Galina Kozhevnikova. Racists are not scared of the cold - or of the United Russia Party

Edited by A. Verkhovsky

Radical nationalist activity: Violence : Organized right-wing radicals' activity

Opposition to radical nationalism : NGO activities and spontaneous opposition : Lawmaking : Criminal prosecution of right-wing radicals : Antifascism as a political resource

Conclusions

This review is a follow-up to the series of publications started by the SOVA Center in the autumn of 2004. The article, as before, is based on the findings of our daily monitoring. All materials, except specifically indicated otherwise, can be accessed from our website at http://sova-center.ru

Radical nationalist activity

Violence

As before, key perpetrators of racist and neo-Nazi violence are skinheads. Between December 2005 and February 2006, they committed more than 40 attacks resulting in at least 91 victims, including 6 deaths; in 2006, there were 37 victims, including 4 deaths. In the winter of 2004/2005, six of the 73 victims died.

The number of victims




  December 2004 to
February 2005
December 2005 to
February 2006
Killed Beaten and woundedKilledBeaten and wounded
Total 6 676 91
Including:
Dark-skinned people0 10 1 11
People from Central Asia1 4 1 2
People from the Caucasus5 7 4 3
People from the Middle East and North Africa0 10 3
People from Asia-Pacific Region (China, Viet-Nam, Mongolia, etc.)0 210 4
Other people of "non-Slav appearance"0 9 0 12
Members of youth subcultures and leftist youth0 10 0 54
Others, or not known0 5 0 2


The most high-profile crime this winter was an attack against a Moscow synagogue by Alexander Koptsev, aged 21. To remind, in the evening of 11 January, he entered the synagogue armed with a hunter's knife and attacked the worshippers, yelling Anti-Semitic slogans. He injured nine people before he was contained, and it was by sheer luck that no one was killed. This crime elicited an outburst of debates on xenophobia in a diversity of audiences. Unfortunately, the outcome, rather than help the Russian society in overcoming racial and religious intolerance, led to further suppression of democratic freedoms in the country (see Antifascism as a political resource).

Another high-profile racist crime was the murder of African student Kanhem Leon in St. Petersburg on the New Year Eve. Once again, foreign students had to hold protest rallies to remind the government of Russia's "northern capital' that racism cannot be effectively addressed by mere declarations, but requires continuous attention and consistent efforts. Incidentally, in St. Petersburg we observe the degree of boldness and coordination unmatched by skinhead attacks in other cities; very often, racist attacks in St. Petersburg appear to be a 'response' to the law enforcement efforts.

Various informal youth groups are disproportionally victimized by skinhead attacks. The beating of "rastamans' on 5 February, Bob Marley's anniversary, had the strongest resonance. Attacks against the 'Black' music fans are a tradition on that day. This year, at least six people were injured in such attacks, including performers of such groups as Jah Division, Mighty House of Vibes and Jah Soldiers, and a few women. [1]

We can offer two explanations why informal youth groups prevail among victims of skinhead attacks: either members of youth subcultures (whom skinheads believe to be 'traitors of the white race') and leftist youth are indeed their priority target, or skinhead attacks against non-Slavs are reported less often. In fact, we find the latter reason more plausible if only because members of youth subcultures have a strong presence in the internet, and every attack against them, even though it may not be covered by the media, will be reported in the Web. This, in turn, makes one think that reports of other racist attacks are too common to be noticed by the press, unless it is a murder. It is possible that what we face here is a sort of misperception, where absence of reports of violence creates a false illusion of improvement. We can see even from the available sources that the number of victims is growing, even though this winter was extremely cold in Moscow - the epicenter of ethnic violence - which normally limits skinhead activity.

Notably, journalists in most cases cover "skinhead' attacks against foreigners from countries outside the former USSR, whereas incidents of people from NIS and non-Slav Russian citizens targeted by racists remain largely unreported.

Organized right-wing radicals' activity

While skinheads are not becoming less active, organized right-wing radicals, in contrast, were not so visible this winter - in contrast to their hyperactivity during the election campaign in Moscow (see below).

In winter, right-wing radicals focused more on organizing.

On 3 December 2005 the National Imperial Party (NDPR) held their regular congress and announced, inter alia, their plans to purchase weapons - following similar statements by the Union of Military Officers, the Movement against Illegal Migration (DPNI), and some others. The congress defined the main goal of the organization as registration as a political party to run for the 2007 parliamentary elections.

