Bigotry and Violence Aimed at Gay Men and Central Asians by Paul Berger Just three weeks before the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, two dozen Russian reporters, photographers and cameramen squeezed into the spartan first-floor office of the Independent Press Center in Moscow, a five-minute walk from the capital’s main Orthodox church, […]
‘I know tomorrow will be my last day’: Uncovering Soviet Jewry’s Holocaust experience
by Smadar Shir For years the Soviet Jewry’s Holocaust was a forbidden secret. Now, through letters found in archives, Yad Vashem is working to make the voices silenced behind the Iron Curtain heard “To my dear brother, our city Priluki was taken over quite suddenly and very quickly by the German occupiers. My brother […]
Ban Ki-moon condemns persecution of gay people in Russia
The United Nations secretary-general has used a speech ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to condemn attacks on the LGBT community, amid growing criticism of Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda” laws. Ban Ki-moon, addressing the IOC before Friday’s opening ceremony, highlighted the fact that the theme of the UN’s human rights day last December was “sport comes out against homophobia”. […]
Russia: Sochi Games Highlight Homophobic Violence
Human Rights Watch (Moscow) – The Russian authorities need to address a deteriorating situation of widespread and concerted abuse against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and activists. The authorities’ failure to act and some officials’ homophobic comments expose LGBT people to further harassment and violence and embolden the attackers, Human Rights Watch research found. As […]
Russian Orthodox Church gets increasingly political – experts
by Lyudmila Alexandrova MOSCOW, February 03. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Orthodox Church has become more politicized, say experts as they look back on the five years the ROC has been led by its current head, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill. Although views of Kirill’s activities in that capacity differ, nobody calls in question […]
Open Address to the Jews of the World
Over the last month there had been a total of three attacks on worshipers attending a Podil synagogue in Kyiv. Two were unsuccessful, one left its victim, a yeshiva student, wounded. The modus operandi and the circumstances leave us no doubt as to who is the culprit. It is certainly not a spontaneous upsurge of […]
AJC: Ukraine Crackdown Seeks to Suffocate Pro-Europe Movement
NEW YORK, Feb. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — AJC applauds U.S. and EU support for Ukrainians protesting against their increasingly repressive government. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, addressing the Munich Security Conference, condemned the Ukrainian government crackdown on demonstrators gathered in central Kiev. The latest outrages involve the kidnapping and torture of leading Ukrainian […]
Love and Hatred in Kiev
by Yuri Andrukhovych KIEV, Ukraine — It has been severely cold here lately, with temperatures dipping below freezing night after night. What sustains the protesters at Independence Square in weather this bleak can only come from inside: an exceptionally hot mix of despair, hope, self-sacrifice and hatred. Yes, hatred. Morality does not forbid hating murderers. […]
Israel, Georgia Sign Economic Cooperation Agreement
by Joshua Levitt Israel and the Caucasus Mountains nation of Georgia that is on-track to deepen its economic integration into the European Union signed a bilateral economic cooperation agreement on Tuesday, creating a commission to expand commercial relations and lower trade barriers. At the start of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli […]
RUSSIA: Two “extremism” bans overturned – but bans, fines continue
By Victoria Arnold, Forum 18 News Service, and Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service A Krasnodar court has overturned a ban on a popular Russian translation of the Koran (though the court has still not issued the written ruling), while a Tver court has overturned a ban in Russia on the main Jehovah’s Witness international […]