Volume 8, Number 30
July 25, 2008

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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TOP RUSSIAN HEALTH OFFICER CHARGES U.S.-BACKED ‘NICOTINE GENOCIDE.’ Russia’s chief public health officer Gennadiy Onishchenko has charged tobacco manufacturers in Russia with "nicotine genocide" of the Russian people, Interfax reported on July 22. Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), Onishchenko pointed to the West as the culprit: "It appears that confrontation with the cynical Russian tobacco sinecure, which has lost all moral standards, rules and principles, which is in the service of foreign and above all U.S. capital, …has entered a new phase. The superprofits of US corporations are being paid for by catastrophic repercussions for the health of the young generation of Russians."

According to Onishchenko’s figures, the number of Russian citizens of working age smoking cigarettes on a regular basis had increased by 440,000 in the past 20 years, reaching “catastrophically high” comparative figures: 60% of men and 30% women now smoke. Furthermore, 80% of these men and 50% of the women started smoking as teenagers.

"Even these inhuman wages of other people's welfare, however, do not satisfy these gentlemen," Onishchenko said. "They are pressing for medievally high levels of nicotine and tar in cigarettes to be set for Russia, enabling them to flog the worst-quality tobaccos to the Russian people at legally set levels." He told Interfax that his agency is exploring the possibility of criminal prosecution and will publicize “the unseemly actions” of the Russian tobacco trade and its “foreign masters."

Observers recall that Onishchenko’s record includes forbidding the importation of Georgian wine and mineral water during the height of the conflict with Georgia last year. He also banned wine from Moldova but permitted it after Moldova changed its position on the Transdnestr problem. Similarly, he declared Polish meat products contaminated and banned their importation but reversed his ruling after Poland endorsed Russia’s WTO membership.

It remains to be seen if the Russian government is opening a new area of confrontation with the United States or Onishchenko has launched a personal crusade and wants maximum attention.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS CHARGED WITH HATE CRIME. Prosecutors in St. Petersburg, Russia charged two high school girls with a hate crime, according to a July 22 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The girls, one is 16 and the other 17, allegedly assaulted a fellow student, motivated by ethnic hatred. The report did not mention the ethnicity of the victim or the assailants.

RUSSIAN MUFTIS CALL FOR REVIEWING LIST OF BANNED RELIGIOUS BOOKS. The Council of Muftis of Russia has called for a review of the list of banned religious literature, the radio station Ekho Moskvy reported on July 19. But, the council cautioned, there is no expert group to review religious literature in Russia whose opinion would not raise doubts and disagreements. In a statement, the council pointed out that the Muslim community of Russia and the Community of Independent States, well-known politicians and academics have more than once disagreed with the conclusions of the expert review which preceded the compilation of the banned religious literature list. The review was carried out, the council said, “by those who are far from being experts in Muslim theology, which explains the bias and the lack of objectivity.” Therefore, the council said, it will appeal to “the competent authorities, independent experts, and scientists and request a review and analysis of religious books that were included in the list of banned literature.”

The grounds for the council’s statement were criminal proceedings brought against the head of the publishing house Uma, Aslambek Ezhayev. He is charged with incitement of religious strife and disseminating the book "Muslim Personality" which is on the federal list of extremist literature.

COURT FINES BUSINESSMAN FOR TRYING TO SELL ANTISEMITIC FILM. A court in Bryansk fined a businessman 25,000 rubles (about $1,000) for selling an antisemitic DVD, according to a July 22 report by the web site Jewish.ru. Dmitry Kovalyov, owner of the "Patriot" store, reportedly urged his customers to buy the film "Russia with a Knife in Its Back: Jewish Fascism and the Genocide of the Russian People." Prosecutors charged him with violating the criminal code, which prohibits the incitement of ethnic hatred.

JEWISH CEMETERY VANDALIZED. Vandals daubed swastikas and Stars of David on 15 gravestones in the Bogorodsky District of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, according to a July 21 report by the Jewish.ru web site. The vandals knocked over 10 gravestones and smashed an additional five. Police are investigating the incident, the latest in a series of antisemitic vandalism in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

ANTI-FASCIST ARRESTED AFTER STABBING INCIDENT. Police in St. Petersburg arrested an anti-fascist activist after charging him with stabbing an off-duty police officer whom he thought was a neo-Nazi, according to a July 18 report by the Fontanka.ru news web site. According to police, on the night of June 13 the officer and his friend encountered a large group of young men, and one of them allegedly asked if they were skinheads because of the way they were dressed. When the officer replied that it was nobody's business if he is a skinhead, the suspect allegedly stabbed him and his friend, sending both to the hospital.