In winter, the Union of Russian People (incidentally, Vice Speaker of the State Duma Sergey Baburin is a member) set up its regional branches in St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, and Blagoveschensk. No new leaders emerged - rather, the local veterans of national-patriotic-Orthodox Christian- monarchist groups (such as Alexander Turik from Irkutsk and Anatoly Stepanov from St. Petersburg) took offices as heads of regional branches.

Also in winter, DPNI announced its plans to set up a regional chapter in Bryansk, but their attempt to do so at a congress of patriotic forces organized in Bryansk Oblast by SPAS, a local patriotic group, failed, because most participants were focused on restoring the former imperial glory of Russia/USSR, rather than fighting immigrants of non-Slav ethnicities.

Public actions organized by the right radicals last winter were limited to a few rallies calling for solutions to social problems. In Moscow, for example, they convened a rally and a :people's assembly; to protest against the installation of a monument to Geidar Aliev, a rally under the slogan Russians against Drugs; a picket to support anti-Israeli pronouncements by the Iranian President, etc. Notably, while the right-wing radicals had declared their intention to repeat :the right-wing march,; their recent events brought together as little as a few dozen to a few hundred (the anti-drug rally) participants, at least half of whom were the :mobilized; skinheads from Moscow Oblast and neighboring oblasts. The biggest scandal was the right-wing radicals' participation in a public event to mark February 23 - the Day of Fatherland Defender. The single column marching along the streets of Moscow included members of the Military Imperial Union (the group whose member is Colonel Kvachkov charged with attempted assassination of Anatoly Chubais), Rodina, the People's National Party (NNP), :non-affiliated" skinheads and radical soccer fans, plus Victor Cherepkov and his supporters.

Regional 'nationalist patriots' were fairly active, represented by local chapters of DPNI, NDPR, RNE and associated groups. Following the example of Moscow-based organizations, they actively joined social protests and the 23 February celebrations. Some attempted to organize their own rallies, traditionally small-scale (between 15 and 50 people). More active than others were right-wing radicals in Komi, headed by Yuri Yekishev, leader of the Union of National Revival.

Xenophobic leaflets continue to be disseminated in Russian cities, vandals attack places of worship and cemeteries, and cover wall with neo-Nazi graffiti.

There have been substantial changes in the right-wing radical segment of the Russian language internet. Extremist Web materials were part of the evidence in A. Koptsev's case, so the law enforcement authorities and some Russian legislators, on a number of occasions, expressed their intention to toughen control over the internet resources. Either these statements or some other factors or both caused right-wing radicals, starting in January, to modify the content of their Web pages, even those hosted by providers outside Russia. They removed some of the most odious content, such as videos of racist attacks or books by Nazi ideologists. DPNI even revamped its forum, adding an unambiguous :request not to bring matches and not to kindle..." - which initially astonished their supporters.

Right-wing radicals were at their most active during the election campaign in Moscow ending on 4 December, the date of additional elections to the State Duma and elections to the Moscow City Duma.

We have written a number of times about this election campaign, which apparently, will continue to be discussed for a while (see, for example, The Autumn March on Corpses [http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/698FBEA]). To avoid repetition, we will only highlight three important points.

Firstly, the elections demonstrated significant radicalization of electoral preferences in Moscow. In addition to the near-victory of Colonel Kvachkov who ran for the Duma under the slogan of :national liberation war against the alien power; and closely missed becoming an MP, losing a mere 7% to the United Russia Party candidate, we can mention the 4.18% won by leader of a dwarfish radical Russian Republic group Vladimir Popov (known for having claimed responsibility for the killing of Nikolai Girenko, although he was not really involved) - unprecedented success for this type, usually attracting very few votes.

Secondly, it has become obvious that right-wing radicals see elections as a perfect opportunity to engage legally in campaigning. A number of nationalist candidates may register for elections independently of each other, actively campaign, and then (if nothing unexpected happens), withdraw, leaving the strongest of them to carry on the campaign. It happened during the additional elections in Colonel Kvachkov's constituency. Another candidate was Alexei Nazarov supported by the National Socialist Society. His campaign featured some explicitly neo-Nazi rallies - as opposed to Kvachkov's campaign, which was more moderate and cautious. Just a couple of days before the vote, A. Nazarov withdrew from the elections in favor of Kvachkov.

