BIGOTRY MONITOR: VOLUME 8, NUMBER 41
Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union
October 17, 2008
DC
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 __________________________________________________ _________
POLITKOVSKAYA MURDER TRIAL OPENS; HER LAWYER FINDS POISON IN HER
CAR. As the trial of three men charged with involvement in the
2006 murder of Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya was about to open
in Moscow, lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, scheduled to represent the
Politkovskaya family, announced that she could not attend the trial
because she found a large quantity of poisonous mercury pellets in
her car in Strasbourg, France and that she and her family must now
undergo treatment. According to Reuters’ medical sources, exposure
to high levels of mercury can damage the brain, heart, kidneys,
lungs, and the immune and nervous systems, and the consequences can
be fatal. At the moment, she and the members of her family are said
to be in satisfactory condition. Moskalenko believes the mercury
was meant as a warning to her. She told Ekho Moskvy radio station,
"People do not put mercury in your car to improve your health." On
October 13, Strasbourg assistant prosecutor Claude Palpacuer announced
that an investigation of the poisoning attempt had been opened.
Moskalenko has taken part in high-profile cases, representing former
Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky as well as Chechens who appealed to
the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg because of violations
of their constitutional rights in Russia.
Politkovskaya, whose reports on Chechnya revealing gross human
rights abuses infuriated the Kremlin, was shot dead outside her
Moscow apartment two years ago. Two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail
and Ibragim Makhmudov, are charged with conducting surveillance on
Politkovskaya and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov is
accused of providing technical help. All three claim innocence. The
court will soon decide whether the public and media will be allowed
to observe the trial, which is held in a military court because one
of the defendants was once a law enforcement officer. "The case the
prosecution has sent to court is a shameful disgrace," defense lawyer
Murat Musayev said. "We are sure that the prosecutors will try to
make the trial closed to the public to cover up this disgrace, but
we hope the court will not do this." He said he expects an acquittal.
Politkovskaya’s supporters say the principal culprits will not be in
the dock. A third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, who prosecutors suspect
of shooting Politkovskaya, is on the run, and even more important,
police have not found the person who ordered the murder.
Critics of the Kremlin point to the murder as a symbol of Russia’s
retreat from standards of democracy and human rights under former
President Vladimir Putin now prime minister. Putin dismissed
Politkovskaya as an "unimportant" person and categorically denied
any Kremlin link to the killing. But following a worldwide outcry
over the contract murder of the 48-year-old prize-winning writer,
Putin ordered "a thorough investigation."
Since then, the Kremlin trumpeted the charge that the murder
was organized by millionaire Boris Berezovsky, once a confidant
of then President Boris Yeltsin and now a British citizen living
London. However, the state investigation has no proof of the theory
that Berezovsky was behind the murder, Alexander Bastrykin, director
of the Prosecutor’s Office Investigative Committee, told the German
newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" this week. He added that his
investigation will not be over until the killer is found. "At the
moment we know that he is abroad; I can’t tell you where," he was
quoted as saying. "But we will definitely find him."
"Investigators have narrowed the field of suspects they believe
may have paid for the killing but have been frustrated by what
they consider deliberate obstruction by officials in the Russian
security services, according to Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of
Politkovskaya’s newspaper, ‘Novaya gazeta,"’ "The Washington Post"
correspondent wrote from Moscow on October 7. The dispatch also cited
"senior law enforcement officials" to the effect that the motive for
the murder had been to discredit the Kremlin and destabilize the state,
rather than to silence Politkovskaya.
"The Post" also quoted a retired teacher in the crowd of some
200 people who marked the second anniversary of the killing in a
rain-soaked vigil in Moscow on October 7. The teacher doubted that
the killers would ever be punished. "Not under Putin’s regime,"
she was quoted as saying. "That’s why I am here. This is my protest."
Discussing other high-profile cases with the German newspaper,
Bastrykin mentioned the killing of Ingush journalist Magomed
Yevloyev, the founder of the Ingushetiya.ru web site critical
of the Kremlin. "Our investigation shows that it was a reckless
manslaughter," the government investigator said. "A police officer
who was accompanying Yevloyev in a car with an unlocked firearm,
fearing that somebody might use force trying to release him, made
an accidental shot…The shot was fired at a close range and was
the result of recklessness–that is our conclusion. But the trial,
which will begin very soon, will dot all the ‘i’s."
