Summer 2010: Victories of the Ultra-right Propaganda

Edited by Alexander Verkhovsky

Summary

Radical Nationalism : Violence : The public activity of ultra-right groups

Counteraction to Radical Nationalism : Creation of regulatory acts : Criminal proceedings : The Federal List of Extremist Materials : Other measures of state persecution

Аppendix. Crime and Punishment Statistics

SUMMARY

The events of summer 2010 appeared to be mainly within the context of the tendencies we have seen for the last eighteen months in the area of radical nationalist activities and counteraction to it from the part of the state [1].

The number of neo-Nazi and racially motivated violence attacks continued to diminish, as well as the public activity of ultra-right groups.

We consider the updating of the law on money laundering a surely positive step. The amendments passed in summer 2010 crucially diminished the possibilities of the anti-extremist arbitrariness against citizens and organizations. The amendments seem to be all the more so important as the law has until recently been one of the most untransparent elements of the anti-extremist legislation.

The rise and improvement of the criminal proceedings against racially motivated violence are evident. However, we cannot do without worrying about the rise of the number of suspended sentences given in the courts for these crimes. This number has reached its peak after all the years of watching.

Almost nothing has changed in the area of the prosecution for racist propaganda. However, only one sentence passed in summer ‘for the words’ was linked to imprisonment which we consider unfounded, and this is rather positive. The tendency to abandon practice of sending to prison in such cases has been stable for two years already. The withdrawal of several texts from the Federal List of Extremist Materials has also become a precedent.

RADICAL NATIONALISM

Violence

In summer 2010, the SOVA Center registered the reduction of the number of incidents linked to neo-Nazi and racially motivated violence as compared to the same period of 2009. At least 57 people became victims of such attacks during the three summer months. One of them was killed. (In summer 2009, at least 106 people became victims, 13 of them were killed.) In all, 234 people became victims during the first eight months of 2010, 22 of them were killed[2].

Attacks were registered in 15 regions of Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Karelia, Perm and Primorsky Krai, Arkhangelsk, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Kostroma, Nizhnii Novgorod, Orel, Samara, Sverdlovsk and Voronezh regions).

As usual, the hotbeds include the Moscow region (city and metropolitan area, 19 victims in summer, 9 killed and 73 injured since the beginning of the year), St. Petersburg and Leningrad region (9 victims in summer, one killed and 33 injured since the beginning of the year). Nizhnii Novgorod usually holds the third place (two victims in summer, two were killed and 14 injured since the beginning of the year), but in summer months, it was supplanted by Orel because of the five injured in the explosion in the Indira cafe.

The main victims are still people from the Cental Asia (nine killed, 38 injured since the beginning of the year) and members of leftist and informal youth movements (three killed, 49 injured).

The summer statistics still show the tendency that became seen eighteen months ago to reduce the number of registered cases of violence motivated by the criminals’ ultra-right beliefs. The matter is not only the real reduction of the number of attacks (in Moscow and St. Petersburg) but also the reduction of possibilities to register them.

The former is because of the growing pressure over the ultra-right from the part of the law enforcement agencies in big cities. The activity of the ultra-right was also likely to be damaged by the abnormal hot weather in the second half of summer in several Russian regions.

The problems we face while registering the racially motivated attacks are linked to the remaining lack of information. We become aware of many incidents only due to detention of suspects or even to closure of court hearings which leads to the several months delay of the data. It is enough to say that the data on the 2009 attacks have been supplemented by 36 percent as compared to the data we obtained in March 2010[3].

Racially motivated attacks coupled with robbery still appear late in the statistics. In this case, we are to agree with the estimates presented by the law enforcement agencies because the methodology of our monitoring does not let us understand the criminals’ motives. For instance, the Buttercup’s gang (Yemelyan Smolyaninov is their leader) was detained in the end of June, its members are suspected of committing 30 racially motivated attacks. Almost in all cases, the victims were robbed. That is why most of the victims have not been registered by our statistics for a long time.

Apparently, the range of the ultra-right so-called ‘anti-state terrror’ does not reduce. It is important to stress that it develops not as an alternative to the racially motivated violence as such but as a parallel movement that deals with attacks against the buildings of state bodies. So far, they have mostly not led to any victims.