Thirdly, the election campaign in Moscow was the first in the Russian history where a candidate party - namely the Rodina Party - was banned for xenophobic campaigning. However, while the Rodina Party was banned, LDPR engaging in similar campaigning was not found by court to be in violation of any rules, so, unfortunately, we conclude that that rather than anti-Nazi position of the Moscow Election Committee and the court, the ban shows an intent to remove a potential rival of the United Russia Party (proven by the fact that Rodina was banned from the 12 March elections virtually everywhere).

Similarly, the denial of registration to Colonel Kvachkov as candidate of Medvedkovsky electoral constituency No 196 for the 12 March elections raises a number of questions. The denial was based on formalistic and far-fetched claims that the candidate failed to formalize the deposit in accordance with the rules. We believe that this decision discredits the already weak institution of democratic elections in Russia and causes, in fact, more harm that the candidate's xenophobic campaigning. Incidentally, even at 'preparatory' stages, Kvachkov's campaigners used the pretext of collecting signatures to distribute xenophobic materials having very little to do with Colonel Kvachkov (such as the Union of Russian People bulletins).

Opposition to radical nationalism

NGO activities and spontaneous opposition

The most notable event aimed at overcoming the manifestations of radical nationalism and at raising awareness of this problem, was the 18 December 2005 Anti-fascist march in Moscow organized by a coalition of civic and political organizations. Around fifteen hundred people marched from Chistye Prudy to Lubyanka Square, where they held a meeting near the Solovetsky Rock.

Otherwise, the activity of non-governmental organizations, as a rule, remained in its usual confines of educational, awareness-raising, information and research projects. In early 2006, Russia's civil society was reporting on the outcomes of the previous year - in particular, the SOVA Center published its annual 2005 report on manifestations of radical nationalism and on efforts to oppose it in Russia.

We should probably regard as public opposition some statements and initiatives of the Public Chamber formed in end-2005. In January 2006, the Chamber supported the idea of toughening anti-extremist legislation and proposed compiling a list of :banned extremist literature.; Both statements, as we believe, demonstrate, on the one hand, the civic position of the members who condemn the outburst of xenophobic propaganda, but on the other hand, expose their incompetence in these issues, because everything they have proposed is already in the Russian legislation.

In February 2006, Valery Tishkov, chairman of the Public Chamber commission on tolerance and freedom of conscience, said that xenophobic politicians should be :denied publicity.; This proposal stems from the best of intentions and can be regarded as a call for public opposition - in this case, by mass media. The Public Chamber cannot interfere with the media freedom, and does not have (yet?) any mechanisms available to enforce its decisions. In fact, Russian laws provide for sanctions against media for incitation of racial hatred, and it is unlikely that the Chamber can make any difference in the law enforcement practice in this sphere.

As far as we understand, the Public Chamber intends to propose to the government a program of fighting extremism. This program is being drafted, and we should know more about its content after the Chamber's meeting scheduled on 14 April.

There have been some instances of violent opposition to ethno-nationalist manifestations. The TV recording of a popular talk show Two vs. One with participation of Konstantin Borovoy on 16 February ended in a scandal. Unfortunately, we are not sure what exactly happened in the TV studio. [2] We know, however, that the talk show hosts frequently make ethno-nationalist comments (targeting mainly Jews and people from the Caucasus). At some point, Mr. Borovoy yelled, "What you are saying is real Russian fascism,; jumped from his chair and rushed to hit the TV host, but missed and fell down. Some people say that the fight continued after the recording stopped. Nevertheless, both parties later said that they did not hold any grudges against each other.

Massive fights between skinheads and leftist youth groups have become more frequent (should not be confused with organized skinhead attacks against followers of various youth subcultures). Not infrequently, such incidents are provoked by the leftists. We need to reaffirm here that whatever the reasons behind the attacks, they are illegal, just as skinhead attacks, and only lead to escalation of violence, often victimizing innocent bystanders. We know of two such episodes in winter 2005/2006. On 16 December 2005, a group of radical anti-fascists organized an attack against the audience of the Iron March festival featuring the Corrosion of Metal group - indeed, very popular among the neo-Nazi, but among others as well - in R-Club in Moscow. Massive fighting started, where most victims were members of the audience with little or no relation to neo-Nazi. One of the attackers, a 19-year-old anti-fascist activist, was hospitalized with head injuries on the day after the fight (it was reported earlier that the young boy died, but in fact he survived). The second incident took place on 22 January, 2006, in Paveletskaya-Ring Metro Station in Moscow, where leftist anti-fascists attacked skinheads going to "their' concert. As opposed to the December incident, no bystanders were affected, and only members of the fighting groups were injured.

