The December 2007 (issue #49) edition of the newspaper "Zavtra" ("Tomorrow") published an open letter to President Putin from some of Russia's most notorious purveyors of hate speech against Jews and other minorities. The letter is signed by Academician Igor Shavarevich, former Duma deputies Yuri and Andrei Saveliev, Igor Rodionov, Victor Alksnis, and the chief editors of the nationalistic newspapers "Russky Vestnik" (A. Senin), "Patriot" (M. Zemskov), "Nasha Tribuna" (V. Gryaznov), "Duel" (Yu. Mukhin), the magazine "Grazhdanin" (N. Krivomazov), and the writers V. Khatushin, M. Lubomudrov, V.Galaktionova, N. Kartasheva, and L. Kornilov.

The authors of the letter demanded the repeal of Article 282 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits the incitement of ethnic or religious hatred. Below are several extracts from their letter.

"Mister President: in spite of the Russian constitution claiming rights and freedoms, the guarantor of which you are, the regime of anti-Russian totalitarianism is established, the genocide of the Russian people (who make up 82 % of Russian population in the country) is growing, and its catastrophic depopulation continues. Everybody who raises his voice in support of Russian people is thrown behinds bars using Article 282... The prisons again are filled with political prisoners. "

Then the authors of the letter presented a long list of people accused and sentenced for hate and speech crimes, including the well known chauvinists as V. Korchagin, I. Terekhov, K. Dushenov, I. Kolodezenko, O. Kitter, T. Andreeva, Yu. Shutov, S. Putintsev and some others. Also authors wrote about an explosion in the office of the newspaper "Russky Vestnik", about a fire in the office of the newspaper "Patriot", about official sanctions against the newspapers "Duel", "Za Russkoye Delo", "Russkaya Sibir", the radio-stations "Slovo", "Pravoslavnoye Radio of Petersburg", "Narodnoye Radio", about some newspapers received notices about their closing - the Publishing House "Algoritm", the newspapers "Zavtra", "Otchizna", "Novy Peterburg", "Volzhskaya Zarya"; Publishing Houses "Peresvet", "Belye Alvy"and about how the books of Yu. Petukhov, B. Mironov, O. Platonov were banned by Prosecutor Office.

The authors of the letter to President Putin wrote that this list of prosecutions under Article 282 is far for being full. "Article 282 has become a guillotine for Russian patriots, an executioner's axe in the hands of the haters of the Russian people. A mafia pushed this article into the Criminal Code in order to stop publicity of its crimes. This is absolutely an illegal article, because it contradicts to Russian Constitution, Universal UN Declaration on Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights and Main Freedoms, International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights signed by our country. We demand the revocation of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code that contributes to the genocide of the Russian people. We require the immediate releasing of writers and journalists that became political prisoners in Russia".

It is a pity that the authors of this letter pretend not to understand what the significance of hate crimes and hate speech that are sweeping the country. I doubt that they do not understand the terrible xenophobia that the above mentioned authors and newspapers disseminate. I also doubt that they did read properly the Russian Constitution and International Human Rights documents that they mentioned. Their activity and their open letter have a provocative and abusive character.

Technorati Tags: