Edited by Aleksandr Verkhovsky
Summary
Manifestations of Radical Nationalism : Violence : Public activity of ultra-right groups
Counteracting Radical Nationalism : Criminal proceedings : Administrative persecution : The federal list of extremist materials
Inappropriate Enforcement of the Anti-Extremist Legislation : Violation of freedom of conscience : Persecution of NBP activists : Ambiguity of the "social group' concept
Appendix. Crime and Punishment Statistics (between 2004 - November 30, 2009, Word)
SUMMARY
The autumn of 2009 became a period of revival and active party building for veterans of the national-patriotic movement. Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional'noe edinstvo), People's National Party (Narodnaya natsional'naya partiya), the Union of Officers (Soyuz ofitserov), and the Party of Freedom (Partiya svobody) attracted attention during this period. Nevertheless, the main ultra-right coalitions that were formed last year are more visible than the veterans. These are the coalition around the Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) and the Slavic Union (Slavyansky soyuz, SS) and the coalition around the Russian Mode (Russky obraz). The two coalitions held the most significant activities of the "Russian March' in 2009. This year, the "Russian March' took place in no less than 12 regions of Russia.
In autumn, "ideological' vandalism advertising ultra-right groups ("Russian Mode' and "Resistance' (Soprotivlenie), first of all) drastically increased. Groups ready to assume responsibility for real and fictitious terrorist attacks (from the intended blowing up of an FSB local reception office to the Nevsky Express bombing) appear more and more often. But some ultra-right groups are really shifting to acts of sabotage and terrorism: attacks on individuals have become less attractive for some racists.
The level of racist violence this autumn appeared to be twice as low as the year before. This is undoubtedly connected with the activity of law enforcement agencies this year, in Moscow, first of all.
Autumn saw the largest number of guilty verdicts against right radicals in almost every kind of case during the years they are being issued, including verdicts concerning crimes of violence, ideologically motivated vandalism, calls to extremist activity linked to manifestations of xenophobia. In all of these cases, one can note both the improvement of juridical classification of crimes and the adequacy of verdicts.
But the measures against xenophobic propaganda cannot be assessed positively. The state still persecutes graffitists and internet chatterers who are of little danger, whilst ignoring the activities of ideologists who are popular and authoritative within the ultra-right community.
The situation regarding the illegal exploitation of anti-extremist laws has not improved either. The main tendencies here are still the broadening of "social group' concept, the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses (a campaign that represents a massive assault on freedom of conscience) and the persecution of the banned National Bolshevik Party (Natsional-bol'shevistskaya partiya).
MANIFESTATIONS OF RADICAL NATIONALISM
Violence
Against expectations, the autumn of 2009 was not marked by a surge of racist violence. During the three autumn months, we registered no less than 51 victims of racist and neo-Nazi motivated violence, eight of whom were killed. Beside Moscow and St. Petersburg, attacks were noted in eight Russian regions (Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod, Orel, Omsk, Rostov, Samara). This is half as many as the year before. In autumn 2008, 19 people were killed and at least 106 wounded in 19 Russian regions.
As a whole, from the beginning of the year, at least 55 people were killed and at least 299 wounded in similar crimes. In 2008, during the same period, at least 105 people were killed and at least 499 wounded.
There is no doubt that for the first time in years of observation we see a real reduction of the number of victims of racist attacks. However, we must repeat that we cannot consider this reduction as striking in reality as the numbers suggest. There are several reasons.
We still face an almost total lack of information from many regions. One reason for particular concern is the fact that the authorities' reaction to racist crimes remains inadequate. For example, in mid-September, a series of murders and attacks against people of non-Slavic appearance in Dzerzhinsk (Nizhny Novgorod region) were publicized only when people held a spontaneous meeting calling for their defense. However, the deputy mayor, who went to meet the protesters, made racist remarks himself instead of promising protection and control over investigation of the crimes.
The decrease of pronounced racist attacks was caused partly by the voluntary transition of part of ultra-radicals towards systematical subversive and terrorist activities. It is hard to determine motivation of the bombings, and the targets can be chosen not on racist grounds. On the other hand, the continuing turn to terrorism is a very dangerous tendency in itself.
In autumn 2009 alone, we registered at least six such incidents in which the participation of ultra-right activists is already confirmed or can be suspected with a high degree of probability. For example, in September, there was an arson attempton the apartment of an officer in the Novosibirsk city police department for the struggle against extremism. In the same month, a native of Uzbekistan was killed in Moscow by the detonation of a handmade explosive device. In November, a fake explosive device with swastikas on it was found in St. Petersburg, and one of the neo-Nazi groups assumed responsibility for the action.
As a whole, from the beginning of the year, we have recorded no less than 20 terrorist attacks, which does not include cases where one cannot confirm nor contradict neo-Nazi claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks (at least ten such claims have been heard since the beginning of the year). The most striking example was the declaration of a group called "Combat 18 - Ingermanlandiya' claiming responsibility for the bombing of the "Nevsky Express' on 27 November 2009, which resulted in the deaths of 26 people and the injuring of about one hundred.