Lawmaking

The attack against worshippers in a Moscow synagogue on 11 January boosted the discussion about the need to strengthen anti-extremist legislation in Russia. As a result, by end-January 2006, the Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Commercial [Arbitration] and Procedural Legislation designed a draft law amending the current provisions in this sphere. Unfortunately, the draft does not stand criticism. The main themes of this apparently rushed document are increased control and tougher punishments, in particular, for dissemination of extremist materials, including dissemination through the internet. However, the draft law does not only fail to clarify what is meant by "extremist materials," but also fails to take into account the existing jurisprudence under the criminal provisions it proposes to amend. Experts have repeatedly pointed out the fact that the problem is not that punishments are too mild, but that the provisions are poorly worded and hardly ever applied.

The only positive innovation in the draft law is the provision establishing administrative penalties namely fines, imposed on media companies and/or chief editors for publishing xenophobic materials. Until now, the only way to punish a media outlet was to close it; this inappropriately tough penalty discouraged the courts from ever applying the provision. [3]

Criminal prosecution of right-wing radicals

In winter 2005/2006 two violent hate crime trials were completed, including the trials of two skinhead gangs in St. Petersburg (Schultz-88 and Mad Crowd, on 9 and 14 December 2005, respectively) and the trial of youngsters charged with a violent attack against women-archers from Buryatia in 2004.

The three sentences passed in winter run counter to the positive practice of punishing for violent hate crimes developed in 2005 (to remind, before these sentences, only two of approximately 45 perpetrators received conditional sentences, and those who did were under 18). Analysis of racist attacks and corresponding sentences (even though the attacks may not be regarded by law enforcement authorities as racist) shows that conditional sentences to not deter skinheads from continuing their criminal activity. Moreover, conditional sentences breed impunity.

The high-profile Schultz-88 trial apparently meant to serve as a model, but only one defendant - the group leader Dmitry Bobrov - was sentenced to 6 years of prison, while his three :followers; got conditional sentences. A week later, three out of five Mad Crowd members were sentenced to terms between one and three years in a settlement colony. Another 'supporter' was sentenced to a conditional punishment, but because he committed the crime while serving another conditional sentence passed in 2003, this time he was sentenced to 2 years of settlement colony. Another defendant was acquitted due to lack of evidence against him. Given that in both cases criminal charges included a number of violent attacks, the judgments are strikingly "humane'. Besides, due to excessive length of investigation, both trials lifted charges against the defendants for participation in extremist community (part 2 art. 2821) due to expired statute of limitations.

The third sentence taking the hate motive into account was passed on 13 January 2006 in Oryol, and following a rejected appeal entered into force on 1 March. Similarly to the cases of St. Petersburg skinheads, the trial lasted almost two years. The five attackers were charged under part 2, par. "a', art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitation of hatred committed publicly and involving the use of violence), and art. 111 (inflicting serious damage to health). To remind, on 27 February 2004, about fifteen skinheads attacked and beat archers - athletes from Chita and Buryatia, so that one young woman had to be hospitalized with serious injuries. Five attackers faced trial; three out of them received between three and four years of general regime colony, and two others received probational terms. This sentence, like a number of others passed earlier, is notable for the fact that art. 111 of the Criminal Code under which the defendants were charged already contained an aggravating motive of racial hatred, but the prosecutor, for some reason, chose to bring charges under art. 282, although it punishes for propaganda of hatred (also in conjunction with threats or use of violence), rather than 'ordinary' hate crimes.