A striking example of such activity was that of a group from Orel detained in August 2010. The members of the group are suspected of arson attacks at three police stations and bombing a prosecutor’s office, as well as of bombing the Indira café on 5 August 2010 (the café belonged to a person from Caucasus, five people were injured). The gang from Orel is quite an example of an ultra-right group of ‘modern’ type. It was an autonomous gang that committed subversive actions and terrorist attacks against both state bodies and objects belonging to ‘aliens’ from the ethnic point of view (in the case mentioned above, it was a café but could be an outlet, a car, etc.). Their actions were demonstrative: members of the gang left leaflets on the spot confirming the neo-Nazi character of their activity and declaring they belonged to a movement of anti-state terrorism. Simultaneously, a text was spread on the Web that represented the group as part of the All-Russian anti-state terrorism trend (but not of any organization!). It was the so-called Letter of Orel Partisans.

However, there appears another complexity in the case of attacks against representatives of the state. Wishing to monopolize the anti-state terrorism, the ultra-right advertize themselves with non-evident episodes, probably with no real connection to neo-Nazism. Such was the story of the Primorye partisans, a criminal group that committed a series of attacks against policemen and other crimes. Some members of the group were really ultra-right. We have no ground to state that the group’s activity had ultra-right motives but this theory dominated for some time in the public opinion, and some ultra-right groups still try to profit from it, successfully or not.

Aside from racially motivated violence and anti-state terror, the other trouble zone is still the opposition between the ultra-right and the representatives of informal youth movements, anti-fascist or those of whom the ultra-right think they are anti-fascist. Attacks at rock concerts and against separate activists have become a norm. We have noted already that this group is among those of which the number of victims is the biggest. As earlier, people that have no connection to any of the opposed camps become victims. One of the most striking examples of this was an attack in the town of Pushkin, near St. Petersburg, in summer 2010. A crowd of Nazi skinheads burst into a local stadium during a match between football teams Fosforit (Kingisepp) and Karelia Discovery (Petrozavodsk). They were armed with sticks, knives, and traumatic weapons. Their target were antifascists who were among the Karelia team fans. But other people from the audience became involved in the incident. Some of them came to the match with their children.

Victims of manifestations of everyday xenophobia still implement the statistics. As in the previous years, the biggest number was registered on the Day of Airborne Troops. At least 11 people were injured on 2 August in Moscow, Leningrad, Irkutsk, Nizhnii Novgorod and Samara regions (on the same day in 2009, one person was killed, six injured), without regard for mass brawls.

Vandalism

As compared to the last summer, the number of neo-Nazi and xenophobic vandalism has slightly diminished: 20 cases recorded in June to August 2010 (22 were recorded previous summer). Nine of them belong to the ‘ideological vandalism’ (Nazi symbols and xenophobic slogans on a monument to Karl Marx and a memorial to the liquidators of the Cnernobyl disaster, graffiti expressing solidarity with neo-Nazi prisoners, etc.), three were committed against Jewish and three against Muslim objects (the most dramatic incident was the blowing up of a synagogue in Tver), two against Orthodox objects (including an arson attack against a cappella in St. Petersburg), one against a Protestant object (arson attack against a Baptist house of worship in Kurgan) and one against an Armenian object. After we had been watching the rise of vandals’ activity for two years, in summer 2010, the situation stabilized. This happened due to the reduction of the ‘ideological vandalism’, mostly due to the clear reduction of public advertizing of networked ultra-right groups, the Russian Image (Russkiy Obraz) and the Resistance (Soprotivlenie), which had practiced coordinated graffiti actions all through Russia before.

In all, since the beginning of the year, SOVA Center has registered 79 acts of neo-Nazi and xenophobic vandalism, of which 49 are those of ‘ideological’ vandalism.

Among religious groups, the most popular target since the beginning of the year have been Jehovah's Witnesses. At least 10 vandals’ attacks were committed against their objects including two arsons. Apart from them, attacks were registered against Jewish and Muslim objects (six in each including the blowing up in Tver), Orthodox (four incidents including two arson attacks), Protestant (three incidents including two arson attacks), Armenian and Neopagan objects (one incident in each).