Vandalism
In the autumn of 2009, the most active vandals were neither racist nor even (anti)religious, but "ideological': i.e. people defacing military memorials, organizing mass neo-Nazi graffiti actions, etc.
This tendency is exemplified by the months-long advertising sticker and graffiti campaign waged by Roman Zentsov's "Resistance' group, which conducted at least 15 similar actions in 11 Russian regions from September to November 2009. Among the slogans used or recommended by "Resistance' via stickers or graffiti, apart from advertisements for the organization itself, were stickers appealing to Fourteen Words (David Lane's popular racist maxim), "Nation Over All,' "Say No to Interracial Relations,' etc.
As a whole, in autumn 2009 at least 37 vandalism acts in 23 Russian regions were recorded, including 24 acts of "ideological' vandalism, 6 antisemitic incidents, 2 anti-Orthodox ones, 2 anti-Muslim ones, and one incident against each of Protestant and Armenian objects and a building belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses (in the latter case which took place in Rostov the crowd stormed the building and burned the fence). Among 13 acts of vandalism against religious objects, there were three arsons, a synagogue in Khabarovsk, an Orthodox icon near a church in Ekaterinburg, and a Baptist church in Vladivostok were burnt.
The vandalism crime that drew the biggest resonance in autumn 2009 was arguably the systematic violation of Jewish graves at the Dmitrovo-Cherkassky cemetery in Tver. The cemetery was desecrated four times in September alone, and no less than six times since the beginning of 2009. In November, a suspect was detained.
Anti-fascists - ultra-right - the police
The conflict between ultra-right and anti-fascist activists[1] on the Russian streets has again become the subject of intense discussion. There are several reasons for this: the detention of ultra-right activists Nikita Tikhonov and Evgeniya Khasis, who are suspected of murdering Stanislav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova, and who are linked to the most dynamically developing ultra-right group, the "Russian Mode'; and the murder of the well-known anti-fascist Ivan "Butcher' Khutorskoy on 16 November in Moscow, which led to the vandalism of a Young Russia (Rossiya Molodaya) office by militant anti-fascist activists. This was an act of vengeance considering the links between the movement's leader Maxim Mishchenko with the "Russian Mode.'
There is no doubt that although the "antifa' movement is growing precipitously, it is far weaker than its ultra-right counterparts. The conflicting sides openly regard the situation as a guerilla war in which neither side is interested in revealing its losses. As a result, one can estimate the level of confrontation only relying on circumstantial evidence such as highly publicized murders of antifa activists and rare information about attacks without lethal outcome.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that due to political reasons the antifa are under harsher (and, from our point of view, often groundless) pressure from the law enforcement agencies than the ultra-rights. This radicalizes the community even more since for political and ideological reasons, the antifa consider the police to be "fascist cohorts' .
Sometimes they have every reason to think so. In particular, attacks (including the use of firearms) on attendees of concerts that neo-Nazis reckon for various reasons as "antifascist' have became systematic in St. Petersburg. Attendees observe that they cannot count on police protection even when they request it. The most recent incident of this kind took place on 25 September when neo-Nazis attacked the clientele of the "Iron Lion' nightclub. As a result, several people were injured, one of them severely.
In Omsk from August to November 2009, there were at least three neo-Nazi attacks against anti-fascists but according to the injured and their friends, law enforcement agencies demonstratively refuse to register statements about the criminals' ideological motives. This is far from an exhaustive list of such incidents.
Mistrust and hostility towards the representatives of law enforcement agencies representatives and towards the state as a whole (considering it to be "fascist') are being aggravated by the obviously biased approach to public actions of the conflicting sides. Even leaving to one side the "Russian Marches,' which face far fewer obstacles than anarchist actions against police abuses, it is clear that the police suppress anti-fascist public actions in most cases (and with unjustified violence) whereas ultra-right groups generally hold their pickets and meetings unimpeded.
Public activity of ultra-right groups
"Russian March'
Traditionally, the main autumn event for the ultra-right is the "Russian March' held on 4 November.
In 2009, the Moscow march, which was organized by a coalition led by DPNI that succeeded in preserving the brand after the split of 2008, [2] took place in the capital's district of Lyublino. The choice of location was not accidental. The march was being prepared against a backdrop of active public protests by local residents against the transformation of the "Moscow' trade center into a wholesale trade market, in place of the defunct Cherkizovsky market. The protesters could be easily divided into two groups - the local inhabitants discontented by the worsening of living standards (traffic jams, air pollution, etc.) and the ultra-right activists, including DPNI members traditionally active in the district, protesting against "non-Russians.' It was these ultra-right activists who actively attempted to maintain the tension and assume control over all of the protesters. However, they failed. After the official ban on wholesale trade in the "Moscow' trade center in the beginning of October, the protest movement began to diminish quickly and the "Russian March' organizers had to make serious efforts to maintain interest in the location as a focus of conflict.