Nevertheless, Russian prosecutors gradually learn how to address such crimes, and charges are increasingly appropriate from the legal perspective. We regard a recent trial in Voronezh an important sign of progress. In winter 2006, thirteen men faced trial for the murder of a student from Peru. One of the defendants was charged under art. 105 part 2 par. "d' and "l' (murder with extreme cruelty motivated by ethnic and racial hatred) and art. 213 ("hooliganism'), and three were charged under art. 161 part 2 (robbery) and art. 213 part 2 ("hooliganism'). The rest were charged only under art. 213. However, all defendants, except the one charged with murder, had the aggravating circumstance of ethnic and racial hatred taken into account in sentencing - i.e. art. 63, part 1 par. "e' was applied. It is the first instance that we know of in Russia that art. 63 listing aggravating circumstances applicable to all crimes is applied in the case of a racist attack. We hope that this positive trend set by Voronezh prosecutors will continue and expand to other regions.

However, investigators often fail to take into account the hate motive in violent crimes, which is illustrated by a trial in Sverdlovsk Oblast, which on 7 December 2005 sentenced teenagers who had killed three Armenian migrant workers in May 2005. After the killings, the youngsters came back to a local cafe and publicly declared that they had just performed a "cleansing operation' in the city. However, the investigators and the court did not even consider ethnic hatred as a motive underlying the crime. In this case, mentioning the qualifying circumstance of ethnic hatred in the indictment would not mean harsher punishment (the sentence was the harshest possible anyway — between 10 years to a life term), but rather, would be appropriate from the legal perspective and likely to produce an educational and awareness-raising effect - it is important to recognize the problem of ethnic hatred as such, and to punish racists, not just "drunk hooligans'.

On 27 February 2006, local skinheads were convicted for breaking into a Moslem house of worship in Sergyev Posad in September 2005 and beating the imam. To remind, the attackers were yelling ethno-nationalist and Islamophobic slogans. During the trial, anti-Moslem leaflets were disseminated in the city, and local right-wing radicals attempted pressure against victims and witnesses in the courtroom; they were so active that the court decided to take additional security measures. However, the hate motive was not mentioned in the indictment, and the two defendants were ultimately sentenced to one and two years of probation.

Criminal prosecution of hate propaganda continued. We need to understand, however, that the Anti-fascist Pact initiated by United Russia in January gave rise to a large-scale campaign which on the one hand is likely to discredit efforts to punish hate propaganda, and on the other, has already launched the powerful repressive machinery built in the Russian anti-extremist legislation to such an extent that it threatens the freedom of expression in Russia (see Antifascism as a political resource for details). Nevertheless, we can mention three convictions passed in winter, obviously outside the above campaign. Each case is interesting in its own way.

On 30 January, 2006, Pyotr Sarafanov, leader of a local chapter of the right-wing radical "Spiritual Ancestral Russian Empire,; was sentenced to 8 months in prison for hate propaganda. While the group's weird rhetoric raises doubts about mental sanity of its members (the group has declared itself sovereign and separate from the Russian Federation, randomly :grants; lands and property to its members and has passed a number of death sentences to those whom it labeled as :Judeo-Nazi lackeys; - including President Putin), it is not as harmless as may appear. The Krasnodar branch of the "Empire; is responsible for at least one racist attack. A self-proclaimed member of the "Empire" is a Mr. Gayamyan, owner of a local bookstore that sold Nazi and right-wing radical literature and was closed under pressure from NGOs as late as in autumn 2005 (by the time Sarafanov's trial started). As to Sarafanov, he was convicted for calls to execution of the death sentences and for numerous Anti-Semitic letters that he had been mailing to various government authorities, printed on stationary with the "classic' four-armed swastikas that the group uses as its official logo.

The second sentence was passed in St. Petersburg, on 10 February 2006; activist of the dwarfish Russian Republic right-wing group (mentioned above) Alexander Vtulkin was sentenced to 18 months of settlement colony for his letter, published in 2004, with threats against St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvyenko. The prosecutor's office took the threat seriously and opened a criminal investigation under art. 119 (death threat), but then re-qualified it under art. 282. For the sake of comparison, leader of the mentioned :Empire" Oleg Popov was prosecuted for threats and death sentences to Russian top political officials were opened in Moscow Oblast in December 2005 - for some reason, under art. 319 (offense against a public official).

