Moscow Bureau for Human Rights - 12.21.2004

Moscow Bureau For Human Rights

Anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation: political and public dimensions

International conference "Anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation: political and public dimensions" organized by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights took place in the hotel "Belgrad".

Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, listed numerous nationalists' attacks on synagogues and Jewish cultural centers, desecrations of Jewish cemeteries and other anti-Semitic actions that took place in 2004. In comparison to 2003 the number of such actions has not increased. However, the volume of neo-Nazi publications has increased.

Xenophobia continues to develop in mass consciousness. The society lacks immunity to ethnical intolerance. According to the survey conducted by the Expertise Foundation in the beginning of 2004 42% of the population spoke in support of limitation of Jewish influence, 28% supported the idea of restoring the pale of settlements. In 2004 yet another dangerous tendency has appeared in the society: nationalists threaten, sometimes attack and even murder the members of human rights organizations. Practically immediately after the murder of scientist and anti-fascist Nikolay Girenko, co-chairman of the National Sovereign Party of Russia A.Sevastyanov has published the list of "enemies of Russian people" that includes the names of democratic writers, journalists, scientists and human rights activists. Alexander Brod said that today the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights is preparing a set of educational seminars for the representatives of law-enforcement agencies because they often consider nationalistic literature and even the infamous "Protocols of Elders of Zion" to be historical documents. Vladimir Nivitsky, legal director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights commented that the Moscow Bureau was engaged in several court trials of radical nationalists and five trials had already resulted in convictions.

Arkadi Milman, Ambassador of the State of Israel in Russia in his greeting to the participants of the conference has stressed that the fight against racism and xenophobia could only be successful if the public is extensively informed about this phenomenon. He attracted the attention of the participants to the fact that the attempts to bring to trial the publishers of anti-Semitic literature often turn out to be unsuccessful. In the conclusion he told the audience that during his recent visit to the Russian State Duma he had discovered anti-Semitic literature in the bookstall. According to the seller of the bookstall this literature is in great demand among the deputies.

Michael Klichevsky, first secretary of the US Embassy shared with participants his impressions of his latest visit to Kazan, where the authorities are actively fighting against xenophobia and anti-Semitism and expressed his concern with the fact that there are still regions in Russia where such fight is not carried out. Also addressed their greetings to the participants of the conference Alexander Letichevsky, adviser to RF Human Rights Commissioner, Vasily Chernov, representative of the Moscow Patriarchate who mentioned that the Orthodox Church is against those marginal groups that promote hatred using Orthodoxy as a cover and Rabbi Zinovi Kogan.

The central event of the first part of the conference was the speech of Hadassa Ben-Ito, President of the International Organization of Jewish Lawyers and Judges, author of the book "Lie that does not want to die" that exposed the Protocols of Elders of Zion as historical falsification. In her speech she presented the history of creation of Protocols - the book that according to some sources were published in the 20th century in greater number of copies than Bible. At the same time she praised those Russian politicians and journalists who had testified during the court trial in Bern in 1934 exposing the Protocols as falsification: Pavel Milyukov, Vladimir Burtzev, Sergey Svatikov. She stressed that deliberately obscure style allows the advocates of this book to link any event to it, no matter what it is: Tzar's family murder or financial crisis. She also reminded that this falsification contributed to 1974 UN Resolution that declared Zionism to be one of the types of racism. Now the Protocols are used by Islamic fundamentalists and, in particular, the organization Hamas" that distributes that defamatory piece in the Muslim countries. She also stressed that in her opinion the Protocols are harmful not only for Jews but for any state.

Boris Panteleev, representative of the Research Institute of the General Prosecutor's Office in his report outlined the major directions of cooperation between human rights organizations and law-enforcement agencies, such as monitoring of the current situation, extensive legal education of the representatives of law-enforcement agencies, active legal consulting (since, according to his words, many cases are delayed due to the lack of experts or even dismissed when the defendants invite their experts) and public control including public control over the functioning of law-enforcement agencies. 

Political scientist Vladimir Ilushenko and historian Gennady Kostyrchenko in their reports described the genesis of modern anti-Semitism and it current state. V.Ilushenko stressed that building the full-scale civil society is one of the necessary conditions of successful fight against anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Semyon Cherny and Sergey Stepantzev, experts of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights recounted ideological concepts of the modern Russian anti-Semites. Alla Gerber, President of the Holocaust Foundation, summarizing her 15-year experience of fight against anti-Semitism declared that national conflicts are still among the major troubles threatening Russian society. 

Valentin Oskotsky, Secretary of the Moscow Writers Union said in this regard that if back in 1988 the infamous letter of Nina Andreeva had caused public resonance, today the letters of this king and even more radical were regarded with indifference in the society. He presented the statement of the Moscow writers who expressed their concern with escalation of neo-Nazism in the Russian Federation in the year of the 60th anniversary of victory in WWII.

Ilya Altman, Vice President of the Holocaust Foundation in his report "Who denies Holocaust and why" looked into the ideology of those who deny Holocaust and stressed that today they use Eastern Europe and especially the republics of the former Soviet Union as a major arena for their activities.

Yuri Tabak, expert in religion science, discussed the issues of Christian-Judaic dialogue. Sociologist Lev Gudkov mentioned that today anti-Semitism in Russia has acquired steady ideological nature, other ethnical phobias use it as a source of ideas and the ranks of proponents of national hatred are replenished with youth. Video materials on neo-Nazi meetings in Moscow were demonstrated at the conference.

The information is presented by Moscow Bureau for Human Rights.