. The crew rescued 37 Africans from their boat before it sank. "It’s a fact that if they had stayed on this boat any longer all of them would have died," Cap Anamur manager Bernd Goeken told Deutsche Welle. After the rescue, the migrants were taken into custody, and Bierdel and Schmidt were arrested on suspicion of smuggling.
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, ‘RUSSIA’S WAR ON WORDS’ * * * “Russia claims to be a member of the global community of democratic nations,” wrote K. Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, in an op-ed article titled “Russia’s War on Words” in “The Washington Post” dated October 7. “But democracy is not functioning when citizens are denied basic information with which to judge the actions of their leaders. We are often told, for example, that the Russian government's policies in Chechnya are ‘popular’ at home. But can we hold Russian citizens responsible for what their country does if they do not know what it is really doing? Democratic choices made in ignorance are not free but fixed. The freedom of journalists to report about life in their societies is critical, because without it, citizens lose their freedom, too. …The murder of journalists affects more than just journalists; and the undermining of Russian democracy is a problem for more than just Russia.”
POLITKOVSKAYA TRIAL MAY RESUME
Three Years after Her Murder, the Case Is Unresolved
1. NEW SUSPECTS IN POLITKOVSKAYA MURDER. Investigators have identified new suspects in the 2006 assassination of “Novaya Gazeta” reporter Anna Politkovskaya, the newspaper’s editor Sergei Sokolov disclosed on October 6. But the suspected triggerman evaded capture in April and has been traveling from country to country in the European Union, Sokolov told a news conference.
October 7 marks the third anniversary of Politkovskaya’s killing, which outraged the Western world and raised new fears about media freedom in Russia. Courageous and tireless, she exposed human rights violations in Chechnya and was critical of the Kremlin.
A Paris-based media watchdog of media freedom, Reporters without Borders, said it was “shocked” when visas were refused to two of its representatives to attend events commemorating her assassination. The group’s head, Jean-François Julliard, accused the Russian authorities of meddling, a charge they have denied. “It was extremely important for us to be in Russia alongside Anna Politkovskaya’s colleagues and family on the third anniversary of her murder,” Julliard said in a statement emailed to “The Moscow Times.” “Moscow does not want us to address the Russians directly. But we will not give up.”
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Paris, Andrei Kleimenov, said the visa denials had no political motivation. “They didn’t get their visas because the papers were incorrectly filled out,” Kleimenov told Interfax. But he failed to explain what was wrong with the two applications.
2. NO CONVICTIONS. No one has been convicted in the Politkovskaya shooting. Three men accused of being accomplices were cleared in a jury trial in February. In June, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and ordered a retrial in September. But according to “The Moscow Times” dated October 7, the retrial was indefinitely postponed at the insistence of Politkovskaya’s adult children who believe that the initial investigation was conducted poorly. The case has been sent back to prosecutors.
Editor Sokolov said that the newspaper’s investigation suggests that the three suspects who were acquitted were indeed involved in the killing, in addition to several people from state security forces.
3. POLITKOVSKAYA FAMILY LOSING HOPE. “Our family is starting to lose hope that all those involved in this crime will be found and brought to justice,” Vera Politkovskaya, Anna’s daughter, told “Russia Today” television. “Time is passing by and, with it, our chances of finding those responsible.” “Even if a new trial delivers a guilty verdict based on the same charges and the same evidence as in the first trial--of course we won’t be satisfied,” said Ilya Politkovsky, Anna’s son.
“None of us could be satisfied until not only the executioners, but also the masterminds of this crime are in the dock,” said Sokolov.
In ”Novaya Gazeta’s” office where Anna Politkovskaya worked, her desk still stands empty, “Russia Today” reported. Since her assassination, two more of the newspaper's contributors have been killed and “Gazeta” has curtailed its North Caucasus coverage. “We will be following news in Chechnya but we no longer want to have reporters on the ground,” Sokolov said. “We don’t want to risk their lives.”
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