BRITAIN UNRELENTING IN DEMANDING RUSSIAN COOPERATION IN LITVINENKO
CASE. London will not soften its position on the murder case of
Alexander Litvinenko and will also seek to resolve the conflict over
the British Council’s activities in Russia, Britain’s new ambassador
in Moscow Anne Pringle said on October 16, according to "The Moscow
Times." Britain will continue to press for the extradition of State
Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, accused of killing Litvinenko in 2006,
Pringle told reporters at the British Embassy.
Pringle rejected Russian prosecutors’ claims that Britain has provided
insufficient evidence to implicate Lugovoi in the crime. Discussing
another thorny issue with Moscow, Pringle expressed hope that the
British Council, the embassy’s cultural arm, could reopen in Russian
regions once an agreement over its legal status is reached.
RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS FEAR LOSS OF WESTERN GRANTS. Russian
human rights organizations fear a possible dip of grants for
nonprofit organizations, Interfax reported on October 13. "We do
fear that. There is such a problem," leader of the movement For Human
Rights Lev Ponomaryov told the news agency. He explained that Russian
human rights organizations live on foreign grants. "Russian business
does not provide for social and human rights organizations," he told
Interfax. "Budgetary funds assigned to non-profit organizations via
the Public Chamber are practically unattainable. I am ashamed to
depend on Western sponsors but there is no other source for funding
our organization, which gives aid to thousands of people."
The number of foreign funds which supply Russian nonprofit
organizations with grants reduced their contributions even prior to
the financial crisis, head of Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alexeyeva
told Interfax. "We have been experiencing serious financial problems
for the past two years," she said. "The problem is that foreign funds
have been forced to pay taxes. The only grants exempt from taxes
come from the European Union. There is a financial crisis in Europe,
so European grants may shrink next year."
FOREIGNERS TARGETED IN MURDER SPREE IN MOSCOW. On October 9, a Tajik
national was killed in western Moscow. His body with 40 knife wounds
was found on a school compound, Viktoriya Tsyplenkova, representative
of the Investigations Committee of the Moscow Prosecutor-General’s
Office, told Interfax. The news agency also learned that on October 11,
an unemployed man living in Moscow stabbed an Uzbek woman, 29. She died
of wounds the same day. A suspect has been detained. On October 12, an
Armenian man was killed with a knife in northeastern Moscow. Criminal
proceedings have been instituted, the report said. Also on October 12,
two Tajik nationals, aged 25 and 28, were stabbed in central Moscow,
Interfax reported, quoting a law-enforcement source. Both men were
taken to a hospital, criminal proceedings have been instituted,
and an investigation is in progress.
On October 13, ten young men wearing ski masks beat and repeatedly
stabbed an Azeri man on a Moscow suburban train, according the
Sova Information-Analytical Center. He was taken to the hospital in
serious condition with wounds to the kidney and liver. Police are
investigating. On the same day in Moscow, a racist mob attacked four
men who appeared to be from the Caucasus, according to Sova. Up to
30 young people assaulted their victims while screaming the far-right
slogan "Russia for Russians!" Witnesses claim that police were nearby
but did nothing.
RUSSIAN GIRL MURDERED; FAR-RIGHT GROUP BLAMES MIGRANTS FOR VIOLENT
CRIMES. On October 12 in Moscow, the Movement Against Illegal
Migration, a far-right group linked to anti-migrant riots in Kondopoga
and other cities, staged a rally calling for harsher laws against
migrants, whom they blamed for the murder of a 15-year-old girl, Anna
Beshnova, according to the Newsru.com web site. Interfax added that
police detained 56 rally participants who were released a short time
later. The rally was held near the place where she was found dead
earlier this month. Rally participants made inflammatory speeches
linking migrants to crimes.
A migrant from Central Asia now faces charges of murder and rape in
connection with the Beshnova case.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL VANDALIZED IN KALININGRAD. An unidentified
individual painted antisemitic death threats and a swastika on a
memorial commemorating victims of the Holocaust in Kaliningrad, Russia,
according to an October 10 report by the Regnum news agency. The
memorial is in restored old Jewish cemetery which was vandalized
twice before in recent years.
COURT GIVES ANTISEMITE A SLAP ON WRIST. A court in Novosibirsk
sentenced a former police officer to a suspended sentence after finding
him guilty of engaging in extremist activity by inciting hatred against
Jews and calling for the overthrow of the government, according to
an October 6 report by Interfax. Responding to the lenient sentence,
defendant Aleksandr Budnikov publicly vowed to continue his illegal
incitement on local Internet forums.