The public activity of ultra-right groups

The public activity of ultra-right groups diminished this summer almost to zero. The only action that could become a significant political event, the Day of Solidarity with Prisoners of Conscience (25 July) actually failed. It was designed a year ago as an action of wide public support of neo-Nazi prisoners but in 2010, it turned itself into a get-together with the slightest public presentation. Although such actions took part in at least 20 cities, they could be considered to be public only in two, Stavropol and Cherepovets, where about 15 people took part in marches. In Moscow, the organizers failed to set any noticeable event[4]. The ultra-right faced evident problems related to the whip-round for legal support, mostly after the Russian Image (Russkiy Obraz) and the Russian Verdict (Russkiy Verdikt) had been numerously blamed of immorality in financial affairs in discussions at ultra-right web resources.

A calm in this segment of the community was partly compensated by a number of speculations over non-political events of summer that produced some resonance.

The first and the most striking of such events was the story of the ‘Primorye partisans’. The ultra-right used with maximum benefit the appearance of a gang that regularly attacked law enforcement officials.

Ultra-right masters of web propaganda made all efforts possible to present the gang’s actions as a beginning of an anti-state, ‘nationally orientated’ revolt, or movement at least, that defends the Russian people from the ‘Jewish fascism’. After the gang members were detained, its popularity rose even more. On the wave of a clear anti-police mood in the society, the romanticized death of the two members, Andrei Sukhorada and Aleksandr Sladkikh who committed suicide, and the brutality against the detained (there were numerous reports based on rumors of torture after arrest) were among the main news for a long time, in the reputable media. The rush faded out up to the autumn 2010 but the propaganda is still on. And the dead Sukhorada and Sladkikh became objects of a newly formed cult of the ‘white heroes’, on posters, in articles, musical albums, etc.

Another event that provoked the activity of the ultra-right groups was the murder of a fan of Spartak football team, Yuri Volkov, on 10 July 2010 at Chistye ponds during a scuffle with three native Chechens. There has long been no such resonance in the society over a criminal incident without many people involved. [5] Of course, Volkov’s belonging to the football fans community played a significant role. In this milieu, ultra-right beliefs are frequent although by all appearances, Volkov himself was not a right radical. This means that there was initially a big group ready for mobilization that considered the event to be an ‘inter-ethnic conflict’. The key episode in the development of the campaign was the lack of clarity over the detained participants of the attack. It was not clear for a long time who was detained, who was released, etc. This led to speculations over the ‘impunity of Chechens in the Russian city’.

Three actions in memory of the killed were organized in the region of the Chistye ponds. The most representative one on 17 July was attended by a thousand and a half to three thousands people, according to various estimates. It is noticeable that all actions were strictly non-political. The organizations of fans directly asked the members of actions to refrain from exposing racial hate; the participation of ultra-right organizations under their flags was suppressed. However, the motive of national hate in the mobilization was evident. The spot where Volkov was killed was designed by anti-Chechen and ethnocentric graffiti, people spread leaflets with similar slogans at metro stations.

It is not quite clear whether this summer calm in the public activity of the ultra-right is a long-term change of tactics or it has reasons linked to some personal circumstances.

The former supposition can be backed by an evidently deliberate refusal of the Russian Image to continue propaganda and any other public activity: the group’s website has been closed for a long time, the brand has not been used for several months. Simultaneously, several projects related to the group are being developed but part of them is strictly presented as linked to social problems (for instance, the Russian Demography (Russkaia Demografiia) project concerning help to children’s homes and publishing financial accounts). This departure to social activity does not mean abandonment of ultra-right ideas or any ‘deradicalization’. This is just one of the organization’s strategies allowing it to exist in the context of pressing by the law enforcement agencies, the critics from the part of potential companions (the aforementioned blaming of financial immorality) and perhaps the loss of influence on part of autonomous groups that were earlier affiliated with it.

The departure to social projects is not only mimicry but also an opportunity to use state resources to develop the organization and overcome its marginal status. The ongoing activity of Roman Zentsov’s Resistance is quite an example. Zentsov’s status as a well-known mixed martial arts fighter, slogans for healthy life-style, participation in the state program developing donorship that is being actively promoted and advertized — all this opens possibilities for the group to cooperate with the state legally, strengthens its connections with certain officials, broadens its media presence.

Generally, the ultra-radical ethno-national wing of the Russian nationalism is splitting into parts. It prefers to act in autonomous and deeply clandestine groups who try not to expose themselves in public, not even within the subculture. The ideology becomes simpler. It now adds up to explaining the current situation in the country in terms of war with its enemies, victims and heroes. It’s not a new thing but the trend gains strength. Thus, the main propaganda efforts of the ultra-right are aimed at filling each one of the three elements with certain content. The war is meant literally, not in a figurative sense. Coming back to the examples given above, the images of valiant ‘Primorye partisans’, especially Sukhorada and Sladkikh who did not surrender and committed suicide, supplemented the heroes’ list, and the image of the killed Yuri Volkov was added to the list of victims. In both cases, images of enemies were outlined clearly: in the former one, it was the state acting through its policemen agents, in the latter one, the non-Russian occupants and the state as well.

On the other hand, there are signs that the ultra-right consider themselves the abandonment of the public politics to be their temporary troubles although they have taken much time.

One cannot say for instance that the organizational work has stopped. In June 2010, DPNI (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii, the Movement against Illegal Immigration) declared it had approved a new program, the strategic plan of activity and development for June 2010 to December 2011. This document was designed to stir up the organization, develops the social links of the movement, strengthens its position in the media space.

In the mid-August, Igor Artemov’s RONS (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soiuz, Russian All-National Union) held a conference in order to report on its work.

The Resistance’s regional network is widening (mostly in the virtual space, as a matter of fact).

And of course, the biggest project should be the attempt to revive Andrei Saveliev’s Great Russia (Velikaiia Rossia) party. This information appeared in spring already. The project initiators are quite active, regional cells are being formed or restored, VR activists have resumed monitoring Russophobia, they take part in negotiations on political coalitions (for instance, together with Oleg Kassin’s Popular Assembly (Narodnyi Sobor)).

At the same time, all ultra-right organizations that strive for legality realize that they face shortage of personnel. (It was caused by the pressure against the ultra-right movements from the part of the state as well as by the fact that the younger generation of ultra-radicals does not need any relatively complex ideological products that determine tactics and strategy in the development of the whole ultra-right movement. Such products are among the main elements of the public activity for such organizations.)

In this new situation, the groups that have uncompromisingly confronted each other before start a new process to establish a coalition. Since summer 2010, DPNI and the Russian Image have shown strive for coordinating their positions. In September, they ended up signing a Declaration of the Russian National Organizations.

COUNTERACTION TO RADICAL NATIONALISM

Creation of regulatory acts

In the flow of bills related to ‘combating extremist activity’ (most of those are repressive[6]), we would like to mention the process of clarifying the Federal Law on Combating Legalization (Laundering) of Incomings Received by Illegal Means, and Financing Terrorism. In particular, this law foresaw a secret list of clients of financial institutions (juridical and natural persons) whose financial operations should be controlled for the purpose of the fight against terrorism and extremism. The grounds to include a person in the list were rather not specified whereas the list itself was to be secret, as we have said before. The functioning of the list was also unclear: for instance, in 2009 to 2010, people fully justified by courts in the case of attempted murder of St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko faced problems with opening their bank accounts[7].

In July 2010, amendments to the law were adopted, crucially limiting the possibilities of the anti-extremist arbitrariness[8]. The most fundamental change concerned a new regulation on a possible removal of organizations and natural persons from the aforementioned list in case when they had been suspected of involvement in extremist and terrorist activity but later the suspicion had been dismissed. The list of articles of the Criminal Code was specified, prosecution under which could lead to the inclusion in the list. It is worth noting however that hate motivated violent crimes were not included. And at last, the law now foresees partial publication of the ‘list of terrorists and extremists’ which could allow contesting the possibility for the people to be included.

These amendments have already born fruit. Although they enter into force in October 2010 only, in September, a court in St. Petersburg pronounced in favor of a person justified in Matvienko’s case, and obliged the Federal Service of Financial Monitoring to remove him from the ‘terrorist list.’

Criminal proceedings

Violence

In summer 2010, the active criminal prosecution for racially motivated violence continued. At least 23 sentences, with a hate motive taken into account, were issued against 78 people within three summer months. In all, within eight months of 2010, at least 63 sentences were issued against 216 people that is already more than within the whole 2009 (61 sentence against 161 people).