The suspect's lawyer offers a different version of the events, claiming that the officer and his friend were walking down the street screaming neo-Nazi slogans when his client confronted them with his question, at which point the officer allegedly broke a bottle and threatened him with it, forcing his client to use a knife in self-defense. Police arrested the suspect a month later and a court ordered his pre-trial detention.

RUSSIANS LESS HOSTILE TO THE U.S. Russians, and especially the young generation, are losing their feelings of hostility toward the United States, according to a survey released by state pollster VTsIOM, as reported in “The Moscow Times” dated July 24. Across all age groups, the number of those with negative views of the United States fell to 29% from 40% five years ago, while 49% of all Russians polled said they felt positive toward the United States, one percent more than five years ago.

THE DECLINE OF THE KREMLIN’S YOUTH MOVEMENT. Poorly attended and disorganized, this year’s annual summer camp of the Kremlin-sponsored youth movement Nashi (“Ours” in Russian) attracted only 5,000 participants--down from more than 10,000 last year. Moreover, this year’s program was uninspiring and the nation’s top leaders failed to show up. According to the explanation by the reporter of “The Moscow Times” covering the event was that Nashi is experiencing the difficulties of transition from organizing street protests to running a mainstream youth movement.

Nashi’s original purpose “was to block a possible Orange Revolution, that's why last year was so important,” Sergei Markov, a Duma deputy from the ruling United Russia party, was quoted as saying. “Now they don't know what to do." The authorities understand the danger posed by an unsupervised Nashi, Markov said. But he ruled out the possibility of sweeping them under the rug. "They will survive,” he predicted, “because the Kremlin understands very well that if you give people a political education and then abandon them, they will move on to a different political groups, including the radical opposition."

The reporter watched a skit featuring National Bolshevik Eduard Limonov and opposition leader Garry Kasparov plotting the theft of Russia's energy resources. Waving American flags, they stopped to consult their American master, a portly businessman wearing a sports coat and underpants. “The tiny crowd gathered to watch seems mildly amused but mostly embarrassed,” the reporter noted. He also quoted camper Alexei Moslenikov, 17, as saying: "I don't believe that most Russian people believe that the Americans are against Russia. It's mostly just some kind of political idea."

The campers did not seem to learn more than a few stock phrases about economic innovation, the official theme of this year’s retreat, the reporter found. "If we just keep trying to build our country on oil and gas, we won't have a future," Ilya Solovyov, 18, was quoted as saying. But Solovyov, described as articulate, “stumbled when pressed about what innovation was.” He mentioned nanotechnology and high-tech industry, and the need to innovate. But when asked what field he planned to work in after university, he answered: "I don't know. Energy?"

“Nashi burst onto the political scene in 2005, staging a 50,000-strong rally in Moscow to mark the 60th anniversary of Victory Day and was broadly seen as a response to the youth-led protests that helped bring pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to power,” the reporter recalled. “Since then the name has become synonymous with raucous street protests against Russia's supposed foreign and domestic enemies.” The reporter pointed out that in January, “Kommersant” quoted a high-ranking Kremlin official describing Nashi members as "enthusiastic thugs." In March, activists handed out toilet paper printed with the newspaper's logo and the cell phone number of a “Kommersant” reporter who co-authored the article. On the same day, hackers attacked the newspaper's web site.

According to “The Times” reporter, there is “a strong sense among the members of the political elite that, having served its purpose, Nashi is not just a spent force but a potentially destabilizing element.” But Nashi is “far from a spent force,” the reporter wrote. Many high-ranking political figures visited the camp, including First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. But the most striking political message “The Times” reporter found was the absence of posters of President Dmitry Medvedev. Among dozens of campers interviewed, not a single one mentioned Medvedev when asked about Russia's leadership. "They don't know who Medvedev is," said Markov, "and Medvedev doesn't want to know who they are."

REMAINS STOLEN FROM MASS GRAVE OF HOLOCAUST VICTIMS. Unidentified individuals stole the remains of Holocaust victims in a newly discovered mass grave in Odessa, Ukraine, according to the newspaper "15 Minut" dated July 23. Construction workers found the remains on July 21 while digging near the city's Megadom. The Nazis shot 25,000 people on that site and buried them in unmarked graves. Locals photographed and videotaped the grisly discovery, but during the night of July 21, cars came to the site and took the remains away.

The city's deputy mayor responded to complaints from the Jewish community by ordering police to guard the site and suspending construction there. Police are investigating the incident.

