#8
MSNBC
August 8, 2002
Russia cracks down on hate
Controversial law aims to fight neo-Nazi violence
By Ursula Owre Masterson

As the U.S. fights its “war on terrorism” overseas, Russia is battling a different terror in its own backyard: Neo-Nazi extremism. This week, five young skinheads are being tried in Moscow for allegedly taking part in a bloody rampage last fall. Their trial is likely to be held up as an example in a new crackdown on hate lead by President Vladimir Putin. But human rights groups worry that a new anti-extremism law will be an even greater threat to minorities and freedom of speech than the extremism its meant to combat.

“RUSSIA FOR RUSSIANS” is the slogan used by a growing group of disenfranchised youth, whose hatred and aggression is targeted primarily at Caucuses natives, foreigners from the East and Jews — people they see as undermining Russian culture and taking Russian jobs.

According to victims of the deadly rampage through an outdoor market last October, the nationalistic battle cry is what some 150 skinheads chanted as they tore through stalls, beating 30 tradespeople and bludgeoning three to death.

Human rights activists estimate there are as many as 7000 skinheads in Moscow alone, double the number of just a year ago.

While there are a few well-organized groups, most belong to loose-knit bands of teens based in outlying neighborhoods. At night, they drink beer and hunt for victims.

ANTI-SEMITIC BOOBY TRAPS

Although the market rampage was the most publicized, ethnic violence occurs nearly every week in Russia. At the end of July, police made dozens of arrests after a large gang clashed with police and smashed cars while making Hitler-type salutes at a rock concert. A series of booby-trapped anti-Semitic signs with slogans like “Death to Yids” has all but paralyzed the Jewish community since a young woman was seriously injured in May, when she tried to remove a sign that exploded in her face.

It’s this sharp rise in xenophobic violence that has prompted the Russian government to take dramatic action. In June, a controversial anti-extremism bill was rushed through parliament and later signed by Putin. “We will not see any extremism in Russia,” he declared in a recent national address in support of the law.

Even former President Yeltsin has chimed in, warning Russia in a television address marking the 57th anniversary of the Nazi invasion that the threat of far-right extremism and racism is “very real.”

ECHOES OF THE PAST?

The new bill allows the government to disband any parties or movements that have been identified as “extremist,” defining “extremist activity” as any steps that would undermine the Russian Constitution and national security. Kremlin officials say the law will be an important tool in the fight against racism.

But however much human rights groups and Jewish activists agree with the ends, a growing number are worried about the means. They say the law is too vague and sweeping, characteristics that make it ripe for abuse by authorities eager to stamp out political dissent.

“The spasm of violence against Jews and other minorities in Russia calls for response,” writes Pnina Levermore in a recent editorial for the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. “But the extremism law has disturbing echoes of a past Russia inhospitable to democracy and to the Jews.”

Levermore and other activists point out that Russia already has a law banning extremism: Article 282 of its Criminal Code, which prohibits actions that “incite ethnic, racial or religious hatred.”

The pre-existing Criminal Code needs to be implemented properly, they argue, and anything more is a formula for the institutionalized oppression of free speech.

DANGEROUSLY VAGUE

In Russia, religious organizations still have to register with the government, and the concern is that the new law could be used to deny registration to any organization whose activities aren’t to the authorities’ liking.

“If freedom of political and religious expression become casualties of this legislation, then Russia will be heading in the wrong direction,” says Levermore.

Anna Neistat, the director of Human Rights Watch’s office in Moscow, agrees: “In Russia, one should always worry not about the law, but about its implementation. The vague phrasing of a law can be used against political opposition and religious groups rather than extremists.”

But unlike various Jewish groups, which tend to see the new bill as an underhanded attempt at a return to institutionalized anti-Semitism and intolerance, Neistat gives the government the benefit of the doubt. “This was a public relations move more than anything,” she says. “I don’t think the new law was targeted against political opposition; the government simply wanted to show that it was acting properly.”

Nonetheless, she concludes, “The broad nature of the law, however well-intended, does raise the possibility that it could also be used to oppose any group that opposes the government — even in a peaceful way.”

MSNBC.com’s Ursula Owre Masterson was based in Moscow with NBC News for six years. She is currently based in New York. Reuters contributed to this report.

BACK TO THE TOP    #218 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE