RUSSIA: HATE CRIMES AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
Fall 2009-Summer 2010
1) Introduction
Despite recent improvement in law enforcement practices, many hate crimes remain unsolved, including murders, assaults, bombings, arsons, and vandalism, and most instances of public hate speech, which is illegal in Russia, continues to go unpunished. Hate crimes (including violent attacks on individuals and vandalism of cemeteries and religious or cultural sites) are reported in the Russian media on almost a daily basis, and are far too numerous to list here. The focus of this report, therefore, is to illustrate broader trends in racist violence and nationalist extremism, as well as the reaction of the government to these crimes. It should be kept in mind as well that an unknowable number of hate crimes remain unreported because many victims are present in Russia illegally and are just as afraid of the often brutal and racist police as they are of skinheads. Just as importantly, many Russian law enforcement agencies continue the unfortunate practice of “cooking the books”—i.e. classifying obvious hate crimes as ordinary murders, assaults, acts of vandalism, or, most insidiously of all, the vague and overly broad crime of “hooliganism.”
The number of racist attacks against non-Russians continues to occur at shockingly high levels. They occur on such a regular basis that they are barely reported in the media. In January 2010, the head of the MVD's anti-extremism unit released statistics on the number of extremist crimes in Russia, according to a January 26, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. General Yuri Kokov gave the following figures, which show a rapid growth in the number of such crimes over the past five years
According to his statistics, 130 extremist crimes were recorded in 2004, 460 in 2008, and 549 in 2009. As usual, the MVD stats did not distinguish between hate crimes and crimes connected to Islamic extremists, insurgents in Chechnya, or even peaceful opposition demonstrators, whom police are targeting with increasing frequency by abusing anti-extremism legislation. But General Kokov did say that there are 150 neo-fascist groups active in Russia. General Kokov admitted that his statistics are not 100% reliable. He also added that 549 extremist crimes do not seem like much compared to the overall crime number for 2009 of 3,000,000.
"Nevertheless," he said, "it ought to be pointed out that even one crime connected to the specific and delicate sphere of inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations can drastically destabilize or even explode the situation, not only in one specific region, but in the entire state... That is the main danger presented by extremist incidents. Sometimes, a typical bar fight or night club brawl can lead to unpredictable consequences, including mass disorders on inter-ethnic or inter-religious grounds. It's enough to remember what happened in Kondopoga, Salsk, Kalmykiya."
Below UCSJ has only included a few of the reported attacks over the past year as representative examples of hate crimes in Russia.
Antisemitic violence remains a persistent problem in Russia. In November 2009, a neo-Nazi attacked a young Jewish man in Moscow, according to a December 3, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The 25 year old victim was traveling in the metro on the night of November 30 when he was approached by a man who asked him if he was a Jew and then threatened to kill him. The assailant then yelled out "Heil!" and started to beat the victim. Police detained alleged assailant, but only charged him with "minor hooliganism" rather than a hate crime, and then set him free.
In December 2009, two citizens of Israel were attacked in Moscow near the building of the "Esh-a-Tora" Jewish Youth Religious Community, according to a December 4, 2009 report posted on the web site of the national daily "Novye Izvestiya." The attack, which resulted in the hospitalization of both the victims, was investigated by the police, but UCSJ is not aware of any arrests in connection with the attack.
Perhaps coincidentally, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR) announced that same month that it was bringing back a hot line for Russian Jews to call if they experience antisemitism, according to a December 30, 2009 report by the AEN news agency. The Moscow-based hot line (495) 681-2663 connects victims of antisemitism with lawyers who can advise them of their rights. Earlier in December 2009, the head of FEOR, Chief Rabbi Beryl Lazar, met with President Medvedev, who declared that antisemitism in Russia is "much less prevalent" than in the past.
In May 2010, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR) released a statement expressing concern over a string of antisemitic incidents in Ulyanovsk, according to a May 24, 2010 report by Newsru.com. According to FEOR, on April 20 (Hitler's birthday) graffiti reading "death to the kikes" appeared in several parts of the city. On May 1, antisemitic leaflets were circulated at a Communist party meeting, and on May 9 (Victory Day), a group of people attacked the city's Jewish community center, but were luckily scared off by police. The next day, a group of people threw stones at the community center, breaking some windows. A local Jewish leader was quoted in the statement saying that he thinks the attacks are the work of an organized group. Police are investigating the incidents. Two years ago, the same building was attacked by members of the far-right Russian All-National Union, who screamed antisemitic threats as they stormed the building.
