Moscow NGOs Respond with Coalition Against Hate

In a conference of 75-to-80 human rights NGOs and their leaders in Moscow to discuss the negative rule of law implications of religious discrimination and "Hate Speech, Xenophobia and Antisemitism in Russia, Century 21," the discussion became further animated because, coincidentally, it came a day after Vladimir Putin's rant against America at the Munich international security conference.

The meeting was called in part to continue NGO planning to organize the first-ever bi-lingual, interactive human rights blog for Russia (and, soon, Ukraine and Belarus): Coalitionagainsthate.org, and an international NGO human rights monitoring coalition of the same name (Coalition Against Hate).

• "Our coalition's blog and new strategy has become even more important since yesterday because of Putin's aggressive anti-American speech in Munich," one leader noted as the conference began, on February 8 at the Central House of Journalists, a traditional Moscow venue for human rights meetings and press conferences.

Nearly 80 leaders participated in the roundtable-style conference that included journalists, human rights activists, sociologists, UCSJ/MHG monitors, and other specialists. Many have widely disparate human rights interests and programs but all shared a common concern for the impunity of hate crimes and propaganda, including interference with the religious practices of non-Orthodox confessions. Such concerns were broadly seen as symptomatic of Russia's increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional justice system and the Kremlin's ratcheting up of intimidation of NGOs, journalists and other independent truth tellers.

• According to Dr. Leonid Stonov of Chicago, one of the meeting's participants and coordinator of UCSJ's human rights offices in the former Soviet Union, it was commonly noted that Putin's "anti-American form of xenophobia is emblematic of today's political and social life in Russia." Another participant, speaking for many, opined that it was "a pre-election propagandistic speech for the dissemination of anti-American rhetoric and for claiming a new era for restoring the strength of Russia – part of the run-up to the up-coming election season." [Municipal elections beginning March 2007; national Duma, December 2007; presidential in March 2008.] There was a sense of common expectation here that, as one participant put it, "We think Putin may well be preparing to run for a [presently un-Constitutional] third term. As he foreshadowed in his speech, "many people – even some Western leaders – have asked [him] to run in the interest of Russian stability and progress."

The roundtable conference was arranged around several related topics:

• Kondopoga, the anti-Georgian xenophobic campaign.
• Highlights of Russian human rights events in the press, 2006.
• Why Nationalism has become attractive today.
• The "Russian Project," initiated recently by many Duma deputies from United Russia, LDPR and KPRF.
• Hate crimes and hate speech in the context of the Coalition Against Hate, a key discussion organized by the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) and the Washington-based UCSJ.

Concerning anti-Georgian xenophobia, it was noted that before September 2006, Georgian nationals were popular media figures and commentators in Russia; after Konodopoga, the number of Russians against "hate speeches" decreased to 45% from 66%. Concern was raised about the need to oppose "extremism" carefully, since the government has a tendency to include in this rubric human rights activists and democrats. There was a lengthy discussion of the positive impression of nationalist participants in TV discussion programs compared to weak impressions of democrats. The Levada Center cited recent public opinion sampling: "60—65% of Russians support so-called "soft" nationalism; 78% consider that the country is surrounded by enemies" – both consistent with the Kremlin refrain.

• All participants stressed the importance of the struggle against xenophobia (including antisemitism) and the language of hatred; all "criticized the authorities for not only indifference to these provocations, but too often their role in stimulating xenophobia and political extremism," according to notes taken at the meeting.

According to MHG and UCSJ leaders, including MHG's Ludmilla Alexeeva and Daniel Meshcheryakov, the Blog serves a number of important purposes. It will improve the quality and coverage of human rights monitoring across Russia (and into Ukraine and Belarus), it will decentralize the monitoring networks as further protection against the interference and intimidation of NGOs by the government, which has enacted potential oversight controls [not yet imposed draconically against domestic ones] and accused "foreign" NGOs of being spies and traitors. The participating NGOs will not only post information and opinion on the new blog; monitors in the networks, and the general public as well, will be invited to respond by publishing "comments."

• "The Blog will become the central address or bulletin board, internationally, for information about these human rights subjects, the behavior of governments as well as perpetrators, the activities of Coalition Against Hate members of the coalition, monitors, media and the general public in the former Soviet Union and abroad," said Micah Naftalin, national director of UCSJ, from Washington. The blog, administered (but not controlled) by UCSJ on behalf of all, will be linked to the websites of each participating NGO.