This task seemed to be especially difficult in view of fierce competition with "Russian Mode,' which presented a rival event to the DPNI-led action - a public concert (perhaps the first in the decade) of Kolovrat, a cult band in the ultra-right community. However, no competition eventuated. Either by mutual agreement or after calculating the probable expenses on both sides, the organizers arranged the times in order to allow interested participants attend both events. And so it transpired.
As a result, the "Russian March' in Lyublino attracted from 2,500 to 3,000 participants under the insignia of ten organizations. The "Russian Mode''s concert meeting at Bolotnaya square was attended by about 2,000 people[3].
On a countrywide level, marches and pickets under the "Russian March' brand took place in at least 12 Russian regions (in 2008, at least in 19 regions) [4].
Party building
After a long break, ethnic national groups, more or less radicalized, resumed active party building. It is noteworthy although that the most active were the so-called "old' national patriots who began their activity in the 1990s[5].
For the first time since 2007 an attempt to establish a party of presentable Russian nationalists took place; on 4 November, a founding convention of the party "For Our Homeland' (Za nashu Rodinu) was held in the Moscow region (originally, it was planned to call the new party "Case of the Nation' (Delo natsii) [6] but later the new title "For Our Homeland' was chosen as well as the shorter "For the People' (Za narod that is considered as an acronym of Za nashu Rodinu)). The participants chose the "Russian Doctrine' (the developers of which had joined the party's organizing committee) as a basis for elaborating ideological documents. Incidentally, the chairman of the new party's central executive committee, Mikhail Lermontov, himself attests to the new formation's ideological closeness to Oleg Kassin's "People's Council' (Narodnyi sobor) where the former is the latter's deputy. However, the most famous persons participating in the party's creation, such as political analysts Valery Averyanov and Sergey Kara-Murza, and film director Nikolay Burlyaev, did not join its top echelon.
Unexpectedly, Aleksandr Ivanov (Sukharevsky)'s People's National Party (Narodnaya natsional'naya partiya, NNP), which showed almost no vital signs during one and a half years, resumed its activity. NNP announced that its departments were opened in at least three Russian regions. Currently, NNP, like the majority of ultra-right organizations, is declaring its affinity with autonomous neo-Nazi (including Straight Edge ones[7]) groups and attempting to compete DPNI or Slavic Union (who NNP confronted usually), and the "Russian Mode' as well.
On 30 September 2009 Aleksandr Barkashov announced his intention to establish a new organization called "October 1993'[8]. However, the announcement signed by the veterans of the national patriotic movement who took part in the defense of the parliament in 1993[9] does not declare any distinct organizational goals.
Yet another attempt was undertaken to unite the fragments of the Union of the Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda, SRN). After a series of ruptures during the spring, we can see at least four organizations acting under the SRN acronym and brand. These are SRN (officially registered as the "Council of the Russian People' (Sobor russkogo naroda)) led by Sergey Kucherov, Aleksandr Turik and Mikhail Nazarov's SRN, Boris Mironov and Tatyana Mironova's SRN, and the most moderate (and apparently the least numerous) SRN led by Dmitry Merkulov.
Between 18 and 25 October 2009, Merkulov's and Nazarov's SRNs attempted to unite but failed: Nazarov's cohorts claim that Merkulov is thus trying to take over their organisation.
On 21 November, an "extraordinary military and political conference' entitled "On Ways to Enhance Security under Conditions of the Liquidation of Russia's Armed Forces' was held in Moscow by the Stanislav Terekhov's Union of Officers (Soyuz ofitserov) and Vladimir Kvachkov's "Minin and Pozharsky Militia' (Narodnoe opolchenie imeni Minina i Pozharskovo). The conference had been preceded by several aggressive articles and public actions (for instance, Kvachkov's very aggressive speech at the "Russian March' in Lyublino). Particularly noteworthy is the anonymous "Call to the Russian People, Army and Navy Officers, Cossacks, Russian Youth and Orthodox Priesthood,' which appeared in several websites. It contained not only reflections about a Jewish conspiracy but also calls to kill the "protégés of the Judaic global behind-the-scenes plotters,' protégés who ranged from the national leadership to show business celebrities and social activists.
The conference accused the incumbent political authorities of high treason and called for preparations for guerilla war. [10] The leaders spoke of the necessity of relying upon the Nazi skinhead community[11] and preparing for the armed overthrow of the current regime[12].
Another noteworthy event concerning the attempts of party building took place outside Russia.