For example, in October 2009, a group of men burst into a dormitory housing Kazakh migrant workers and beat them with baseball bats, according to an October 5, 2009 article in "Komsomolskaya Pravda." The attack took place on October 1 in Zarechny, Russia (Sverdlovsk region) and targeted construction workers at the Beloyarsky nuclear power station. After smashing the security guard's telephone, the assailants beat up four Kazakhs while shouting that only ethnic Russians should work at the station. Prosecutors are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
African students and refugees are among Russian neo-Nazis' favorite targets. This is partially because like many foreign citizens, many African hate crimes victims don't report attacks to the police, out of fear of deportation, abuse, or extortion. For example, according to the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy, which has many Africans among its parishioners, on September 22, 2009 two youths attacked a Nigerian man while shouting racist abuse. On September 26, four youths attacked a man from Congo after chasing him down, again screaming racist insults. Three similar attacks took place in January 2010, according to the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy.
While the Nigerian victim reported the incident to the police, the citizen of Congo did not.
That same month, police in a Kirov region village allegedly tortured a man while insulting his ethnic background, according to an October 14, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Shovket Piriev, an ethnic Azeri, told a local newspaper cited in the Sova report that police in Yur'ya detained him in his home on what he claimed are false drug charges and took him to the federal anti-narcotics police station. On the way there, the officers allegedly called him a "churok" (a pejorative for dark skinned migrants) and then started to beat him. They continued with other racist insults, and then allegedly threatened to smash his head in. At the station, police officers reportedly continued to beat him even more severely. Two days later, he was released and went to the hospital, where he was admitted with several injuries. It is not clear from the report if police have dropped the drug charges, or if Mr. Piriev was simply released pending a trial.
A group of youths attacked four citizens of China in Blagoveshchensk (Amur region), according to an October 20, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. On the night of October 19, 2009 the youths reportedly burst into the train car where the four Chinese live and started pelting them with stones. One of the victims lost his eyes and had to undergo emergency surgery at a local hospital. Police detained a local extremist nationalist in connection with the attack. According to local police, a group of youths beat an elderly Chinese man to death last month in Blagoveshchensk, as well as assaulting another elderly victim. Police detained suspects in that case as well.
In February 2010, a South Korean exchange student was killed in a racist attack in Barnaul, a murder that made international headlines. According to a February 24, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center, three of the suspects in the killing of the Korean student were charged with attacking a citizen of China and an ethnic Tuvan at the beginning of February. There were no details in the report about the extent of those victims' injuries.
In April 2010, around 30 far-right activists attacked a flash mob in St. Petersburg after mistaking them for gay rights activists, according to an April 20, 2010 report by the St. Petersburg Times. Around 500 participants in the flash mobs blew bubbles together in the downtown area to celebrate the coming of spring, but were then attacked, leading to several injuries. Strangely, police detained 30 participants in the flash mob, and allegedly roughed some of them up. They also detained one attacker.
Although less frequently than in the past, Russian courts make the matter worse by continuing to hand down far too many lenient sentences to perpetrators of racist and antisemitic hate crimes. For example, in October 2009, a court in Orenburg sentenced five neo-Nazis for stabbing an Uzbek man to death, according to an October 5, 2009 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, so it is not clear why the sentencing took over two years. 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 another defendant. Prosecutors dropped charges against the other two defendants, since the statute of limitations had expired on their crime at some point during the drawn out trial.
In November 2009, a resident of Kovrov was given a suspended sentence on incitement charges, according to a November 17, 2009 report by the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda." Vladimir Sofronov posted calls to murder Jews, local government officials and their children, on the Internet. The suspended sentence is for 10 months in prison if he is convicted of another crime during that time period.
In April 2010, a man charged and convicted of a hate crime got off scot-free due to prosecutorial negligence, according to an April 29, 2010 article in the Smolensk supplement to the national daily "Komsomolskaya Pravda." A 43-year old Smolensk man had painted threats on the home of an Azeri family in 2007, and a court found him guilty of the crime in early April. However, his lawyer successfully argued that the statute of limitations had expired, setting up the likelihood that he will beat the charge.
2) The Growing Radicalization of Neo-Nazi Groups
Neo-Nazis are not just more numerous than in the past, they have also become more prone to using deadly force. For example, in January 2010, police in St. Petersburg detained several neo-Nazis in connection with three explosions in that city targeting ethnic minorities, according to a February 9, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Two of the suspects are former members of the now defunct Russian National Unity organization. One of the suspects was allegedly in possession of explosives. On January 25, 2009 police detained two university students in connection with the same explosions. A homemade pistol, explosives and knives were allegedly confiscated from the suspects' homes. On February 6, 2010 police detained two more suspects--both members of the "National Socialism--White Power" gang. In addition to involvement in the explosions, police charged them with the December 25, 2009 murder of a citizen of Ghana. There was no information in the report indicating that the suspects face extremism or hate crimes charges.
The relative impunity they have enjoyed for almost two decades now has led some neo-Nazis to completely lose their fear of the police and other government institutions, including several attacks on police and FSB officials covered in UCSJ's previous report. On April 12, 2010, federal judge Eduard Chuvashov was shot dead in Moscow in his apartment building, according to an April 13, 2010 report by the Regnum news agency. Judge Chuvashov presided over the trial of Russia's deadliest neo-Nazi gangs, sentencing several defendants to life in prison on charges of dozens of murders. As a result, neo-Nazis posted constant death threats against him on their web sites.
3) The Government is Part of the Problem
While officially, the Russian government condemns racist violence, prominent officials, politicians, and Kremlin-controlled youth groups at times demonize certain ethnic and religious minorities in an obvious effort to cater to growing nationalist sentiment amongst the voters. In March 2009, the independent Levada Center, Russia’s leading polling firm, reported that 57% of Russians now support a slogan originally coined by far-right extremists—“Russia for the ethnic Russians.” That number crossed the 50% threshold in 2006.
Officials occasionally engage in denial about the extent of the problem, though less often than in previous years. In March 2010, a top official in the Federal Migration Service stated the following: "To say that in Russia foreign citizens are being victimized en masse is stupid. There are isolated incidents. There are no grounds for concern," the deputy head of the international and public relations directorate of the FMS, Konstantin Poltoranin, told Interfax on March 20, 2010. Two days later, the Sova Information-Analytical Center reported that police in Volgograd had arrested a group of teenage neo-Nazis on suspicion of attacking foreign students. The extremist youths "ran amok on the streets, along with a group of unidentified young men wielding baseball bats," targeting ethnic minorities. There is no information in the report on the number of victims, their countries of origin, or the extent of their injuries, but luckily, nobody was killed in the attack.
Russia's leading far-right party, the Movement Against Illegal Migration (DPNI), which has been linked to anti-migrant violence in the past, and the far-right Eurasian Youth Movement, which has used past marches as opportunities to chant antisemitic and racist slogans, are regularly granted permission to march in Moscow and other cities. At the same time, local officials regularly Gary Kasparov's "Other Russia" coalition--Russia's leading opposition movement--permission to hold demonstrations, instead cracking down, at times violently. Moscow officials have engaged in particularly egregious abuses against organizers and participants in gay rights marches, or have stood passively by while far-right extremists attacked opposition and gay rights activists. The clear favoritism of some local officials exhibited towards far-right groups at the same time is a prime example of the hypocrisy underlying the official pro-tolerance rhetoric (Russia has laws banning the public incitement of ethnic hatred, so free speech is not at issue here). In October 2009, the lower house of the Russian parliament, the Duma, held a roundtable on migration issues that gave far-right extremists a platform from which to spread their hatred of non-Russian migrants, according to an October 3, 2009 report by the web site Kavkazsky Uzel. The October 2 roundtable, entitled "Immigration and Ethnic Relations in Moscow: Present and Future," was organized by the Duma's youth affairs committee, which is dominated by ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party, the LDPR.
During the event, LDPR Duma deputy Aleksey Ivanov reportedly said that migrants need to "earn the right to live with us," while Vladimir Ermolaev of the extremist group the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, which has been linked to anti-migrant violence, struck an alarmist tone, claiming that millions of non-Russian migrants live in Moscow, a city that is consequently suffering from "a torrent of migrant criminality."