Participants at the Moscow conference, many of whom have already joined the Coalition Against Hate, included: A. Verkhovskii and G. Kozhevnikova, SOVA agency; Yu. Dzhibladze, Center for Developing Democracy and Human Rights; T. Lokshina, Center for Building Institutions of Civil Society "Demos;" O. Panfilov, Center for Journalism on Extreme Conditions; A. Vinnikov, Institute of Regional Press, St. Petersburg; S. Ganushkina, Civil support Organization for Migrants; Andrei Yurov and Aleksei Kozlov, Youth Human Rights Movement and Youth Network Against Racism; Rabbi Zinovii Kogan, Keroor; A. Pchelintsev and "V. Riakhovskii, of the Institute of Religion and Rights (protective of Roman Catholics and Protestants; Professor Emil Pain, chair, Center for Studying Xenophobia and Problems of Extremism, the Russian Academy of Science Sociology Institute, and Russian Anti-Fascist Front; Boris Dubin, Levada Center., Other participants not attending the meeting included Lev Ponomarev, For Human Rights org.; and Father Gleb Yakunin, Committee for Freedom of Conscience.

At Munich, according to the February 13 Washington Post lead editorial, "Mr. Putin's Vision," Mr. Putin, "with astonishing nerve," claimed that the United States had "over-stepped its national borders in every way ... in the economic, political and cultural policies it imposes on other nations." ... "Mr. Putin suggested that the United States was responsible for ‘a greater and greater disdain for the principles of international law,' and that consequently ‘no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them.'...The Russian president also said that U.S. policy ‘stimulates an arms race.' Minutes later he breezily acknowledged that Russia" is developing a new intercontinental missile, recently supplied to ran with new air defense missiles, antitank missiles to Syria that were used last summer by Hezbollah against Israel, and is finalizing a sale to Saudi Arabia of 150 Russian T-90k tanks as well as offered them nuclear technology.

"Mr. Putin, who has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a 'catastrophe,' spoke nostalgically about the Cold War. It was a fragile and frightening peace, ‘But...it was reliable enough. Today it seems that the peace is not so reliable.... "Now, Putin asserted, the United States will be 'afraid to make an extra step without consulting.' That, anyway, is Vladimir Putin's clearly stated ambition." Further, the Post noted, "Mr. Putin may also have been seeking to preempt criticism of himself by European governments that have grown increasingly disenchanted with his regime."

Well said. But, as the Post notes, neither Western diplomacy nor the economic influence of foreign trade and investment have undermined Mr. Putin's confidence or "astonishing nerve." With no serious requirement of accountability at home he is empowered in his transgressions abroad. It will take the mobilization of international public advocacy in support of the courageous and embattled human rights NGOs at home to accomplish what happened to the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago, and what Putin most clearly fears today from political opposition and independent truth tellers.

As in the past, it is a dangerous game to appease a strong man. The public voices of Western concerns for religious freedom and human rights must join with our Russian colleagues in our Coalition Against Hate to hold Mr. Putin's Russia accountable to the international norms of human rights, rule of law and democracy.

Micah H. Naftalin
National Director
UCSJ
Washington, D.C.

Sharansky, Jerusalem Post praise MHG, UCSJ

In a related development, Haviv Rettig of the Jerusalem Post reported on February 10 that "Two human rights monitoring groups operating in the former Soviet Union, the Washington-based Union of Councils for Jews from the former Soviet Union (UCSJ) and the Moscow-based Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), have been jointly nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

"The two groups, formed in 1970 and 1976 respectively, were at the forefront of the struggle to free Soviet Jewry, and advanced human rights in the country throughout the 1970s and 1980s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the groups transformed into monitoring organizations that keep a close watch on human rights in the FSU.

"While the Nobel nomination comes for the two groups' past successes in advocating for Soviet Jewish refuseniks and human rights generally in areas under Soviet influence, it also seeks to shine the spotlight on the troubles human rights NGOs are currently experiencing in the FSU.

"Reached by phone, UCSJ president and author of the popular Peoplehood.org blog, Yossi Abramowitz, told the Post this week that the two organizations were "putting up a good fight" to attempts by Russian authorities to discredit and limit the actions of NGOs in Russia.

"This was evidenced most recently by the claim of Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev that there was a "sharp increase" of foreign spies working under the auspices of international NGOs operating in Russia.

"Over the past few years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been widely criticized for measures seen as "anti-democratic" by some, including the cancellation of the popular election of regional governors and reported persecution of journalists who come out strongly against government policy.

"'[The blog and coalition represents] an important and good initiative,' said Natan Sharansky, one of the founders of the MHG and - as he puts it jokingly - a "beneficiary" of the UCSJ's activism during his time in prison.

"'There's no doubt these groups played a central role in advancing the release [of prisoners in the Soviet Union],' he continued, saying the ‘two organizations conducted grass-roots activism, each in its own way.'"

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