At the initiation of UCSJ and the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Coalition Against Hate is the online voice of a powerful and unique grassroots monitoring and advocacy coalition comprising a number of cooperating human rights and religious freedom NGOs in the former Soviet Union. Our mission is to document objective monitoring-based facts, incident reports, analysis, and op-ed-style opinions, posted by coalition leaders. These items will be documented in English, and soon, in Russian. Our subject matter will be limited to a discrete focus on the following key indices of rule of law in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union:

• the impunity of hate crimes across the former Soviet Union, especially antisemitic and xenophobic violence and propaganda;
• religious discrimination and/or persecution of so-called "minority" faiths, e.g., Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Muslims; and
• the plight of political prisoners and activists increasingly subjected to intimidation, including human rights NGO leaders, independent journalists and western-oriented and un-cowed business leaders, such as Yukos Oil's Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Our blog encourages active responses from monitors, activists and commentators from across the former Soviet Union and the West. As a result, this coalition provides a unique and strong foundation for collecting and disseminating information and opinion. It reaches a broader audience than the coalition partners could reach on their own--from other bloggers to various governments world-wide. This mission is essential because governments and diplomacy alone cannot accomplish civil society reforms in the countries of the former Soviet Union; what is required is a complementary activity of the NGO community.

Here are some voices that complement our mission:

"The idea that the Russian authorities would be targeting liberal journalists and human rights activists as enemies who need to be silenced should be of the utmost concern to the United States and Europe, which still seem to regard Russia as a responsible partner." - Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, opining on the "escalation of attacks on human rights defenders and critics of Russian policies..." such as the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya (Washingtonpost.com).

"The struggle against extremism and intolerance requires the efforts of every society, faith and agent of human dignity." - Zeid Raad Zeid Al-Hussein, Jordan's ambassador to the United Nations and a failed candidate for General Secretary, discussing the need for U.N. priorities worldwide.

The current participating and pending NGOs are: UCSJ, Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial, SOVA Center, Russian Anti-Fascism Front, Committee on Freedom of Conscience, Institute of Freedom of Conscience, KEROOR: Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities, Youth Network Against Racism and Intolerance, Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights, Belarus Helsinki Committee.

A full description of these NGOs is available on our About Us page. Please look for additional NGOs to be added as the project continues.