Aleksandr Sevastyanov, the author of several racist and antisemitic publications, focused on prostitution by migrants, whom he accused of "corrupting our women." Taking a classic white power position on how migration affects demography, he shared an anecdote describing how he once supposedly saw nothing but "men of child producing age" come off a Grozny-Moscow train. He added that he doesn't really like Chechens, and then conveniently "forgot" that they are Russian citizens, stating in mock generosity that, "if they want to repatriate to Russia, they should be accepted and receive Russian citizenship." Illegal migrants should be forced to work for the state until they pay for their own deportation, he concluded.
Evgeny Proshechkin, an anti-fascist activist, was also invited to the roundtable, though the Kavkazsky Uzel report stated that the event was heavily skewed in favor of representatives of the far-right. Mr. Proshechkin pointed out that crime statistics do not bear out the far-right's alarmist statements about migrant crime, which is actually lower than the number of crimes committed by people born in Moscow.
In December 2009, a leaflet distributed by the youth wing of the United Russia party was taken off the government's list of banned extremist materials, according to a December 25, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Members of the Young Guard/United Russia in Khabarkovsk distributed the leaflets, which scurrilously accused Hare Krishnas of being a "totalitarian sect" that murders people, deals drugs, and sexually exploits children, at a Hare Krishna event in the summer of 2008. A January 2009 court decision in Khabarovsk based on charges of inciting religious hatred classified the leaflet, entitled "Beware: Sect!", as extremist material, which led to it being placed on the federal list of banned extremist publications.
This was the first time a publication has been taken off the banned list of extremist materials, and it is probably not a coincidence that the ruling party's youth wing, rather than a marginal neo-Nazi group, was the first such beneficiary. The decision on the federal level was reportedly motivated by an appellate court's ruling in Khabarovsk reversing the lower court's finding against the Young Guard.
4) Increasing Danger for Human Rights/Anti-Fascist Activists
Human rights and anti-fascist activists have been threatened, beaten, and even murdered in recent years, in some cases after threats against them and their home addresses appeared on neo-Nazi web sites. In some cases, government officials have persecuted human rights activists as “extremists”—abusing laws intended to crack down on neo-Nazis, Islamic radicals, and other genuine threats to public safety.
In November 2009, two separate attacks on anti-fascists took place in Barnaul (Altay Kray), according to a January 18, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. On November 8, six far-right activists followed a participant in the "Foods not Bombs" project, an anti-fascist event that includes the feeding of homeless people, and attacked him. The victim ended up with head trauma and a fractured rib. On December 13 four far-right extremists chased after an anti-fascist, who managed to escape. Also that month, far-right extremists wearing masks stalked and then assaulted a local anti-fascist. The victim was hospitalized with head trauma. None of the victims reported the attacks to the police.
In January 2010, police in St. Petersburg detained a suspect in the shooting of a member of an anti-fascist group, according to a January 21, 2010 report by the Regnum news agency. The suspect was a 29 year old male who is a member of a far-right group. He was charged with"hooliganism" and simple assault.
Men screaming racist rhetoric attacked a prominent human rights activist in Ryazan, according to an April 10, 2010 report posted on the opposition web site Kasparov.ru. Pyotr Ivanov, who works for the NGOs "Memorial" and the Ryazan Human Rights School, was assaulted on April 10 by three men who aggressively asked him, "Are you Russian or not?!" At least one of the assailants had a shaven head. A passing police patrol scared off the attackers, but so far police have detained no suspects.
In May 2010, neo-Nazis were suspected of being behind an arson attack on the apartment of a prominent anti-fascist activist in Izhevsk, according to a May 23, 2010 article in the independent daily "Novaya Gazeta." On the evening of May 23, someone set Oleg Serebrennikov's apartment door on fire, while also shooting 11 bullets at it and leaving threatening graffiti behind. Police are investigating the incident. In February 2004, far-right thugs beat Mr. Serebrennikov, who was taking part in an anti-war demonstration. Four of the attackers were subsequently sentenced.
