Volume 9, Number 40
October 23, 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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Did the Kremlin take a step too far by rigging local elections it would have won anyway?
1. OPPOSITION LEADER’S VOTE NOT COUNTED IN MOSCOW ELECTION. ”Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin voted for his party when he cast his ballot on October 11,” “The Moscow Times” reported on October 19. “But when Moscow Polling Station No. 192 reported its results, Yabloko failed to receive a single vote, the party said.” Yabloko posted on its web site the official results for Polling Station No. 192: 904 votes for United Russia, 87 votes for the Communists, 29 votes for A Just Russia, and zero for Yabloko, Patriots of Russia, and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR).
“Probably, the leaders of the district [election] committee decided to show that I do not exist, either as a voter or as a citizen,” Mitrokhin commented. “I have to disappoint them. Yabloko not only exists but it also has the ability to ask law enforcement agencies to punish criminals who falsify elections.”
Yabloko’s claim came “as evidence mounts of blatant falsifications in the elections, which were swept by United Russia and prompted a rare walkout in the State Duma last week,” “The Times” wrote. “Yet President Dmitry Medvedev has made no public comment on what is probably the biggest political scandal of his 18-month reign, and he has been coy about a demand by Duma rebels to discuss their grievances personally. … The president’s silence, meanwhile, has invited speculation about whether he fears a conflict with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, his political mentor and predecessor and leader of United Russia.”
“The Times” pointed out that Medvedev is not a member of United Russia and has repeatedly promised to boost democracy. “But on the day after the elections, he praised them as ‘well-organized’ and said United Russia’s victory showed it had a ‘moral but also legal’ right to run the regions--remarks that some analysts called hasty and difficult for him to retract now.” Andrei Piontkovsky, a veteran political analyst, was quoted as saying: “Medvedev wants to separate himself from Putin but is afraid and doesn’t want to make sharp statements that could strain their relations.”
2. FALSIFICATIONS, MISUSE OF ABSENTEE BALLOTS, UNDUE PRESSURES. In addition to falsifications, Yabloko, the Communist Party, as well as independent election observers have reported violations such as the misuse of absentee ballots, the improper use of administrative resources, and pressure on people to vote for United Russia, “The Times” wrote. LDPR and A Just Russia have also complained that the vote was unfair, and their deputies stormed out of the Duma with Communist deputies on October 14, the first such walkout in nine years.
On October 16, Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, told United Russia members at a closed-door meeting that there was no point in discussing how many parties deserved representation because “the people have decided,” “Kommersant” quoted him as saying. “You must not be ashamed of our well-deserved victory.” In Moscow's 52-seat city council, for example, the ruling party will have only three Communists to provide opposition.
On October 17, Yabloko demanded that the vote be declared invalid, saying that falsifications had sliced two-thirds off its total vote-count. “This was not a deprivation but a theft of votes,” Yabloko said. On October 18, the Moscow elections committee said that it was aware of Mitrokhin’s complaint about his vote not being counted, and his polling station would be among three that the committee would ask the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate. On the same day, Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov, a former colleague of Putin's from St. Petersburg, dismissed opposition complaints as "improper hysteria."
3. GORBACHEV: ELECTIONS MADE ‘MOCKERY” OF RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY. Russia's regional elections have made a mockery of the country's democratic credentials, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in an interview published on October 19. "In everyone's eyes, the elections turned into a mockery of the people and showed a deep disrespect for their voices," Gorbachev was quoted as saying in the opposition newspaper “Novaya Gazeta.” "The party of power gained the result it needed by discrediting political institutions and the very party itself."
Reacting to the walkout of opposition lawmakers, Gorbachev said that "even if even such disciplined, cautious people, who are so close to power, decided” on a walkout, that means that confidence in the political institution of elections is lost. He went on: "We cannot expect anything from this senseless Duma. The electoral system is completely disfigured. It needs an alternative."
4. MOST RUSSIANS REJECT WESTERN DEMOCRACY, POLL SUGGESTS. The dispute over the elections coincided with a new poll that shows that most Russians do not believe they live in a Western-style democracy--but this does not bother them since they do not want Western democracy. When asked by the independent Levada Center polling organization which is the best political system for Russia, 36% named the current system--the highest level since Levada began asking the question in 1996. Thus, Reuters summed up, “the result is a triumph for Putin and his political mastermind [Vladislav] Surkov, who have crafted a system dominated by a single strong ruling party and successfully associated this in voters' minds with the country's increasing prosperity over the past 10 years.”
The Levada poll shows that support for Western-style full democracy in Russia has now slumped to its lowest level ever. Only 15% suggest it as the best option, while 24% of the respondents thought the Soviet system the best. Just 4% of respondents have "no doubt" that Russia is a democracy, while 33% say that democracy is "not yet established". Another 33% say that the country is "partly" a democracy and 20% say it has become much less democratic in recent times.
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RUSSIA SHUTS DOWN TWO ISRAEL EMIGRATION CENTERS. Russian officials closed two offices of Israel's Nativ organization, which assists Jews from the former Soviet Union to settle in Israel, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported from Jerusalem on October 19, citing an October 14 report in the Tel Aviv daily “Ma'ariv.” The St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk offices have been closed, which will make it difficult, if not impossible, for more than 200 Russian Jews currently seeking to leave for Israel to receive the documents they need, the daily reported. Nativ's primary function is to determine if Russian Jews requesting to immigrate are eligible under Israel’s Law of Return.
The move comes two weeks after Israeli diplomat Shmuel Polishuk, head of the Nativ mission in Russia, was asked to leave. Polishuk, according to reports including Ma'ariv and Reuters, was sent out of the country after being accused of espionage. Nativ officials also told Ma'ariv that Russian security agencies were following Nativ employees and interfering in their work. "Polishuk was caught red-handed in Moscow," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told Reuters, though Polishuk was not declared a persona non-grata, which is routine for suspected spies.
CRACKDOWN ON JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES IN TWO RUSSIAN CITIES. Police in two Russian cities targeted Jehovah's Witnesses in what appears to be a worsening crackdown on members of that faith, according to an October 16 report by the religious news web site portal-credo.ru. In Kurgan, police confiscated religious literature from Jehovah's Witnesses. On September 30 during a religious service, St. Petersburg police detained 68 Jehovah's Witnesses, telling them that they were engaged in extremist and illegal activity. The latest crackdown might have been inspired by a court ruling in Taganrog that classified a local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation an extremist group and ordered it disbanded.
PROSECUTION OF HISTORIAN AND HIS POLICEMAN HELPER PROTESTED. Human rights campaigners have taken up the cause of a historian and a policeman in Arkhangelsk who are being prosecuted for collecting information about German and Polish political prisoners in the 1940s, Interfax has reported. A criminal case has been launched against Prof. Mikhail Suprun of Pomorskiy State University and Col. Aleksandr Dudarev, head of the information center of the Directorate of Internal Affairs (UVD) for Arkhangelsk Region, according to a statement issued by the human rights center Memorial, focused on the exoneration of victims of political repression in the USSR.
According to Memorial, Suprun is being prosecuted for collecting information from a database about Poles and Germans who were deported to a special settlement in the Arkhangelsk Region during the 1940s, and Dudarev is being prosecuted for assisting Suprun’s research. "The first is prosecuted for doing his job and the second for performing his duties,” Memorial said. “The grounds for the prosecution are absurd,"
Memorial pointed out that the case is causing alarm in the context of recent tendencies to embellish Stalin’s image and keep silent about the crimes of the Communist regime. “On the other hand, it might be 'just' an acute form of relapse into the mania of secrecy inherited from the Soviet Union,” the statement cautioned, calling it “extremely dangerous” because “through the closure of access to archives, Russia is being deprived of its history and its memory, which are the foundations of the national identity."
BAPTISTS ASK FOR INCITEMENT CHARGES AGAINST ORTHODOX HOUSE ORGAN. A Baptist pastor in Syktyvkar, in Russia’s Komi Republic has sent a request to the local Prosecutor's Office to file charges of incitement of religious hatred against the regional diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, according to an October 21 report by the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, a religious liberty nongovernmental organization. Pastor Vasily Legky attached a copy of an article published in the diocese's newspaper "Eparkhalnye Vedomosti" titled "Warning: Destructive Movements, Sects and Cults." The article called Baptists a "sect" and murderers of human souls. Pastor Legky linked the article's publication to acts of vandalism that targeted his church.
Earlier, "Eparkhalnye Vedomosti" was cited in a similar complaint from the local branch of Memorial for publishing an article entitled "Kike Heresies," but prosecutors found no evidence of incitement in the text of that article.