KHARKOV POLICE TARGET FOREIGNERS FOR SHAKEDOWNS. Police in Kharkov, Ukraine regularly target dark-skinned foreigners for extortion, according to the local newspaper "Vecherny Kharkov" of July 19. The article quoted Evgeny Zakharov—head of the Kharkov Human Rights Protection Committee--as saying that his group conducted a survey of 68 foreign students in the city, and that only two of them reported that police had never stopped them for document checks. Several of the students complained that police did not even ask them for their document but went right into demands for bribes. A Jordanian man quoted in the article added that he is constantly stopped by police asking for "beer money.”

BOSNIAN SERB WAR CRIMINAL ARRESTED. The man held responsible for the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II will finally face the Hague international war crimes tribunal. Serbian officials announced on July 22 that Radovan Karadzic, the wartime president of the Bosnian Serb Republic indicted for genocide, was captured near Belgrade after 13 years on the run. With long white hair and a flowing beard, he had been working as a doctor of alternative medicine and even attended public events, sure of his disguise and probably protected by his friends in the secret police.

His troops shelled Sarajevo mercilessly in a 43-month siege that lasted from 1992 to 1995 and killed some 11,000 people. He is also held responsible for the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995.

Karadzic was indicted by the Hague tribunal in 1995 along with his army commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, for genocide. Mladic is still at large but not for long, Serbian authorities say. The arrest and extradition of both men to The Hague was a condition for Serbian membership in the European Union (EU). Karadzic is the most prominent Balkan war crimes suspect arrested since late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was sent to The Hague on genocide charges in 2001.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that Karadzic’s arrest showed that Belgrade is now cooperating fully with the U.N. war crimes court. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Belgrade for taking a "decisive step toward ending impunity" of war crime suspects in the Balkan wars. Richard Holbrooke, U.S. envoy during the wars of the 1990s, characterized Karadzic as "a real, true architect of mass murder." Munira Subasic, head of a Srebrenica widow's association said the arrest "is confirmation that every criminal will eventually face justice."

Though Karadzic still has tens of thousands of admirers who condemn his imminent extradition as treason, others point to a new pragmatism taking hold. “Serbs are not desperate and they have not sold out, but they have seen that the nationalist rhetoric and slogans are empty and don’t work,” Ljiljana Smajlovic, editor of the daily “Politika” was quoted as saying in “The New York Times.” “They see their manifest destiny in Europe.”

On July 22, Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic said that Serbia is resolved to joining the EU as soon as possible and expressed the hope that it will happen by the end of this year or at the latest by the first half of 2009. His expectation may be a bit optimistic.

IN ITALY, GYPSY CHILDREN TO GET CITIZENSHIP. All children born in Italy's Gypsy (now usually called Roma) camps will be given “humanitarian” citizenship, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said on July 21, according to the news agency ANSA. Maroni, the originator of the much-criticized scheme to fingerprint camp occupants, called identity “the primary right of a child, any child.” It is unclear what the citizenship means and how its delivery will be implemented.

Many of the children in Roma camps have not been registered as citizens even though they were born in Italy, he noted. Maroni, a leader in the right-wing Northern League, defended himself from charges of discriminating against Roma. He said the fate of the children in the camps was often ''tragic'' and ''some of them are used in organ trafficking.'' The minister reiterated that the census of camps was not aimed against any specific ethnic group or spurred by anti-immigrant feeling.

The European Parliament, human rights groups, and the Romanian government have protested Moroni’s fingerprinting campaign. The Italian government relented, agreeing with the European Union (EU) to make sure the scheme complies with human rights norms. Italy is set to answer EU inquiries by the end of the month. It also announced it would require all citizens to have their prints put on ID cards starting in 2010. The Council of Europe (CE), Europe's human rights body, said that Italian politicians lacked ''the moral leadership'' to face down the kind of anti-Gypsy sentiment that led to incidents such as the torching of camps in Naples a month ago. CE Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg said that ''the entire Roma community was turned into a scapegoat for crimes committed by very few people.''

* * * QUOTE OF THE WEEK, THE FUTILITY OF WAITING FOR A PRO-WEST LEADER * * * “Waiting for a liberal and pro-Western Godot in the Kremlin is a losing proposition,” wrote Dmitry Trenin, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and deputy director of its Moscow Center, in “The Moscow Times” of July 21. “And hoping that a dramatic plunge of the oil price would finally bring Russia to its senses is not any more promising. But a modernized Russia is more likely to emerge as a capable competitor than pliant partner.”