TERRORIST ACT FOILED, 60 MIGRANTS DETAINED, CLAIMS TABLOID. Russia’s
special services foiled a "bloodbath" by foreign terrorists in the
center of Moscow, according to the Moscow tabloid "Tvoy Den" dated
October 10. "Had the terrorists carried out their plan, their crime
would have rocked not only Russia but the whole world," wrote the
sensationalist tabloid usually filled with political rumors. "The
Al-Qaeda and Caucasian extremists’ intention was to perpetrate mass
murder of civilians in Red Square, outside the Kremlin."
The tabloid cited the capital’s Emergencies Ministry press service to
the effect that during the evening of October 9, the FSB (the domestic
intelligence service and heir to the KGB) working with the Federal
Migration Service and the police detained 60 foreigners working
on the Moskva Hotel construction site. "They had no permission to
work in Russia," the press service is said to have disclosed. "Some
had forged permits. In the main, they are citizens of former USSR
republics. There are some Serbs, though."
According to police information obtained by the tabloid, the site had
been infiltrated by an Al-Qaeda emissary in the North Caucasus. The
special services were quoted as saying that the emissary had been
reconnoitering Red Square and noting when the police guards were
relieved. He was supposed to assemble a group of terrorists and
shooting people outside the Kremlin. According to a police source
quoted by the tabloid, there were to be about 50 terrorists, most of
them suicide gunmen who did not expect to survive the action.
Even if the information published by the tabloid is inaccurate,
its report suggests the spread of a xenophobic public mood that some
elements in the special services would like to encourage.
SYNAGOGUE BOMBING FOILED IN UKRAINE. A group of far-right extremists in
Kirovograd, Ukraine allegedly planned to blow up the local synagogue,
according to an October 7 report by Interfax. The head of the local
SBU, a successor to the KGB, told a press conference that a 38-year-old
former police officer had gathered around him a group of 14 youths
"ideologically prepared to commit crimes" such as blowing up the local
synagogue and attacking Jews and members of other minorities. The
SBU unmasked the group in early 2008 but only announced that fact
now. It is not clear what charges the alleged extremists face.
According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) item on October 8,
local SBU director Sergey Tkachuk said that the target was Kirovograd’s
Choral Synagogue and the attackers included mainly university students
aged 18 to 20 who had been studying Nazi Germany and Hitler’s books.
"Some unidentified persons often shattered windows of the synagogue
and wrote antisemitic slogans," Emma Spektor, the leader of Kirovograd
Reform Congregation, told JTA. "We informed SBU about such facts and
worked closely with them. We appreciate the fact that SBU unmasked
the group of ultra-right extremists and hope they will be punished
according to the law."
TAJIK RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES REJECT GOVERNMENT CLAIMS. Tajik official
claims to the OSCE’s human rights conference in Warsaw regarding four
religious communities in Tajikistan have been contradicted by those
communities, Forum 18 news service reported.
Tajik officials categorically denied that the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Ehyo Protestant Church, and the Abundant Life Christian Center had
been banned. Yet on September 29 a Dushanbe court reaffirmed the ban
on the Jehovah’s Witnesses imposed in October 2007. "They are not
allowed to function in Tajikistan, period," Nazira Dodkhudoeva of the
Culture Ministry’s Religious Affairs Department told Forum 18. Ehyo
church members said that one year after being "suspended," officials
still will not approve new wording of their charter and have told
them they cannot function until the charter is finalized. Abundant
Life reluctantly halted all its activity in May, it told Forum 18.
The Tajik delegation also claimed at the OSCE conference that an
alternative plot of land "has been provided" to Dushanbe’s Jewish
community as a compensation for its synagogue, bulldozed earlier this
year. Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov expressed surprise at the official
claims, according to Forum 18.
FRENCH OFFICIAL DENIES EU COMPROMISE ON HUMAN RIGHTS. A few hours
after an October 13 announcement that the European Union (EU) will
ease sanctions against Belarus and Uzbekistan, a senior French
government official told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the
EU will continue to push for progress on human rights issues in
those countries. France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
and Human Rights Rama Yade stressed that "Europe seeks to foster
progress in Uzbekistan and Belarus. There have been gestures, such
as the release of several prisoners. In response, Europe is making a
gesture too. But we expect more from these countries. Yade denied that
the EU is throwing in the towel on human rights. "On the contrary,
we believe that making gestures may help bring change in Belarus
and Uzbekistan," she said. "If nothing comes in response, we will
draw conclusions. We are trying to push for the release of political
prisoners. We are trying to obtain more freedom of expression. We are
conducting a firm dialogue that doesn’t compromise on human rights."
* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, MEDVEDEV ON THE OFFENSIVE * * * "Expansion of
NATO proceeds with a stunning fervor of some kind, as the extension of
membership to Georgia and Ukraine, and the question the way they put
it sounds like their getting into NATO will mean a victory over Russia,
while the failure to admit them will mean a capitulation," said Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev.on October 8 at an international political
conference in the French town of Evian, according to "Izvestiya." "But
the actual story has a totally different leitmotif, namely, that
the bloc is moving its infrastructures close to our borders and is
drawing new lines of division in Europe that run along our western
and southern frontier this time. Quite naturally, we regard this
activity as something targeted at damaging us."
EUROPEANS COUNTER RACISM The Rise of Xenophobia and Hate Crimes
Prompts New Actions
1. HATE CRIMES REPORT IN OSCE REGION PAINTS GRIM PICTURE. On October
6 in Warsaw, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) released a report detailing the continuing brutal attacks in
the OSCE region targeting "members of visibly identifiable groups
who stand out from majority populations because of their religion,
ethnicity or other perceived characteristics." The 83-page report
covers 2007. It was compiled by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and launched at the OSCE’s annual
conference on human rights and democracy. The report found that many
of the hate-driven incidents were characterized by "extreme brutality,
frequently resulting in serious injury or death."
The report called the continuing occurrence of violent manifestations
of hate and intolerance "extremely disturbing." Ambassador Lenarcic,
director of the ODIHR, said: "Hate crimes target individuals, but
they instill fear in entire communities. This has the potential to
destabilize and threaten the security of society as a whole."
According to the report, data on hate crimes remains "patchy and
inconsistent" across the OSCE region, making it difficult to determine
the frequency of hate crimes and to pinpoint groups most vulnerable
to attack. The report underlined that hate-motivated incidents
against Muslims, Christians, and other religious groups, as well as
homophobic hate crimes, continue to be significantly under-reported
and under-recorded.
The report identified several recurrent patterns. Religious
institutions, places of worship, and Holocaust memorials were frequent
targets of attacks. "Damage to Holocaust memorials echoes the emergence
of the Holocaust as a rhetorical means to threaten and to offend Jews,"
the report stated. Those defending human rights were also victims of
hate crimes. Another alarming phenomenon identified was the frequent
occurrence of attacks of a racist, antisemitic or xenophobic character
at sporting events.
2. NEW EUROPEAN AGENCY TO COMBAT RACISM. The European Council on
Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR), a new non-governmental agency
launched in Paris, has called on Europeans to act against racism,
xenophobia, and antisemitism, the European Jewish Press (EJP)
reported on October 12. ECTR is chaired by former Polish President
Aleksander Kwasniewski, and its members include several other former
heads of European states and Nobel Peace laureates. The council’s
aim is that the average European citizen should not be a bystander
to intolerance but, instead, work against acts of racism, xenophobia,
and antisemitism.
"With the experience of many distinguished politicians from various
European countries, we believe that we can make a difference,"
Kwasniewski said. "We can’t change the past; our job is now to change
the future." He cautioned that the struggle for tolerance "is not a
one-year or 10-year effort but will take decades and generations."
"We are putting into the earth the first seeds of tolerance,"
Moshe Kantor, co-chairman of the ECTR and president of the European
Jewish Congress, stated at the inaugural meeting which took place
at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris. "The dangers
of intolerance, antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia are just as
pressing as the nuclear weaponization of countries like Iran and North
Korea." Kantor told journalists: "We will carry this fight to the
streets of Europe. We want Europe’s politicians to work together to
become the champions of tolerance. We demand action, not just words."
The council will recommend a European Framework Convention on Tolerance
to serve as a pan-European initiative to introduce anti-racist laws
and practices in every country. "It is better if we do this together,
as Europeans, rather than just as citizens of our own countries, or
as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, each one on their own," members of
the Council told the meeting.
According to EJP, the founders of the new organization include former
Slovenian President Milan Kucan, former Albanian president Alfred
Moisiu, and former Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, initiator
of the International Forum on the Holocaust. Among the initiatives
discussed was the establishment of a European Day of Tolerance which
will coincide with the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. A special
event promoting tolerance will be held in the European Parliament
on the anniversary, November 10, under the auspices of the European
parliament’s president.
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