Today's "Washington Post" ran a letter to the editor I sent in regarding the Russian government's crackdown on foreign NGOs. I argue in the letter that "The Kremlin's real goal is probably not to expel foreign human rights groups, a step that would irreparably tarnish Russia's international image, but to intimidate them into self-censorship."

I did not pick the title the Post placed over the letter, which is a little misleading. The Kremlin's crackdown in subtle, not "soft", which is not the same thing (you wouldn't want to buy "subtle toilet paper" or be accused of having a "soft mind", right?).

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The Washington Post reports that yesterday Russia forced 90 foreign grassroots human rights and other nongovernmental organizations to cease all activity until they meet cumbersome corporate registration requirements.

Is this but the first shoe to drop?

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In a call-in tv show on Wednesday, October 25, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed he would honor the Constitution and not seek re-election, according to the Moscow Times. Saying he would nonetheless "retain influence," he highlighted corruption as Russia's chief domestic problem, and agreed that improving the justice system was required to properly address mounting hate crimes.

Here are some reasons why we think there must be radical reform, reasons we will not miss Putin:

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I gave a talk at Harvard's Davis Center for Russian Studies last week. Check it out here.

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"Russia is going through rapid growth of aggressive Russian nationalism." So reports Alexander Verkhovsky and Galina Kozhevnikova of the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analyis in its October 12 report on Hate Crimes in Russia. SOVA is a member of Coalition Against Hate, administered by UCSJ.

And this spells "trouble for the multi-ethnic federation," said Nickolai Butkevich...

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Assessing Russia's Impunity of Hate and Intimidation

If one were to bracket the period from Mikhail Khodorkovsky's political arrest three years ago, to last week's assassination of Moscow independent journalist Anna Politkovskaya, we find the breakdown of rule of law and free speech in Russia, without which democracy cannot stand. Putin's brand of democracy has morphed into a Soviet-style climate of hate and intimidation targeting peaceful dissenters, human rights and religious freedom NGOs and their monitors and activists, and other truth tellers, especially independent journalists.

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Ponomaryov is yet another "good guy" who was nailed under Russia's new crack down on human rights organizations. From our press release:

This arrest is an inexcusable violation of international norms and guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly. It is an extremely disturbing example of the Russian Federation's continuing efforts to intimidate the human rights community, which includes a harsh new law on registration of NGOs.

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Today our Bigotry Monitor was cited in another Blog. It's great that this newsletter is getting more and more attention.

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This blog, presented in Russian and English language formats, is dedicated to providing monitoring-based facts, analysis, commentary and opinion, as well as receiving responsive comments from the public, concerning the corruption and dysfunction of rule of law in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.

We give prime emphasis to two indices that we find especially useful in tracking and assessing the breakdown of the justice system:

• the extent of religious persecution and discrimination; and
• the virtual impunity of antisemitic and xenophobic violence and propaganda, i.e., hate crimes.

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