Volume 9, Number 41
October 30, 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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The emerging consensus in Russia is that the October 11 landslide election victory by the ruling party, United Russia, was rigged in at least a few places—but so what? After the initial uproar, it is a fizzle now.
1. MEDVEDEV PACIFIES OPPOSITION LEADERS. “President Dmitry Medvedev kept his promise and met with leaders of the Duma opposition that had walked out of the session of the lower house of the parliament in protest against what it branded as rigged election on October 11,” Russian Business Consulting (RBC) reported on October 26. “The conversation [on October 24] lasted three hours. The opposition failed to persuade the president to void the election or fire [Chairman] Vladimir Churov of the Central Electoral Commission. Opposition leaders agreed nevertheless that the demarche they had engineered was not the best solution and promised to be more constructive in the future.”
Medvedev attempted to be above the fray. "By and large, the election took place in a properly organized manner," he was quoted as saying. "It figures. Whoever carried the day is always positive on the results of the election. Whoever was defeated thinks differently, of course." He also did his best to appear sympathetic to the opposition. The business daily RBC offered the bottom line: “Not a single objective was accomplished, but everyone--even the most combative lawmakers--left contented.”
"The president refuses to void the outcome of the election because it is never done," Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said. "He told us to complain to courts, and that's what we intend to do." After the meeting, Zhirinovsky was quoted as saying that Medvedev “agreed that not everything was clean, and that there were probably violations which should all be investigated.”
“It was clear from Medvedev’s words that he wanted proposals from the party leaders on changing the electoral system rather than emotions,” the daily “Kommersant” wrote.
For Medvedev, confirming the legitimacy of the election was the first and foremost objective, Valery Fedorov, director of the government’s public opinion research center VTsIOM, told Actualcomment.ru web site. ”If the president had expressed any doubts or given any hint at the possibility of the revision of the elections’ results, it would have been a step nowhere,” Fedorov said. “The power has its only foundation as democratic election. So, if one believes the opposition’s stories about any fraud, that would mean that the foundation is being destroyed.” On the other hand, the president, as the constitution’s guarantor, “had to demonstrate a certain political finesse,” Fedorov went on, “to give the opposition a hope that he would heed to their requests and would pay attention to them somehow.”
However, United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov scored another victory. He said: "Medvedev did his bit. He demonstrated readiness for a dialogue but made it plain that there could be no revision of the outcome of the election."
But critics of the election process are not giving up. Even the semi-official news agency Itar-Tass featured analysts who said that local authorities “went too far” in securing the results desired by United Russia. “The opposition and the skeptical electorate suspect the local authorities plainly rigged the election returns,” one Itar-Tass item dated October 24 wrote. “Although nobody doubts the United Russia party's victory by and large, many are angry even the tiniest opposition has now been reduced to nothing.”
2. ‘N.Y. TIMES’: WHY RUSSIANS IGNORE BALLOT FRAUD. It took only a few hours of studying the official election results before Moscow blogger known as Uborshizzza found a pattern of ballot-stuffing, “New York Times” correspondent Clifford J. Levy reported. “How else was it possible that in districts with suspiciously high turnouts” in Moscow the ruling party “received heaps of votes?” Uborshizzza—a.k.a. medical statistician Andrei N. Gerasimov, 50—“sketched charts to accompany his conclusions and posted a report on his blog,” “The Times” noted on October 25. “It spread on the Russian Internet, along with similar findings by a small band of amateur sleuths, numbers junkies, and assorted other muckrakers. Out went their call: This election was dirty! We demand a new one!”
However, the correspondent observed, the nation “averted its eyes, in contrast with the outrage on the streets that occurred in Iran in June, when backers of the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were accused of rigging the election” or “the international clamor that greeted the voting in Afghanistan, which last week was deemed so tainted that President Hamid Karzai was forced into a runoff.”
Blogger Gerasimov was quoted as saying: “[In Russia,] people are passive because they feel that there is absolutely no opportunity to change the system.”
“The Times” correspondent concluded: “The apparent brazenness of the fraud and the absence of a spirited reaction says a lot about the deep apathy in Russia, where people grew disillusioned with politics under Communism and have seen little reason to alter their view.” United Russia had “enormous advantages” in the elections and “was certain to triumph. Yet the party, United Russia, chose not merely to defeat its opposition, but to crush it.”
3. MORE RUSSIANS FIND OPPOSITION IMPORTANT. At the same time, optimists may point to a survey conducted in October by the one significant independent polling organization Levada Center that found a notable, steady increase since 2005 in the number of Russians who consider important the existence of opposition parties and movements capable of influencing the country. According to Levada’s nationwide survey reported by Interfax on October 23, such a view is currently shared by almost three quarters of Russians (71%), while in 2007 this figure was 66% and in 2005 only 61%. Moreover, over the past five years the number of people opposing the existence of opposition has dropped from 25% to 16%. The percentage of Russians having no personal opinion on this issue remained the same: 13-14%.
The survey reveals that the importance of the opposition is most frequently backed by managers and executives (83%), the unemployed (81%), housewives (79%), professionals (74%), men in general (75%), Russians aged 25-to-39 with higher education (80%), Russians aged 25-to-39 with high income (77%), Moscow residents (77%), and residents of cities with the population of 100,000-to-500,000 (76%).
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KADYROV OPENS CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST MEMORIAL CHAIRMAN ORLOV. A lawyer for Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said that a criminal libel case carrying possible prison time has been opened against Oleg Orlov, one of Russia's most prominent human rights activists, news agencies reported on October 28. The announcement of the case against Orlov, chairman of Memorial, follows less than a week after the European Union awarded its top human rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, to Orlov and two other activists. The criminal case was opened at Kadyrov's request, RIA-Novosti and Itar-Tass reported.
The lawsuit goes back to July when Orlov charged that Kadyrov bore responsibility for the abduction and killing of Natalya Estemirova, the head of Memorial's Chechnya operation, who had angered Kadyrov by reporting on human rights violations. Orlov did not say that Kadyrov was directly involved in the killing, but that he had created a climate of intimidation and impunity that encourages violent retaliation.
Earlier this month, Kadyrov won a civil libel suit against Orlov. A Moscow court ordered Orlov to pay 70,000 rubles ($2,300) in penalties and ruled that Memorial remove Orlov's statement from its web site. Orlov has said he would refuse to comply.
Kadyrov’s lawyer Andrei Krasnenkov said that once a charge of insult is added to the case, "the overall punishment will make three or four years in prison."
NASHI SUES FOUR FOREIGN PAPERS FOR LIBEL. Nashi has filed libel suits against four foreign newspapers for reports comparing the pro-Kremlin youth group to Hitler youth and calling its members bandits and nationalists, “The Moscow Times” reported on October 26. The reports were published in late September and early October in London’s “Independent,” France’s “Le Monde” and “Le Journal Du Dimanche,” and Germany’s “Frankfurter Rundschau.” The subject was Nashi’s intimidation campaign against journalist and human rights activist Alexander Podrabinek for his criticism of World War II veterans. Nashi demands retractions of the phrases it deems offensive and damages of 500,000 rubles ($17,260) from each of the newspapers, the group’s lawyer, Sergei Zhorin, told “The Moscow Times.”
“The Times” noted that Nashi is believed to be the brainchild of Kremlin first deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov, and it reportedly began its campaign against Podrabinek, a Soviet-era dissident, after a meeting between Nashi leaders and Surkov. “Nashi activists have been staging near-daily demonstrations outside Podrabinek’s Moscow apartment building and have called for his expulsion from Russia after he suggested in an article that members of the Moscow Union of Veterans were former “camp guards” and “executioners” for pressuring a Moscow restaurant into changing its name from ‘Antisovetskaya’ (Anti-Soviet) to ‘Sovetskaya.’”
Last week, Ella Pamfilova, the head of the Kremlin’s human rights council, sharply criticized the government’s youth policy, which she said set up privileged groups whose members served as political pawns. “You must not divide the young into ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ … and allow some to do practically everything while hampering the development of others,” she told reporters on October 15. Nashi activists and United Russia deputies had called for Pamfilova’s dismissal after she condemned Nashi for “persecuting” Podrabinek.
Pamfilova urged the government to change its youth policy. “It is very bad when young people get euphoric and break the law because they have support from senior government figures,” she said. She added that government policies prompted the radical posture of many youth movements. “This is inadmissible,” she said.