A NEW CAMPAIGN AGAINST JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA
Actions Taken in Several Cities and Articles in the Press Suggest a Coordinated Attack

Within one month, prosecutors in three cities--Asbest, Murmansk, and Taganrog--have taken actions targeting Jehovah's Witnesses, suggesting that their efforts are part of a coordinated campaign.

1. INCITEMENT OF RELIGIOUS HATRED CHARGED. Prosecutors in Asbest (Sverdlovsk Region) charged local Jehovah's Witnesses with inciting religious hatred and have asked a court to brand their publications extremist materials, according to a June 24 report by Interfax. Investigators determined that the publications present a negative image of the country’s dominant Russian Orthodox Church.

On July 10 in Taganrog, local prosecutors launched a court case aimed at banning the Jehovah's Witnesses there, using anti-extremism laws as the basis for their claim, the Sova Information-Analytical Center reported on July 18. Last year, the local Prosecutor's Office issued two warnings to the leader of the Taganrog Jehovah's Witnesses congregation for "extremism" after consulting an "expert" who claimed that Jehovah's Witnesses incite religious hatred in their publications.

On July 18, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported that prosecutors in Murmansk issued a warning to the owners of a stadium that rented their premises to Jehovah's Witnesses for a religious event. Prosecutors argued that stadiums are only meant for sports.

Legal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses have become more frequent in Russia after a Moscow District court outlawed them on spurious charges in 2004. But this summer, prosecutors have opened a new legal front against them by making use of anti-incitement and anti-extremism laws.

2. REGIONAL NEWSPAPERS DEMONIZE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES. UCSJ research has also located articles in the local newspapers of four regions that demonize Jehovah's Witnesses, including a sensational account that accuses them of kidnapping a man from within a Russian Orthodox Church in Elista, capital of the Republic of Kalmykia. Whatever the truth behind this account, which was published in the republic's major papers as well as papers beyond the region, its timing recalls Soviet-style propaganda campaigns featuring sweeping accusations against "enemies of the people."

In an article titled "Poisoners of Minds," the Yekaterinburg paper "Uralsky Rabochy" dated July 22 opened by warning that: "A religious fanatic with a rifle on a rooftop can take the lives of several dozen people. And if he gets his hands on a nuclear power station--the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people." The next paragraph began with quotations from Jehovah's Witnesses literature that proclaims that faith superior to other "false religions" and predicts an apocalypse that will consume the followers of other faiths. While the author admits that most religions contain similar tenets, he sees a threat in the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses who supposedly inspire followers to "hasten God's punishment" by "grabbing a rifle." “But should we let things get to this point?” the article noted. “Wouldn't it be simpler to deal with these 'poisoners of minds' before it's too late?

On July 23, the Vladimir supplement to the national daily "Moskovsky Komsomolets" ran an article that began with a biblical quote warning about false prophets. The writer claimed that “sects” have abused several friends and acquaintances identified only by their first names, making it impossible to verify their accounts. He lumped dangerous groups like the Japanese death cult Aum Shinrikyo with Jehovah's Witnesses and others under the rubric of "sects" which he defined as "destructive religious trends” led, as a rule, but one leader or two “who have unquestioned authority within the group and power over its believers." The writer claims that the sects’ ultimate goal is “control over many, and ideally, over all spheres of a person's life" using hypnosis and drugs. "Many sects, like the Unification Church of Rev. Moon, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Scientologists of Ron Hubbard, and others are in fact huge commercial and financial 'empires' that aim to acquire power over the whole world," the article said.

3. AUTHORITIES BLOCK JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES MEETINGS. "The authorities have prevented eight Jehovah's Witness congresses from taking place so far this summer while about 30 have gone ahead despite official attempts to obstruct them, Marina Topuriya of the Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service on July 22. It appears that the FSB security service, local administrations, and Prosecutor's Offices have all been involved.

Congresses in Kemerovo and Kirov scheduled to begin on July 25 are the latest to be abruptly cancelled. "We suspect [the moves are] coordinated because everywhere the methods are the same," Topuriya noted. "It's difficult to say where the wind is blowing from. But we can see the results."

In Moscow, the FSB (heir to the KGB) refused to discuss with Forum 18 their role in the cancellations.

Forum 18 quoted religious freedom lawyer Anatoli Pchelintsev of the Moscow-based Slavic Center for Law and Justice, as saying: "I feel [the authorities] want to close down the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, though of course they physically couldn't do this." He pointed out that while other religious communities face obstruction from the authorities, the Jehovah's Witnesses currently face the most serious problems.

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