And finally, the third sentence was passed on 7 February to Oleg Kitter, a well-known in Samara Anti-Semite. He was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred in a publication dating back three years, and his case was dropped due to expired period of statutory limitations. Unfortunately, the practice of delaying trials so that the defendant is finally able to avoid punishment is common and enables those like Oleg Kitter - who continues publishing his newspaper - to carry on their activity. Similarly, the judgment of Oktyabrsky District Court in Samara will not discourage hate propaganda: in end-2006, the court overruled a warning issued in March 2005 by Roskhrankultura to Volzhskaya Zarya newspaper for aggressive, ethnocentric publications.

As an example of criminal prosecution of hate crimes, we can mention the conviction of two "Satanists' in Naberezhnye Chelny. On 22 December 2005, two young men were found guilty under part 2 art. 244 (abuse of corpses and burial places motivated by religious hatred) and convicted to two years of settlement colony each. The third defendant was released due to mental illness.

An important law enforcement trend was observed this winter: a recognition that racism and racially motivated crimes exist in Russia. This recognition did not come easily for a number of reasons, primarily those of psychological and political nature (i.e. it has long been assumed and declared that :Nazism is impossible in a country that fought Nazi in WWII;). As soon as a problem is publicly admitted, it often serves to change the modus operandi. We saw two examples of such change in winter. Firstly, St. Petersburg City Prosecutor's Office prepared an analytical report in end-2005 and sent it to the governor on 31 December. The authors made an attempt to summarize reports of racist offences in the city and pointed out the ineffectiveness of measures taken by the city administration to counteract racism and xenophobia. The report an especially its publication by mass media caused anger in St. Petersburg administration who attempted once again to deny relevance of the problem in the city.

The other example was set by Voronezh Oblast Prosecutor's Office. As mentioned above, it was the first in Russia to apply the aggravating factor of hate motive under art. 63 of the Criminal Code. Another positive development was the recognition of racist motives in the incident on 9 January 2006 in Voronezh, when two Somalian students were beaten by two locals at a bus stop. Although the local media portrayed the incident as a common fight between 'drunk Somalians' and "intoxicated Voronezh residents', the prosecutors insist on the racist nature of the incident. We believe that it shows a genuine recognition of racist sentiments in the city and a commitment to combat them.

Antifascism as a political resource

Since end-January 2006, anti-fascist and anti-xenophobic rhetoric has been increasingly used to discredit political opponents of the ruling political party and to suppress even further the democratic freedoms in Russia. We noticed this tendency before, especially in early 2005, when Nashi pro-presidential youth labeled as "fascists', in addition to National Bolsheviks and skinheads, also Irina Khakamada, Garry Kasparov and other politicians oppositional to Putin, while Speaker of the Federation Council Sergey Mironov tried to justify proposals to extend Putin's term in office by the impending 'fascist threat'.

However, following the launch of the so-called Anti-fascist Pact - an agreement among political parties to oppose nationalism, xenophobia and religious intolerance - by the United Russia Party on 26 January 2006, this rhetoric has increased multi-fold.

In fact, the United Russia Party's initiatives could have been welcomed, as the "Pact' calls upon political parties to deny membership to those who openly profess racist and xenophobic beliefs, to deny support to racist candidates at elections, to refrain from participation in public events involving xenophobic agitation, etc. However, any positive assessment of this initiative is counterbalanced by its merely declarative, politically engaged nature, obviously targeting the strongest opponents of the 'ruling party' - namely Rodina and the CPRF. For example, it is strange, to say the least, that LDPR joined the Pact, whereas its members do not only openly support DPNI and the neo-Nazi Slavic Union and describe skinheads as a "useful organization', but propose explicitly racist laws, such as a ban for Russian women to marry foreigners. LDPR's participation in the Pact is in direct violation of its par. 5 requiring the parties :to stop any collaboration, in any form, with all Russian and foreign organizations having acted from xenophobic and racist positions or promoting national [ethnic] superiority, as well as inciting interethnic, religious or social discord."

In fact, the United Russia Party is not entirely in compliance internally with the proclaimed "anti-fascism'. For example, in mid-February 2006, it was in the center of a scandal around the Urals Center of ethnic Bashkirs. Vyacheslav Volodin, Secretary of the Presidium of United Russia General Council, mentioned the Urals Center as one of organizations, which, alongside RNE and skinheads, should be excluded from mainstream political life (the Urals Center - while less politically active in recent years - is, indeed, considered by many experts to be an ethno-nationalist organization). However, virtually on the same day it turned out that all active members of the Urals Center are also members of the United Russia Party. They demanded that Volodin must step down and even organized a rally in Ufa to voice their demand; the Moscow-based leadership of the party said that the Urals Center activists can be ousted from the United Russia, but the reason would be non-compliance with the party discipline, rather than requirements of the Anti-fascist Pact.