RACISTS ATTACK CHINESE CITIZENS IN BLAGOVESHCHENSK. A group of youths attacked four citizens of China in Blagoveshchensk in Russia’s Amur Region, according to an October 20 report by the Sova Center for Information and Analysis. During the night of October 19, the youths reportedly burst into the train car where the four Chinese live and pelted them with stones. One of the victims lost his eyes and had to undergo emergency surgery at a local hospital. Last month, a group of youths beat an elderly Chinese man to death in Blagoveshchensk, as well as assaulted another elderly person, according to police. Police detained suspects in all three cases.
MOSCOW COURT DROPS GAY RIGHTS GROUPS’ SUIT AGAINST MAYOR LUZHKOV. On October 16, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court declined the defamation lawsuit filed by representatives of a gay rights organization against Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Interfax reported. The court also rejected the plaintiffs' claim for a linguistic evaluation of Luzhkov's statement. The plaintiffs asked for a linguistic definition of the word "homo," which Luzhkov used while speaking on Russian TV. The court refused to file the recording of Luzhkov's speech with the case materials.
The lawsuit followed Luzhkov’s appearance on TV-Tsentr on June 2 when he said: "Our society has healthy morals and does not accept all these homos." The plaintiffs demanded that the court order Luzhkov to offer a public apology and pay them a symbolic amount of one kopeck in moral damages. Luzhkov's lawyers argued that he did not use the word "homo" in relation to any specific individuals and therefore the word cannot be regarded as insulting to the plaintiffs. Nikolay Alexeyev, one of the plaintiffs, responded: "If I say that all Moscow government officials are homos, will it be regarded as an insult?"
RUSSIAN COURT SENDS 3 OUT OF 5 NEO-NAZI DEFENDANTS TO PRISON FOR MURDER. A court in Orenburg sentenced five neo-Nazis for stabbing an Uzbek man to death, according to an October 5 report by the local affiliate of the State Television and Radio Company (GTRK). The youths videotaped the February 2007 murder and posted the footage on the Internet. Due to this delay, only three of the defendants were sentenced to prison time--seven and eight years in prison for the two extremists that the court determined stabbed the victim, and three years for the third defendant. Prosecutors dropped charges against the other two defendants because the statute of limitations had expired on their crime at some point during the drawn-out trial.
PROSECUTORS WRAP UP NEO-NAZI MURDER CASE. Prosecutors in Ulyanovsk have concluded their investigation of a neo-Nazi group, setting the stage for their trial on murder and extremism charges, according to an October 20 report by the regions.ru web site. Police detained eight members of the Simbirsk White Power gang on suspicion of stabbing to death a citizen of Cameroon in August 2008. In addition, two gang members face charges of forming an extremist group, while the remaining six face the lesser charges of participating in an extremist group. Their trial date was not specified.
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, KREMLIN SEES CHINA AS A TEMPLATE * * * “Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed,” wrote correspondent Clifford J. Levy in “The New York Times” dated October 18. “United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power.”
EU JOINS THE BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE IN UKRAINE Russia Is Losing Influence in Crimea
As the Ukrainian presidential election campaign is about to begin, tensions with Russia are gathering slowly. October 20 was the first day for submitting the nominations, with November 6 as the deadline. The campaign is scheduled to close on January 17.
On October 19, Itar-Tass reported that analysts forecast that the two main rivals are the leader of the Party of Regions, Viktor Yanukovich, and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko who heads a political bloc that carries her name. A likely absentee from the list is incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko whose popularity has hit a low point.
1. RUSSIA THREATENS UKRAINE. Russia is not a passive observer in Ukrainian politics. “It would be easy for Russia to inspire a crisis or conflict in Crimea if it continues to lose influence in Ukraine," Grigory Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Institute in the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy, was quoted as saying in “The Washington Post” last month. "That's the message they're sending to any future president."
But on October 20, the well-connected daily “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” reported the surprising news that “Russia is losing the backstage battle over the Crimea to Washington and Brussels.” Citing the Ukrainian government’s web site, the daily pointed to a brief note to the effect that implementation of the European Union's Joint Initiative of the Commonwealth in the Crimea was scheduled to begin right after the presidential election. The initiative includes investment projects in all economic and social spheres.
2. UKRAINE WELCOMES EU INVOLVEMENT. “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” learned that the European plan for action on the peninsula has already been charted and will begin in the spring of 2010. Each EU participant will be put in charge of a sphere such as economic development (Great Britain), environmental protection (Sweden), and civil society (the Netherlands). Finland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, and perhaps Estonia are prepared to join the program. Kiev looks forward to up to 12 million euros worth of investments in the Crimea in 2010. Gunnar Wiegand, who represents the European Commission in the project, recently met with Ukraine’s leaders. He told them that the EU looks at Crimea as an extremely important region, "one with a powerful potential for all of Europe."
Senior Deputy Premier Alexander Turchinov was quoted as saying that the new Crimean project meant rapid rapprochement with Europe and a wholly new level of relations with it. "The project is of paramount importance for the government of Ukraine and for Yulia Timoshenko... particularly at the onset of the presidential campaign," Konstantin Bondarenko of the Gorshenin Institute of Management Issues said. "It offers [the Europeans) an opportunity to show that the Crimea is part of Ukraine and, also importantly, that Ukraine is a country to invest in." Bondarenko recalled that in 2002 - 2003 then-President Leonid Kuchma had approached the Russians with similar ideas of joint investments in the peninsula. "Unfortunately, I cannot call the Russians particularly enthusiastic or energetic," he said. "At the very least, I do not think much of the economic results of the Russians' activeness. The impression is that they erroneously made an emphasis on politics but people cannot be expected to last long on slogans alone."
Vladimir Kazarin of Crimea’s Sevastopol administration seconded Bondarenko, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” reported. "It is clear now that Russia is losing the battle for influence with the Crimea. It was Russia and the United States vying for clout with the peninsula once, but no longer. The EU is joining them too, these days, and Brussels makes an emphasis on investments rather than on politics." Kazarin pointed out that the new player was moving in just as Russia was losing ground. "We witness these days what would have been considered impossible barely a year ago," he said. "We see pickets with anti-Russian slogans and posters in front of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters. What counts is that these protest actions are organized by Black Sea Fleet's ex-employees. I can only surmise that the Russian authorities are not informed, that they do not grasp long-term political consequences of the current underfunding of the Black Sea Fleet... when 8,000 employees including 1,000 officers are to be laid off, when wage arrears mount along with debts to Sevastopol's department of public works and to the pensions foundation. The situation is challenging indeed. Anyone capable of solving economic problems of Sevastopol and, broader, all of the Crimea will earn the locals' gratitude."
“Neither did the United States withdraw from the battle for the peninsula,” the Moscow daily observed. Establishment of a diplomatic mission or information bureau in Sevastopol was suggested this spring but protests from the population and the local authorities persuaded Washington to table the idea then. It is on the agenda again, these days. It is the U.S. Consulate General that the Americans want to set up in the Crimea now. "The way I see it, problems were encountered because the Crimean authorities had deliberately gone too far in their efforts to make the whole matter political,"
The Moscow daily quotes Valery Chaly of the Razumkov Center as saying that the Americans could not count on an unproblematic presence in the Crimea. The population is thoroughly suspicions of all and any Washington's initiatives concerning the peninsula, he said, but not so the EU's initiatives which the locals never associated with politics.
3. WHAT RUSSIA MAY DO INSTEAD OF INVADING UKRAINE. The Georgian government is convinced that Russia will not invade Ukraine, a country immeasurably stronger than Georgia whose Vice Premier Georgy Baramidze said on October 19 that instead, Moscow will employ “the most clever means” of destabilizing Ukraine from the inside during the presidential campaign there. As reported in Paul Goble’s blog “Window on Eurasia,” Baramidze, who also serves as Georgia’s minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said that Russian forces could not hope to defeat Ukraine and therefore will “attempt to blow up the state” with Ukraine’s own forces.
Moscow, Baramidze said, will try to “create controlled chaos and an atmosphere of hatred,” to play off one group of Ukrainians against another in order to “inflame” the situation. “Russia will support everyone who supports the escalation of the situation and all who pour grease into the fire,” the official charged. According to Baramidze, Russia can create problems in Ukraine is by distributing Russian passports (which they did in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and are now doing in Crimea and eastern Ukraine); playing up ethnic and language differences; promoting now one and now another political leader, and putting money in various media projects--all steps designed to exacerbate the situation. Baramidze observed that “Russia needs chaos in order to be able to say to the West: ‘Here, you see, we turned out to be right--Ukraine can’t live independently. Give it to us. Under us, it will live normally and will live quietly in the future. You don’t understand that they are not Europeans; these are our brothers, not yours. And we will deal with them.’”
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