Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=12/17/02

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=YNDR: RUSSIA / EXTREMISM

NUMBER=5-52749

BYLINE=LISA McADAMS

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A major human rights report, released in the second half of the year, says racist attacks are on the rise across Russia. The problem is well-known to the Russian government. In an effort to combat hate crimes, President Putin signed into law an anti-extremism bill in July. VOA's Lisa McAdams examines the problem and the prospects for the future.

TEXT: Nearly every month in Russia, the media carry at least one report, and often more, about yet another racist attack in Russia. Many of the attacks occur in the capital, Moscow, but authorities say neo-Nazi skinheads and extremists are increasingly turning up in cities where they never existed before.

According to official statistics released this year, some 10-thousand Russians, many of them young people, are members of neo-Nazi groups.

President Putin has urged police to pay more attention to preventing the spread of inter-ethnic clashes following last year's rampage at a Moscow street market, during which several hundred skinheads armed with metal rods killed three dark-skinned traders and wounded 40 others. But the attacks continue.

/// OPT /// One of the most serious incidents took place in July, when a crowd of Russians went on a rampage in a town outside Moscow, severely beating at least twelve Armenians. The attack occurred a day after an Armenian wounded a Russian in a bar fight. Four months earlier, an Afghan interpreter was stabbed to death by skinheads.

Police do not keep separate statistics on racist and anti-semitic attacks in Russia, putting them together with other crimes under the category of "hooliganism." But experts warn the skinhead movement is gaining strength across the nation. ///END OPT///

This Chechen woman from Grozny, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, knows of the movement first-hand. She was attacked by six or seven skinheads who left her badly beaten and bruised. But she says she was more emotionally damaged by the fact that although there were many witnesses to the 15-minute attack, not a single person came to her aid.

/// CHECHEN WOMAN ACT IN RUSSIAN, EST AND FADE ///

The woman says the Russian government knows the problem all too well. But, in her words, the authorities don't do anything. She says no one makes any arrests or takes any punitive measures. She pauses a moment and adds, "We need Stalin times back."

/// OPT /// Her injuries were so severe, however, they did attract the attention of a human rights worker volunteering in her town outside Moscow. But despite the volunteer's offer of support, the victim says she decided against reporting the incident out of fear for herself and her three young children. She says she has absolutely no faith in anyone, after the attack, least of all the police.

Asked if she knew why she had been singled out, she said the answer was simple. She said her assailants, as they beat her, made clear they didn't like her because they considered her a foreigner.

Last July, amid rising concern about the increasing number and brazenness of the attacks, President Putin signed an anti-extremism law aimed at cracking down on the problem, which he said could have "disastrous" consequences for Russia, given the multi-ethnic make-up of the nation. /// END OPT ///

In a 400-page report released in October, The Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization, concluded that the most vulnerable ethnic groups are Chechens, gypsies, Jews and Meskhetian Turks.

Yury Dzhibladze is the head of another human rights group - The Center of Development of Democracy and Human Rights in Russia. Mr. Dzhibladze says he believes Meskhetian Turks, most of whom reside in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, face the biggest threat.

The Meskhetian-Turks hail from Georgia, but Stalin relocated them to Central Asia in 1944.

/// DZHIBLADZE ACT ///

This year we witnessed a growing campaign aimed at their expulsion from the region. They are physically forced from the agricultural fields where they work by special police groups and para-military cossack groups strongly supported by the regional authorities. They are not allowed to sell their agricultural products on the market. This year they are facing discrimination in health care and in schools.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Dzhibladze says as shocking as the treatment is, he is not surprised considering that the state-controlled media describe the Meskhetian Turks as being "Turkish spies" or a people originating from a so-called "criminal nation." /// OPT /// Even the Governor of Krasnodar has openly stated Turks are unwelcome, Mr. Dzhibladze adds.

He says the situation is only likely to worsen, with officials in Krasnodar now saying that as of December they will no longer extend the three-month temporary residence permits of the Meskhetian Turks, as has been long-standing practice. /// END OPT ///

Mr. Dzhibladze says it also appears as if Russian authorities are seeking to portray the problem of extremism as involving only Islamic extremists. That way, he says, they can fit it into a general picture of Russia's overall struggle against so-called "terrorists," particularly in Chechnya. But Mr. Dzhibladze maintains the matter is far more complex, with the Russian government in his view - implicated in the problem.

/// 2nd DZHIBLADZE ACT ///

The state prefers to describe the situation as if there are some marginal skinhead groups that are difficult to combat while the problem is really much deeper, in that the state itself is as much a part of the discrimination, starting with the police, the prosecutors, the courts and local administrators.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Dzhibladze blames the Russian authorities for at least some of the discrimination and harassment carried out against ethnic minorities in Russia. He says their failure to crack down hard against it has sent a signal that such action is acceptable.

He says the message then carries over into the general public.

Seventeen-year-old Liza Smirnova lives near a street market in Moscow that she says has more the feeling of an oriental or eastern bazaar than a Russian market. She says her mother often warns her to come home early, fearing she may be attacked by one of the traders. But Liza wonders why she should be afraid in her own country.

/// SMIRNOVA ACT IN RUSSIAN, EST. AND FADE ///

Ms. Smirnova says she has a feeling that one morning she will buy a gun and, in her words, "shoot all these blacks" - a racist nickname many Russians use for dark-skinned people.

"I am not a Nazi," Liza adds, "I am a patriot."

/// OPT /// Mr. Dzhibladze maintains that in order for the situation to improve, the Russian government must first openly acknowledge that there is a problem with racism and extremism in Russia. He says the government must then work to change its policies, especially at the state and local level. /// END OPT ///

The Moscow Helsinki Report also places the blame for the growth of racism and extremism in the country squarely on the Russian government.

Russian interior ministry officials declined to respond to the charges, as did several other federal agencies contacted by VOA.

However, in a recent round-table discussion, the minister for national affairs of the Russian Federation - Vladimir Zorin --- is quoted as having said that religious extremism is the prime danger facing Russia at this time.

/// REST OPT /// He says amending laws is definitely important. But he says the Russian government will never be able to solve the problem of extremism alone. According to Mr. Zorin, the effort will only bear fruit with close cooperation between civil, public and religious organizations. (Signed)

NEB/LAM/KL/FC