Similarly, the United Russia did not refuse to support Governor Alexander Tkachyov of Krasnodar, known for his explicitly discriminatory policies with regard to ethnic minorities and author of xenophobic statements that he makes whenever he appears in the public. Thus, for example, on 2 March 2006 - i.e. after the Pact - Tkachyov publicly confirmed that he would continue his discriminatory policies [4], but the statement, apparently, was ignored by the United Russia leadership.

In view of these incidents, the Anti-fascist Pact could have remained just another failure of the "ruling party', but its adoption and signing have grown into a political campaign which makes increasing use of the repressive potential inherent in Russia's anti-extremist legislation - as many experts warned back in 2002. The so-called 'cartoon scandal' and related Moslem protests gave these developments an additional boost.

Admittedly, there were cases of unjust, as we believe, prosecution under art. 282 even before the Anti-fascist Pact. In 2005 - 2006, one such example was the trial of Stanislav Dmitrievsky, a human rights defender in Nizhny Novgorod, who published statements by Maskhadov and Zakayev in Pravozaschita Newspaper. Both statements, of course, were extremely critical of Russia's political leadership, but did not contain any ethno-nationalist pronouncements. Nevertheless, on 3 February 2006, Dmitrievsky was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and sentenced to three years of probation.

The campaign has been growing since the Anti-fascist Pact, assuming new and odious forms.

It all started when local UR members accused a municipal paper of inciting religious hatred for publishing a cartoon depicting the founders of major religions with an explicitly tolerant message (to remind, the cartoon showed Moses, Christ, Mohammad and Buddha in front of a TV showing two groups of people ready to attack each other; the four are saying, :This is not what we teach them"). The cartoon was an illustration to an article entitled Racists have no place in the government. Neither before, nor even after the UR's attack did the cartoon cause any protests among religious leaders or groups of believers. However, the local prosecutors found the cartoon "extremist' immediately after the UR, and issued a formal warning to the newspaper. A high official of Roskhrankultura specifically condemned the cartoon. [5] The city authorities then simply closed the paper.

The entire scandal was a parody, obvious to everyone. The absurd accusations caused a municipal newspaper - incidentally, loyal to the UR - to be closed. However, two weeks later the same newspaper was restored under a different name. At the same time, Kolokol, an explicitly Anti-Semitic newspaper has been published in Volgograd for more than a decade, and numerous attempts of the local Jewish community to have it closed failed so far.

But it was not the end of story. Literally on the next day after the events in Volgograd, it became known that a local newspaper in Vologda had reprinted a few Danish cartoons (except those which were found the most offensive by Moslems) as illustrations to a series of comments on the 'cartoon scandal'. The newspaper was closed by the founder, and the editor faces criminal charges under art. 282 of the Criminal Code.

In Altai Krai, Bankfax, a local news agency was prosecuted under the same article for an anti-Moslem comment published on their website forum. The local department of Rosokhrankultura filed a liquidation suit against the news agency without a prior warning. However, the offensive comment was posted on the agency's open forum by an anonymous visitor and removed immediately upon notification. Should Rosokhrankultura win the case, it will open up unlimited opportunities for repression against web-based communities - following this logic, even the President's website can be banned if someone posts a quotation from Mein Kampf on its forum.

In March 2006, the attack against publications continued, leaving at least three victims that received formal warnings from prosecutors. [6]

At the same time, the pretext of fighting extremism was used to pressure human rights defenders. On 26 February 2006, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office warned the Memorial Human Rights Center for publishing on its website a comment by mufti Nafigulla Ashirov on four Hizb ut-Tahrir books. The comment was published back in May 2005, but prosecutors noticed it six months later, when the text was found on several occasions on leaflets seized during the so-called anti-Wahhabi raids. Mufti Ashirov's text said that the four books (and not the organization's overall ideology) do not call to violence and do not incite hatred against people of other faiths. The comment did not contain a single direct quotation from the books. However, the prosecutors found that it indirectly promoted Hizb ut-Tahrir ideas and :can be considered as propaganda from the point of view of social psychology.;