POSSIBLE RACIST MURDER IN MOSCOW. A group of "aggressive youths" stabbed and beat to death an Asian man in Moscow, according to an October 25 report by Ekho Moskvy radio. The victim was killed with knives and several blows from metal pipes, according to the report. Police are investigating.
MOSCOW NEO-NAZIS ASSAULT MIGRANT COMMUNITY LEADER’S SON. About half a dozen neo-Nazis in Moscow assaulted the son of the Federation of Migrants director after he attempted to stop them from beating up some Tajiks, according to an October 26 report by Gazeta.ru. Artyom Nekrasov witnessed the assault on the Tajiks and tried to stop it along with a friend, but was instead beaten himself and ended up in the hospital with a broken nose. Police have not yet opened an investigation. Madzhumder Amin of the Federation of Migrants sent an official complaint to the district prosecutor about the crime and the slow police reaction to it.
UKRAINE’S 1,500 JEWISH CEMETERIES TO BE RENOVATED. A project to restore about 1,500 Jewish cemeteries was launched in Ukraine, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on October 26. Sponsored by the Chevra Kadisha organization and spearheaded by Zhitomir’s Jewish community, the project will begin with an inventory of Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities of the former Soviet Union. The project's office opened last week in Zhitomir, JTA added.
Many of the Jewish cemeteries the project is targeting are in towns and villages that no longer have a Jewish community or have only a few Jewish residents. Some of the cemeteries have been the scenes of antisemitic attacks and vandalism. UCSJ's Lviv monitor Meylakh Sheyket has worked for many years in Ukrainian courts to block construction projects on top of Jewish cemeteries, most recently in Berdichev.
LUBAVITCH REBBE MEMORIAL IN UKRAINE AGAIN VANDALIZED. A monument marking the home where the Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Schneerson was born was vandalized for the second time this year, according to an October 26 report by the AEN news agency. Someone splashed black paint on the monument in Nikolaev, Ukraine. Earlier this year, vandals took a hammer to the monument and pasted antisemitic leaflets on it. Police say they are investigating the latest incident, but UCSJ is not aware of any arrests in connection with the February 2009 vandalism.
FAR-RIGHT EUROPEAN PARTIES LAUNCH AN ALLIANCE. Far-right political parties have formed an alliance in the European Parliament, the leader of Hungary's extreme nationalist Jobbik party announced in Budapest. But on October 26 the magazine “EUObserver” wrote that since the new Alliance of European Nationalist Movements is made up for the most part of ultra-right groups that have no representation in Strasbourg, it will not be able to draw on any public funding for staff or research.
Five parties have signed the declaration: Jobbik, France's Front National, Italy's Fiamma Tricolore, Sweden's National Democrats, and Belgium's Walloon extremists, the Front Nationalists. Although the British National Party (BNP) did not attend the launch, the BNP is "100% behind the new grouping,” Jobbik's vice-president and one of its three members in the European Parliament in Strasbourg Zoltan Balczo, told “EUobserver.” The alliance is negotiating with far-right groups in Spain and Portugal, and Austria's Freedom Party (FPO) has expressed an intention to join, according to Jobbik leader Gabor Vona, The declaration rejects "any attempts at forming an EU federal state," calls for “pro-family policies” and "traditional values," and demands that Europe be protected from "religious, political, economic, and financial imperialism."
Only Jobbik, the Front National, the BNP, and FPO have representation in the European Parliament, thus missing the minimum number of deputies the chamber requires for an official grouping and access to EU funds. A grouping needs to muster a minimum of 25 deputies from at least seven member states.
GERMAN COURT FINES ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE BRITISH BISHOP. A German court has imposed a hefty fine on an ultra-conservative British bishop for denying that Jews died in Nazi gas chambers, Deutsche Welle reported on October 27. If Richard Williamson challenges the order, he could face a trial in Germany. A court in the Bavarian city of Regensburg imposed the 12,000-euro ($17,000) fine, Williamson's lawyer Matthias Lossmann said. Williamson has until November 9 to react to the court order. Last year, Williamson told Swedish television that no more than 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust and that none died in gas chambers. In Germany, a court order is the equivalent to a conviction if accepted by the defendant; if the defendant objects, the case goes to trial.
The court action coincides with the start of talks between the Vatican and the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) that broke with the Vatican over its liberal reforms instituted in the 1960s. Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI launched a process to reconcile with the SSPX by lifting bans on four of its leaders including Williamson.
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, RUSSIA’S MIXED RECORD ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM * * * “Although the [Russian] government generally respected freedom of religion for most of the population, authorities imposed restrictions on certain religious minorities and did not always respect separation of church and state and the equality of all religions before the law,” according to the U.S. State Department’s “Annual Report on International Religious Freedom” released on October 26. “Vague legislation to counter ‘extremism’ has had a detrimental effect on religious freedom. There were indications that security services treated the leadership and literature of some minority religious groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses, as security threats. Alexander Dvorkin, an outspoken proponent of categorizing minority religious groups as extremist cults and ‘sects,’ was elected to head the Council of Experts that makes recommendations on designating these religious groups.”
ST. PETERSBURG GETS AN UNDESERVED AWARD FROM UNESCO
Russia’s Second City Infamous for High Levels of Xenophobia
According to the “St. Petersburg Times” dated October 27, the city’s human rights community had “a mixed reaction to the news that St. Petersburg has been awarded the UNESCO Tolerance Prize for what the United Nation’s cultural wing regards as a major achievement in promoting tolerance.”
“Mixed reaction?” Outrage would have been more appropriate. For years, Russia’s second largest city has been the scene of a string of racist murders and rampaging skinheads attacking anti-fascists. Later on in the article, the reporter, veteran staff writer Galina Stolyarova, revised her lead sentence by observing that “UNESCO’s decision has left people across the political spectrum perplexed. Liberals and nationalists alike spoke about the award with surprise bordering on astonishment.”
The newspaper noted that St. Petersburg was nominated for the prize by Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry—an unexplained choice by an institution known for its habitual disregard for the truth. The article pulled no punches in evaluating the prize-winning program: “The most visible evidence of the government program has been the distribution on the St. Petersburg metro of flyers with quotations on the theme of tolerance from Russia’s greatest writers and cultural luminaries.”
Koichiro Matsuura, the director-general of UNESCO, was quoted as saying that the St. Petersburg government program on tolerance was being honored for its “constructive efforts to inculcate mutual respect and tolerance in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society and to prevent and eradicate all forms of discrimination.”
Two sentences in the reaction of Alexander Vinnikov, St. Petersburg coordinator of the Russia Without Racism movement, stand out: “I have not noticed any breakthrough in terms of tolerance. On the contrary, the level of xenophobia in the city remains exceptionally high, which is most alarming.” Vinnikov suggested that the award was given “for political reasons, unfortunately.”
“The St. Petersburg Times” had something more to add, citing human rights advocates as saying that “many people in government agencies across Russia are xenophobic in various ways and manifest their xenophobia in the course of their official duties. For example, the Police University in St. Petersburg approved and adopted an explicitly antisemitic textbook of contemporary Russian history. The textbook was banned from classrooms after a high-profile scandal necessitating intervention by President Dmitry Medvedev.”
The article cited another characteristic moment in recent city history: “In March this year, the 15-day Xenophobii.NET (No to Xenophobia) campaign ended in arrests when viewers leaving a screening at Rodina film theater in the center of St. Petersburg were dispersed by the police. A group of film-goers, mostly anarchists and members of the antifascist movement, were heading to a metro station after watching the film when the police attacked the group, detained around 20 of them and drove them to a police station, while the rest managed to escape.”
The newspaper quoted from its files another vital piece of information, a 2009 report compiled by the Moscow-based Sova Center for Information and Analysis, a nongovernmental organization tracking hate crimes. According to Sova, the development of xenophobia in Russia is fueled by the rhetoric of large numbers of law enforcement officials and the mass media, and also by the activities of pro-governmental youth movements.
Another relevant quote added to the article was from Yury Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and not known as a friend of the human rights cause. Earlier this year, he told journalists that Russia suffers from excessively high levels of xenophobia. “In Russia we do have problems with extremism, international relations, and xenophobia,” he said. “We see it and acknowledge it.”
Chaika might have added the qualifier “sometimes.” And he did not say anything about countering those problems.
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