On 2 October 2009, the First Congress of the Russian Opposition was held in Kiev. An attempt was made to create a coalition of a number of ultra-right organizations and activists. However, some of the intended participants, such as Andrei Saveliev and Aleksandr Savostyanov, were unable to attend. The most prominent Russian participants were Pyotr Khomyakov (who is under investigation in Russia on charges of extremist activity, he asked for political asylum in Ukraine) and Yuri Belyaev who had just been released from prison. They headed the "Coordination Council on National Salvation.' The most prominent Ukrainian participant was Dmitro Korchinsky ("Brotherhood', Bratstvo). The event itself is unlikely to have significant consequences but it exemplifies the expansion of Russian ultra-right activists into Ukraine in recent years[13]. It shows how the tensions between the two states obstruct the resolution of the problem of ultra-rightist activity, which is urgent for both Russia and Ukraine.
However, the "new' ultra-right groups and activists who use a more up-to-date language, organizational (network) structure and methods of activity were also engaged in organizational activity, which took the form of the broadening of their networks. Thus, the Russian Public Movement (Russkoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie) led by Konstantin Krylov and Nataliya Kholmogorova announced the establishment of a Novosibirsk cell. The regional network of the "Russian Mode' and "Resistance,' which exist in a state of symbiosis, were widened. The Slavic Union announced the formation of new departments in two regions.
The most significant event in the Russian regions took place in Komi Republic. On 24 October the second National Patriotic Forum took place in Syktyvkar (the first one was held in October 2008). According to reports from the congress, its main goal was to "inventory' Russian ethnic national organizations ready to somehow cooperate in the territory of Komi Republic, especially on the threshold of the "Russian March.' And immediately after the 4 November, leaders of local cells of the Slavic Union (Evgeny Turubanov, earlier convicted for ultra-right graffiti) and DPNI (Igor Bobretsov) were appointed.
Other
Ultra-right groups still tend to use social or human rights slogans whilst avoiding racist rhetoric.
The most spectacular example of such mimicry is Roman Zentsov's "Resistance.' Despite the fact that Zentsov is well known by experts as a supporter of the ultra-right, he enjoys a reputation in the public arena as a former mixed martial arts expert who advocates a healthy way of life.
This enables him to hold official sporting tournaments and training sessions, and to maintain contact with the authorities and reputable media, which do not (or do not want to) see[14] the ideology behind these events. The tournaments and training sessions are accompanied by concerts of ultra-right musical bands and/or lectures by the activists of "Russian Mode.' Zentsov's "neutrality,' his failure to articulate publicly a clear political position, and his rhetoric within the frameworks of today's official propaganda including campaign against alcohol and sport promotion, allows him to perform before a very diverse audience. Zentsov's speeches can be seen on the pages of an NBP newspaper or on the website of the United Russia's Young Guard (Molodaya gvardiya Edinoy Rossii). Thus, Zentsov is a very successful example of a recruiter of ultra-right activists from the most diverse youth milieu.
Even groups such as Slavic Union that have not previously resorted to such forms of dissimulation have embraced "social' activity. At the end of November, its leader Dmitry Demushkin joined protests against the demolition of the horticultural cooperatives "Fisher' ("Rybak') and "Truck Farmer' ( "Ogorodnik'), by posing as a defender of veterans. This can be undoubtedly explained by the ultra-rightists' experience in Lyublino where the majority of protesters were clearly unprepared to rally under ultra-right slogans and dissociated themselves from DPNI at the earliest opportunity. However, within its own community SU is ready for more strident public rhetoric. In his speech at the "Russian March' on 4 November Demushkin declared that a regime that fails to defend his nation's interests is worth overthrowing, and he called upon the audience to take up arms.
The "Russian Mode' faced considerable difficulties during the last autumn month.
Nikita Tikhonov and Evgeniya Khasis, both closely connected with the "Russian Mode,' were detained on 3-4 November on suspicion of complicity in the murder of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasiya Baburova. Tikhonov was one of the founders of the magazine that later became the organization's nucleus[15]. Khasis worked in the "Russian Verdict' project (Russky verdikt), which is dedicated to organizing help (legal or financial) and public relations campaigns on the occasion of lawsuits against ultra-right activists accused of serious crimes, such as bombings, murder, and the infliction of grave bodily injuries[16]. In connection with this case, the "Russian Mode' activists Ilya Goryachev and Aleksei Baranovsky were questioned, as well as Dmitry Steshin from Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper[17].
The obvious links between the "Russian Mode' and the suspects forced the organization's representatives to take countermeasures. RI issued several press releases stating that the detained had no direct connection to them. A significant part of the web resources linked to RI worked with interruptions in the days after the arrests, and it is likely that the content was thoroughly revised. At the same time, an attempt was made to form the positive image of the detainees before the public opinion. For instance, Komsomol'skaya Pravda newspaper published Tikhonov's graduation essay. Thus, he apparently became the first person in Russia to have a diploma published with such a big number of copies.
COUNTERACTING RADICAL NATIONALISM
Criminal proceedings
Violence
In autumn 2009, at least 10 verdicts were issued for violent hate crimes (three in Moscow, three in Moscow region, two in Nizhny Novgorod, one in Voronezh and Orenburg). 40 people were convicted. In all, at least 41 verdicts for racist violent crimes against 125 people were issued in 11 months. That is the greatest number of guilty verdicts for such crimes within the years that such verdicts were handed down. The preceding maximum was 35 guilty verdicts during the duration of 2008.
The trial that drew the widest response in autumn 2009 was the one against the "Black Hawks' group (Chernye yastreby) accused of racist attacks against people with a Slavic appearance. This is far from the first sentence handed down for expression of hatred towards people designated by the attackers as "Russians' or "Slavs' but so far, such cases have attracted little publicity. Heightened public attention towards the trial was guaranteed by the fact that it was the first such prosecution to take place in Moscow, and ultra-right groups attempted to exploit it for their own propaganda, the more so because the Black Hawks earned their notoriety emulating the tactics of neo-Nazi skinheads (not only attacking an apparently weaker rival but also making videos of the attacks and putting them on the internet). So successful was this gamble that the group was accused not under article 282 ("instigation of hostility') that is the only known one in the society but the Criminal Code articles corresponding to the Hawks' crimes of violence with the addition of motive of hate as a qualifying feature[18]. Ultra-right activists picketed the court building and tracked the accused who were not under arrest. On 3 September, a month before the sentence was passed, one of the accused, Rasul Khalilov, was shot dead on his way to the court hearing. There is little doubt that this crime was committed by ultra-right activists. The trial concluded in October with guilty verdicts for all the group members.
It is worth noting another trial that concluded in the autumn of 2009, although the motive of hate was not taken into account in the case. Firstly, it is likely that the motive of hate was not imputed for the sake of interested motives despite the claims of the accused himself. Secondly, the accused was the famous mixed martial arts fighter Vyacheslav Datsik whose ring name in the beginning of the 2000s was "Red Tarzan' (Ryzhy Tarzan).
Datsik was detained in 2006 for a series of armed assaults at mobile phone shops in St. Petersburg and the region that led to embezzlement of money and valuables totaling to over five million rubles. In 2006, Datsik declared that the motive for his choice of victims was national hatred (he targeted only the stores that he believed were the property of "non-Russians'). It is not known why the investigation and the trial took more than three years, but it is known that the conditions of Datsik's detention before the trial were not harsh: in August 2009, the Slavic Union disseminated a video clip in which Datsik advertising Demushkin's group.
At the beginning of October 2009, the Nevsky regional court in St. Petersburg ruled Datsik mentally unaccountable for his actions and committed him for treatment in a specialized closed psychiatric ward.
Propaganda
At least ten sentences were passed from September to November 2009 for xenophobic propaganda, two in the Komi Republic, one in Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, St. Petersburg, Moscow region, and Khabarovsk. 12 people were convicted; three received suspended sentences, one was released because the statute of limitation had expired.
Unfortunately, almost no conclusions can be drawn from the sentences passed in autumn. We are forced to emphasise that the quality of prosecution for xenophobic propaganda has not improved. The defendants are ordinary adherents of ultra-right organizations, such as leaflet distributors, graffitists, internet users publishing various materials. It cannot be said that those people were convicted baselessly, and their penalties in such cases are usually appropriate: corrective labor or fines. However, it is strange that one gets not administrative but criminal penalty for distributing the film "Russia with a knife in the back' that was found extremist, whilst the lawsuit against the film's maker Konstantin Dushenov has dragged on for more than a year and a half and the end is not in sight.
Ultra-right ideologists and leaders still enjoy impunity. The sole exception of autumn was the sentence of the leaders of Khabarovsk's SRN department, Pavel Onoprienko and Viktor Chulkin. This is already the second verdict against Onoprienko under article 282 in 2009. However, this did not prevent him from escaping with a suspended sentence again without any supplementary sanctions.
As a whole, from the beginning of the year, at least 35 verdicts were passed against 47 people for xenophobic propaganda under article 282 (22 of those 47 received suspended sentences without supplementary sanctions or were released from penalty) and six verdicts against seven people under article 280 (of whom only one received a real penalty).
Administrative persecution
Unexpectedly many reports appeared in autumn 2009 on administrative persecution for Nazi propaganda or propaganda using similar insignia. These include fines to the owners of outlets engaged in selling objects with Nazi symbols (in Saratov, Samara, Murmansk, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk regions), several fines for Nazi tattoos (in Voronezh, Volgograd). This pattern includes representations from prosecutors to to local authorities over the failure to remove neo-Nazi graffiti, etc.
It is notable that the precedent of real and commensurable penalty for Nazi tattoos in the end of 2009 in Novgorod - when the court did not only fine the tattoo's owner but also obliged him to remove it - has not been followed elsewhere.