In addition to pressure against mass media and human rights defenders, discreditation of the United Russia political opponents continued. In February 2006, Governor Oleg Chirkunov of Perm Krai was targeted - one of the few governors who is not a member of the UR Party. The pretext for scandal was an incident at the Open Youth Forum held locally under the auspices of the Governor. One of the forum sessions - incidentally, attended by the Governor himself - a young man spoke at the end, saying that he was a member of NNP and DPNI (the latter immediately denied that he was a member) and that their group decided to abandon the tactics of violent attacks against 'aliens' as ineffective and would now fight for power by legal means. There was no adequate response to this statement during the forum, but on virtually the next day, the Governor - and we have not heard of any other examples of such conduct - made public apologies for the incident while the materials of the forum were made available to prosecutors for a review. However, the pro-presidential populist Young Russia and Nashi accused the Governor of encouraging fascism and staged a protest rally manned by 'nashists' brought to Perm from other cities. The scandal, however, was soon over. Its main effect was that nobody noticed the attendance of the round table entitled Reasons of growing conflicts among youth organized on 25 February 2006 by local UR activists; in fact, a number of explicitly right-wing radical groups participated in the round table, including DPNI, the Eurasian Youth Union and the Slav Union represented by Roman Perin, deputy editor of Za Russkoye Delo newspaper, and a known Anti-Semite. DPNI activists distributed ethno-nationalist leaflets targeting immigrants and calling or armed patrols. [7]

Conclusions

Unusually, the past winter did not demonstrate a normal seasonal decline of hate violence, which means that the violence is growing. Clashes between ultra-left and ultra-right radicals already resemble a street war.

The practice of criminal prosecution of hate crimes was inconsistent; convictions are increasingly based on correct legal qualification of crimes, but failures to recognize the racist motive are still very common. Courts pass fairly tough sentences or the most outrageous cases of hate propaganda, but in other cases perpetrators avoid punishment. The biggest failures were the highly publicized trials in St.Petersburg (repeated in March, when the jury refused to pass a guilty verdict to the murderer of Khursheda Sultonova).

Apparently, the government uses the most scandalous manifestations of xenophobia, such as the attack against a Moscow synagogue and the far-off "cartoon scandal', to toughen legislation and the political regime in general. In addition to the widely discussed massive attack against the Rodina Party - indeed, guilty o nationalism and populism, but not unique in this respect, we witness a campaign of pressure against mass media and the preparation of extremely dangerous amendments to the anti-extremist legislation. The repressive potential of this legislation is already widely used as a weapon against civil society and media freedom (the events in March confirm this tendency). It is hardly the right way to combat xenophobia.

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[1] Alexei Kozlov, an activist from Voronezh, notes that attacks against "non-skinhead' performers in the provinces create additional opportunities for the growth of the skinhead movement. Anti-fascist musicians (or musicians believed by skinheads to be antifascist) refuse to perform in provincial cities which cannot guarantee their security. As a result, neo-Nazi performers dominate the tours. The local youth, having no choice, attend the concerts which are available, and a substantial part of them come to support the skinheads.

[2] Those parts of the show that we could access and the unofficial "transcript' posted on right-wing radical forums do not match.

[3] See details in comments on the draft law by Lev Levinson (http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/6D03DB7), and by Alexander Verkhovsky (http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/6D183E2).

[4] Interestingly, Tkachyov has been reproducing verbatim the same xenophobic clichйs on immigrants and "ethnic crime' for a number of years.

[5] Dmitry Vinogradov. Rosokhrankultura is looking to God //Gazeta.ru 2006. 15 February (http://www.gazeta.ru/2006/02/15/oa_188767.shtml).

[6] In March 2006, the Expert Board on Information Disputes in Rostov Oblast published an expert opinion on the Danish cartoons and the development of the "cartoon scandal' in Russia.

[7] Report by Secretary of Political Council of the United Russia District Chapter Oleg Ivanov // United Russia. Vasileostrovsly Chapter. 2006. March (http://www.voinf.ru/doclad1.html); Supporters of DPNI-Petersburg took part in an academic conference // DPNI-Petersburg. 2006. 26 February.

English translation by Irina Savelieva.