5) Religious Persecution
Central government agencies appeared to continue a coordinated campaign to persecute Jehovah's Witnesses in several regions of Russia during the period covered in this report. The latest crackdown appears to have been inspired, at least in part, by a court ruling in Taganrog that classified a local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation an extremist group and ordered it disbanded. This local court ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court in December 2009, and the government later put Jehovah's Witnesses literature on a list of banned extremist material, opening the door to banning the faith entirely in Russia.
According to an October 16, 2009 report by the religious news web site portal-credo.ru in Kurgan, police confiscated religious literature from Jehovah's Witnesses. On September 30, 2009 police in St. Petersburg detained 68 Jehovah's Witnesses during a religious service, telling the worshippers that they were engaged in extremist and illegal activity.
On October 21, 2009, a top local government official allegedly accompanied a Russian Orthodox cleric and several dozen paramilitary Cossacks in an attack on Jehovah's Witnesses in Novocherkassk (Rostov region), according to a November 2, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. According to the Sova report, the deputy head of the Novocherkassk city government, A. V. Demchenko, reportedly took part in the attack, allegedly led by Protoerey Oleg Dobrinsky from the local Russian Orthodox diocese. The Cossacks physically expelled Jehovah's Witnesses from a building they were using, and then started a petition drive calling for a ban on Jehovah's Witnesses in Novocherkassk.
A court in Novokuibyshevsk (Samara region) gave a suspended sentence to a man for menacing Jehovah's Witnesses with a knife, according to a December 11, 2009 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. V. P. Zavalsky invited two Jehovah's Witnesses into his home and then threatened to kill them while waving a knife. It is not clear from the report on what charges the defendant was convicted.
Also in December 2009, the prosecutor's office in Arkhangelsk opened a criminal investigation of a local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation on charges of inciting religious hatred, and also issued an official warning to the congregation's leader, which could lead to the congregation being disbanded, according to a December 28, 2009 report by the RIA Novosti news agency. The prosecutor's action came in response to a complaint from an "Anti-Sect Center" and the local branch of the Union of Writers of Russia, many of whose members are affiliated with nationalist causes. The prosecutor's office alleged that the Jehovah's Witnesses incited religious hatred by distributing leaflets that asserted "the uniqueness of one religion vs. another"--a charge that could reasonably be brought against followers of most of the world's religions.
In January 2010, a group of around half a dozen unidentified people threw stones and shouted death threats at a Jehovah's Witness congregation in Sochi, according to a January 15, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The enraged assailants tried to break down a fence in order to attack the Jehovah's Witnesses inside, but were unsuccessful. Police detained two suspects, but it is not clear what charges they faced. Also in January 2010, arsonists struck a Jehovah's Witness prayer hall and a Baptist church in Volzhsky (Volgograd region), according to a January 3, 2010 report by the Kavkavsky Uzel web site. In both cases, the arsonists threw Molotov cocktails through the windows of the churches, but quick reactions from firefighters helped to minimize the damage. UCSJ is not aware of any arrests in connection with these attacks. The same news item reported that on December 29, 2009 an anti-extremism unit of the MVD in the Republic of Adygeya launched an investigation into a local Jehovah's Witness congregation, issuing 11 warnings to the congregation's leaders accusing them of "extremism."
In February 2010, prosecutors in Birobizhan issued an official warning based on anti-extremism laws against a local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation, according to a February 27, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. Based on this warning, prosecutors may take the Jehovah's Witnesses congregation to a court which could order it disbanded. In March 2010, a court in the Krasnodar region found two Jehovah's Witnesses guilty of distributing "extremist literature" according to a March 15, 2010 report posted on the news web site regions.ru. The Tuapse district court found the defendants guilty, based on the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses literature is now on the central government's list of banned extremist material. Both were fined (1,000 and 2,000 rubles, respectively) and their literature was destroyed.
Also in March 2010, the deputy prosecutor of Taganrog (Rostov region) interrogated the former head of the local Jehovah's Witness congregation, an action that led to fears that further persecution of that faith is just around the corner, according to a March 17, 2010 report by the news web site Kavkavsky Uzel. The March 12 interrogation of Nikolai Trotsyuk, who headed the local Jehovah's Witness congregation until it was ordered disbanded by a local court as an "extremist organization," was motivated by Mr. Trotsyuk's continuing to organize worship services for his fellow congregants. This led to a threat by the prosecutor to charge him with running a "liquidated organization" which could lead to up to three years in prison. However, Mr. Trotsyuk's lawyer argues that the Constitution still guarantees his right to expressing his religious beliefs, either on his own, or with others.
Later in March, police in Tambov raided the homes of three Jehovah's Witnesses, confiscating literature in the course of an investigation into the Jehovah's Witnesses supposedly inciting religious hatred, according to a March 22, 2010 report by the Forum 18 news agency.
Also in March 2010, the mayor of a rural settlement in the Khabarovsk region allegedly led an assault on local Baptists, according to a March 11, 2010 report by the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, an NGO that specializes in the legal protection of religious minorities in Russia. Sergey Borisov, head of administration for the Obor rural settlement, allegedly entered a small building where Baptists were holding prayer services and demanded that the pastor and the deacon of the church come with him for an "official conversation." When they refused, the mayor and other men allegedly beat them and dragged the Baptists into a car. The beating was so savage that the blood of one of the victims reportedly spattered onto the car. One of the victims ended up in the hospital, where an operation was performed on him.
Several witnesses reportedly viewed the assault, and when some parishioners tried to stop it, they were allegedly roughed up. The Baptists claim that the mayor declared that he was Russian Orthodox and therefore would not tolerate the presence of other believers in his village. The mayor, in turn, claimed that the Baptists refused to present their documents when ordered to, and that they beat up one of the men who accompanied him. Police are investigating the incident, and the Baptists have also appealed to the regional anti-extremism unit to investigate the alleged assault as a hate crime.
In a clear abuse of a law intended to curb hate speech, prosecutors in Chelyabinsk filed charges in May 2010 of "inciting religious hatred" against a local congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses according to a May 13, 2010 report by the Interfax news agency. The charge sheet refers to unspecified instances of Jehovah's Witnesses "inciting religious hatred" during religious events in 2009-2010, and their distribution of Jehovah's Witnesses literature, which was recently placed on the federal watch list of banned "extremist material." Prosecutors are currently in the process of deciding against whom to file the charges, and if they merit pre-trial detention or not.
6) Conclusion
Despite improved police practices and the increasing use of hate crimes statutes to prosecute neo-Nazi gangs, thate crimes that Russia has experienced over the past several years shows no sign of slowing down in the period covered in this report. Neo-Nazi gangs are becoming increasingly radicalized, showing a greater willingness to murder rather than just beat up their victims.
In addition, some law enforcement officials stubbornly continue to suppress hate crimes reports. The government’s increasing authoritarianism only makes matters worse; at times government agencies seem more interested in criticizing and persecuting human rights activists by using bogus charges of “extremism” against peaceful political opponents, than working with NGOs to suppress neo-Nazi activity. The government continues to stoke nationalism as a way to legitimate its enervation of democratic institutions through media campaigns targeting various external and internal “enemies” (Muslims, Estonia, Georgia, Ukraine, Great Britain and especially the US). In this way, the paranoid ethos of the KGB, from which much of Russia’s new ruling class comes, is being inculcated within the population at large, with predictably dismal consequences for Russian foreign and domestic policy.
Continued monitoring and coalition building efforts between foreign and domestic NGOs (such as the Coalition Against Hate) are necessary to combat these dangerous trends. At the initiation of UCSJ and the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), the Coalition Against Hate is the online voice of a powerful and unique grassroots monitoring and advocacy coalition comprising a number of cooperating human rights and religious freedom NGOs in the former Soviet Union. Our mission is to document objective monitoring-based facts, incident reports, analysis, and op-ed-style opinions, posted by coalition leaders. Our subject matter is limited to a discrete focus on the following key indices of rule of law in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union:
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Hate crimes across the former Soviet Union, especially antisemitic and xenophobic violence and propaganda;
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Religious discrimination and/or persecution of so-called "minority" faiths, e.g., Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Muslims; and
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The plight of political prisoners and activists increasingly subjected to intimidation, including human rights NGO leaders, independent journalists and persecuted business leaders.
Our blog encourages active responses from monitors, activists and commentators from across the former Soviet Union and the West. As a result, this coalition provides a unique and strong foundation for collecting and disseminating information and opinion. It reaches a broader audience than the coalition partners could reach on their own--from other bloggers to various governments.