In autumn 2009, the Federal Service for monitoring communications, information technology and mass communications (Roskomnadzor) issued at least seven warnings about extremism to the media. We acknowledge significant improvements in this agency's work. Only one warning of these seven (for illustrating an article with a photo of graffiti including a swastika) should be regarded as clearly illegitimate. (We were unable to find one text, which was blacklisted as extremist and included in the federal list of banned extremist materials). The other five recommendations were issued legitimately, in our opinion, mostly for manifestations of anti-Semitism.
In addition, prosecutors issued at least two anti-extremist warnings to the newspapers "Yakutsk Evening' (Yakutsk vecherny) and "Diocesan News' (Eparkhial'nye novosti).
The federal list of extremist materials
The federal list of extremist materials was enlarged nine times in autumn 2009 and grew from 414 to 454 items. The majority of the new materials were those of Hizb ut-Tahrir (15 of 40 items). Some of the items were included in the list twice again. 11 items are or were of a vividly expressed xenophobic nature. It is not by accident that we use the past tense: at least one of the internet resources that was blacklisted as extremist in May 2009 had not been running for almost a year at that time. Two other items are not separate texts but xenophobic comments at an ultra-right forum. Seven items are anti-capitalist. The content of the remaining item remains unknown.
The list is still being amended retrospectively at the Ministry of Justice's website without confirmation in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya gazeta. For instance, after the summer scandal over the ban of the so-called "flag with a cross,' the Ordzhonikidze court in the city of Ufa (in mid-October) and later the ministry (in the end of November) modified the description of the banned material[19]. However, this modification did not clarify the situation. Currently the material is described in this way: "a poster with an image of a shooting gunman signed "Sovest 18,' of Ku-Klux-Klan representatives with a caption "YOU KNOW, WITH HOODS ON, SOME OF THESE GUYS COULD PASS'[20] and a flag with a cross.' The description is no more comprehensible but at least the ban has been lifted from all flags with images of a cross.
The issue of the removal of items from the list remains open. Within the framework of the aforementioned revision of the list at the end of November, an item was deleted for the first time. This was item 413, a leaflet against Krishnaists distributed in Khabarovsk by members of United Russia's Young Guard in 2008. The organization succeeded in appealing the decision banning the leaflet. However, other items that were the subject of similar court rulings, remain on the list although the decisions on them were issued far earlier than that on the leaflet. It is hard not to suppose that the ministry's efficiency in this case is somehow linked to the fact that the deleted item belongs to a pro-Kremlin youth movement and that the author of the appendix to the leaflet was by Aleksandr Kuz'min, member of the Ministry's Expert Council. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the law enforcement agencies' efforts to counteract extremism are highly selective.
Unfortunately, it is already impossible to estimate the number of the materials in the list, since some of the items consist of long lists of texts or other kinds of information (videos, CDs) that are virtually impossible to identify. Therefore, at the beginning of December, we can only state there are 454 items in the list, one annulled, five that should be annulled (because the corresponding court decisions were cancelled) and 33 included in the list twice.
INAPPROPRIATE ENFORCEMENT OF THE ANTI-EXTREMIST LEGISLATION
The practice of inappropriate enforcement of anti-extremist legislation continues to develop and expand.
Once again a substantial number of incidents concerning inappropriate enforcement of the legislation are linked not to political motives but to the poor quality of the laws themselves. For instance, at the end of September 2009, the Federal Service for Monitoring Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications issued a warning to the editorial staff of the newspaper Svoya gazeta about alleged extremist activity because one of their articles was illustrated with a photograph of "symbols similar to that of Nazis.' Actually, the article contained criticism of a candidate in local government elections and the illustration, fully corresponding with the critical context, was a photograph of graffiti with a swastika calling to vote for the candidate. Thus, the Federal Service was correct from a formal viewpoint but clearly at odds with common sense. This is the second anti-extremist warning for such illustrations issued by the service in 2009.
The growth of "anti-extremist' auditing is taking place at the expense of libraries. It is clear that there is no political context in dozens of warnings issued to librarians. This is nothing but an ideal way of feigning a struggle against extremism while exploiting glaring contradictions in the legislation. Libraries can often store extremist materials but have no right to remove them or not to issue them to readers. But the law enforcement agencies do not always succeed in adhering even to the letter of the law.
Thus, on 25 November 2009, the prosecutor's office in Ulyanovsk region reported on a warning issued to a regional research library over two books by the theologian Said Nursi found in its catalogue and stock. According to the prosecutors, these books, "Faith and Person' and "Brief Words,' had been designated extremist materials. However, their bibliographical details as stated in the library catalogue did not match those of the banned editions (the books in Ulyanovsk had been published earlier), so even the federal list of extremist materials offered no formal grounds for the prosecutors' demand for the withdrawal of the books.
This case makes us raise a question on the necessity to develop various bylaws (from departmental instructions to public clarifications) in order to clarify what the federal list bans and how those bans can be accomplished without losing valuable historical sources and the possibility of access to them.
The fact of the launching of an illegitimate enforcement does not mean that punishment is inevitable. In autumn 2009, the proceedings were suspended on the blacklisting as extremist of an article by the leader of Perm Civil Chamber Igor Averkiev "If we leave Caucasus, we will become freer and stronger'[21]. At the end of September, the case by the prosecutor's office for the liquidation of the Novorossiysk Human Rights Committee (NKChP) was abandoned[22]. In October, after a year of struggle, the newspaper Novaya gazeta v Sankt-Peterburge won the revocation of the anti-extremist warning issued to it for quoting a local DPNI activist. However, as a whole, the volume of unfair enforcement incidents is growing, and the basic tendencies of these incidents remain unchanged.
Violation of freedom of conscience
First of all, it is necessary to mention a massive attack on Jehovah's Witnesses almost all over Russia. According to some reports, this attack is inspired by the Prosecutor General's office that ordered in the beginning of 2009 to check legitimacy of Witnesses' activity in all directions possible[23], and "extremism' came as no exception. In autumn 2009 only, anti-extremist checks, warnings, claims to acknowledge the organizations and materials by Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist were registered in at least five Russian regions. The reasons for the complaints are quite uniform: refusal of blood transfusions (which is interpreted as forcing the refusal of the provision of medical treatment), refusal of military service (correspondingly, the refusal to fulfill civic duties), and insulting the religious sentiments of Orthodox believers or Christians in general, and the affirmation of the superiority of their own religion and its adherents. Of this list of accusations, only the last point can be understood as extremism according to the current legislation, and the repressive potential of this point in the law was noted at the time of its adoption: after all, every religious faith asserts its superiority over other ones.
The results were not slow to arrive. On 11 September 2009, a Rostov regional court found the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses and 34 items of their religious literature extremist. On 8 December 2009, the ruling was approved by Russia's Supreme Court.
On 1 October, an additional two dozen of the Witnesses' items were blacklisted as extremist by the Supreme Court of Altai Republic, and one can be confident in the verdict of the Supreme Court hearings of the appeal.
The court's decisions have provoked a series of clearly illegitimate activities and a wave of administrative arbitrary treatment even before the rulings came into force. For instance, in Leningrad region, at least one attack on a female member of the Jehovah's Witnesses was registered. In Novocherkassk (Rostov region), local Orthodox organizations headed by Cossacks and with the participation of the deputy head of local administration, attacked the a building belonging to the Witnesses' community. In St. Petersburg, the customs office detained a shipment of literature addressed to the Witnesses' headquarters.
There is little doubt that the Supreme Court decision on 8 December 2009 will provoke a new wave of outrage against the group's representatives.
Persecution of NBP activists
The activists of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) are still being persecuted only under article 282.2 (participation in a banned organization). In autumn 2009, at least two verdicts were issued against party members in Ekaterinburg and Moscow with defendants accused of no crime except for NBP membership. We reiterate that we consider the ban on the party to be illegitimate.
In total during the autumn of 2009, there were at least ten episodes in nine Russian regions related to anti-extremist law enforcement against National Bolsheviks, their internet resources, leaflets, etc. This included criminal prosecution, cases for the blacklisting of their materials as extremist, and demands to deny access to internet resources.
Ambiguity of the "social group' concept
The interpretation of the "social group' concept continues to expand. We are still confident that before implementing law enforcement on the ground of "hate towards a social group,' it is necessary to get clear explanations from the Supreme Court that are not susceptible to misinterpretation.
So far, the law enforcement reveals more and more different "social groups.' An attempt to acknowledge "human rights activists' as a group subject to special defense failed[24]. However, the court did not object to rate the "co-owners of domestic motor transport' as such[25].
But the most significant ruling was that when the government of Tatarstan was acknowledged to be a social group during the trial of the president of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev's former press secretary Irek Murtazin. This is already for the second time that a regional government has been acknowledged as a social group. The first was in 2006 within Vitaly Tanakov's case. Murtazin's case became the most significant anti-extremist process of last autumn. He was accused under the articles of slander (129-2), violation of privacy (137-1), incitement of social hate with the threat of violence, through the use of media (282-2). On 26 November 2009, Kirov regional court in Kazan sentenced Murtazin to one year and nine months of colony settlement which is not only unjust but also demonstratively severe.
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[1] Of course we mean not all the people of anti-fascist views but the youth movement, and not an organization but a community. Some of these young people are advocates of active violence against ultra-right activists and practice it, others do not practice offensive violence but approve it in different ways and are in tense relations with "militant'' anti-fascists. Representatives of this community use "anti-fascists' as self-designation and do not like the set term "antifa.'' But as the self-designation does not determine the movement clearly, one has to use the term "antifa' in order to distinguish these activists from the other ones including youth activists and ordinary citizens struggling against fascist ideas, racism and discrimination.
[2] See /en/xenophobia/reports-analyses/2009/04/d15763/#r2_3.
[3] Further on the events in Moscow see "Russkie natsionalisty v Moskve otmetili 4 noyabrya,' Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, Sova center website, 5 November 2009 (/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2009/11/d17254/).
[4] Meropriyatiya russkikh natsionalistov 4 noyabrya: obshcherossiysky obzor, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, Sova center website, 5 November 2009 (/racism-xenophobia/news/racism-nationalism/2009/11/d17266/).
[5] One can find further information on the majority of groups and persons mentioned in this chapter in the guide published by the Sova center: Radikal'nyi russkii natsionalizm: struktury, idei, litsa. Moscow, 2009, 410 pp.
[6] It was first announced about the intention to establish the party "Case of the Nation' in May 2009.
[7] Straight Edge (sXe for short) is a subculture that appeared in the 1980s within the punk community but opposed their way of life by calling to reject the habits that destroy the human being, such as drugs, alcohol, meat consumption, sexual freedom, sometimes coffee consumption, etc. One of sXe's basic principles of the time was negation of all kinds of discrimination. However, since recently, especially in Russia, a racist version of sXe has been spreading by leaps and bounds. In this version, the demand of human's purity includes "ethnic purity.' This means prohibition of not only "interracial' sexual connections but also murders or other physical violence against those who "disgrace their race.' Those can be anti-fascists, homeless people, alcohol addicts or Nazi skinheads who abuse alcohol.
[8] This announcement was only published in Barkashov's website in November and drew a response at the moment. However, all these statements were made on the eve of the latest anniversary of the parliament storm.
[9] The announcement was signed by V.Achalov, A.Barkashov, Yu.Kachan, Yu.Koloskov, S.Terekhov, A.Rashitsky.
[10]"If the social-economic situation turns into a military conflict and engaging foreign military force by the authorities to suppress the mass people's resistance including private military companies or the structures of ethnic organized underworld, one should be ready to start guerilla and other special activities basing on the structures of the "Minin and Pozharsky Militia'.' Reshenie chrezvychaynogo voenno-politicheskogo soveshchaniya "O putyakh obespecheniya natsional'noy bezopasnosti v usloviyakh likvidatsii Vooruzhennykh sil Rossii,' Union of the Officers' website, 2009 (November) (http://oficeri.narod.ru/info61.html).
[11] Terekhov most likely hinted at this, saying "The "Russian March' organized on 4 November this year in many Russian cities has shown that the youth becomes politically active. We must use this factor in our work. The authorities are afraid of the youth's activity... Each social officers' or patriotic organization must have a youth wing and prepare it purposefully.' Summary of Terekhov's speech, Union of the Officers' website, 2009 (November) (http://oficeri.narod.ru/info62.html).
[12] In his speech, Kvachkov stressed that the international law allows the right to revolt as an extreme means to fight for the human rights.
[13] The influence of Russian ultra-right groups on the rise of neo-Nazi and other racist groups' activity in Ukraine was mentioned at international conferences in Kiev in 2007 and 2008 already.
[14] Rostov ultra-rightists say in their report on the tournament in Stavropol on 24 October that one of the sports center heads was insulted by racist statements and had to leave the show. However, no negative information on the tournament appeared in the media. Moreover, a report on it was shown by the regional All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company channel.
[15] However, since 2006 he has disappeared from public view being put in a wanted list on suspicion of killing anti-fascist Aleksandr Ryukhin.
[16] The "Russian Verdict' is also erroneously called an organization but in reality it is nothing but one of projects by activists from the "Russian Mode.'
[17] It is not clear whether Steshin is the "Russian Mode' activist or not. The organization members call him their friend.
[18] Further see Obvinenie, prediavlennoe gruppe "Chernye yastreby': motiv nenavisti est' u vsekh, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, Sova center website, 12 August 2009 (/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2009/08/d16600/).
[19] This was not reflected in the newspaper.
[20] The quotation is in English (translator's note).
[21] We have no information on the investigation held against this publication under article 280 of the Criminal Code. By all appearances, nothing has being undertaken actually.
[22] See further in Kozhevnikova Galina. Leto 2009: Ul'trapravye i gosudarstvo - pozitsionnaya voyna, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, 28 October 2009 (/racism-xenophobia/publications/2009/10/d17196/).
[23] Sova center's archive.
[24] V Tomskoy oblasti pravozashchitnikov priznali sotsial'noi gruppoy. I vskore peredumali, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, Sova center website, 15 December 2009 (/misuse/news/persecution/2009/09/d16868/).
[25] In the end of December 2008, the Federal Service for Monitoring Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications issued a warning for inciting hate towards this social group in a web forum. The provider who received the warning litigated it in the court that cancelled the warning on formal grounds. However, the court agreed that there were calls for extremist activity on the forum and that there should be an investigation (apparently including the matter of inciting hate towards "owners of domestic motor transport'). See O sotsial'noi gruppe "vladel'tsy otechestvennovo avtotransporta,' Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya, Sova center website, 5 August 2009 (/misuse/news/persecution/2009/08/d16555/).