The punishments were allocated as follows:

• five persons were released from punishment because the statute of limitations had expired;

• 24 persons received suspended sentences without additional sanctions;

• 2 persons were sentenced to correctional work;

• seven persons received sentences up to two years;

• nine persons received from two to five years of custody;

• twelve persons received from five to ten years;

• four persons received from 10 to 15 years;

• one person got a 17-year-sentence;

• two persons got lifetime sentences;

• for two people the sentence is not known, we only know that they were convicted; for 10 people it is known that they received from one-and-a-half-year suspended sentence to six years in custody.

We should note once again the almost complete rejection of qualifying violent crimes under article 282 (‘inciting hatred’) as a stable positive tendency in prosecuting racially motivated violence. The article was used as the main one qualifying a violent crime only in one of 23 summer convictions (in Nizhnii Novgorod region). In all other cases, other articles of the Criminal Code were used.

Unfortunately, up to the end of summer 2010, the rate of suspended sentences without additional sanctions for the eight months of 2010 has reached its highest level since 2004, i.e. 35 percent of the total number of convictions (for summer itself, this rate is even higher, with 38 percent of the total number). We are forced to repeat once again that to our point of view, a suspended sentence for an ideologically motivated crime cannot retain the convict from committing similar crimes in the future, and even on the contrary, it can cause a feeling of impunity. Moreover, in some cases, suspended sentences seem definitely groundless. For instance, in the town of Balakhna, Nizhnii Novgorod region, a former activist of a local Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, RNE) cell received a suspended sentence for participation in racially motivated attacks at three people. In Vladivostok and Vladimir, two young persons received suspended sentences for infliction of grave bodily injuries (in both cases, victims were stabbed). In Vladimir, however, the sentence has already been cancelled after the cassation of the prosecutor’s office. The case has been sent for new trial[9].

In summer, two notorious trials against groups of people came to an end. A sentence was passed in the case of a neo-Nazi group in Nizhnii Novgorod, and in Tver, the trial over members of the local RNE cell ended after having started in 2008.

In the case of the Nizhnii Novgorod Nazi skinhead gang, seven people were charged with four murders and nine attempted murders. One of their victims was a 71-year-old professor of the Volga State Academy of Water Transport. This made the public reaction rather big. The gang leader who killed the professor was given lifetime sentence. The case was remarkable because four of seven members of the gang succeeded in evading penalty. They were released due to a doubtful calculation of the expiration of the statute of limitations[10].

This case, as well as the aforementioned case of the former RNE activist, demonstrates the quality of legal procedures in Nizhnii Novgorod region once again. The region holds the third place in the list of regions concerning the range of racially motivated violence. Since the system of justice there is so ‘humane’, we can see no preconditions for the situation to change.

The case of the RNE’s Tver cell ended with a conviction in July 2010. 19 persons[11] were charged with four racially motivated murders, several armed assaults, two acts of vandalism, etc. Only four of 19 involved were under age at the moment of committing the crime, so in spite of a long period of investigation and a court hearing, most of the gang failed to evade responsibility. Here, as well as in Nizhnii Novgorod, the gang leader received lifetime sentence.

Vandalism

In summer 2010, two sentences were passed for crimes qualified as ‘vandalism motivated by national, religious and ideological hate’ (article 214 part 2). In June, a resident of Kurgan was given a suspended sentence for having written xenophobic texts on the walls of a cathedral mosque. And in August, a Nazi skinhead charged in the case of a racially motivated attack was also accused of an ideologically motivated vandalism[12] .

So far, these sentences remain the only ones in the year to be passed under article 214 with the motive of hatred taken into account. Such practice does not spread further. Most of such crimes are qualified under article 282. For instance, five of 16 sentences passed under article 282 part 1 this summer were given to the people who drew graffiti, i.e. vandals.

However, rare using of the article on vandalism (214), as well as the article on violation of burial places (article 244),in case of a hatred motive can perhaps be explained by the dual nature of such crimes. For instance, if one writes aggressive racist slogan on a memorial to the Soviet warriors, or a religious builduing, this can be considered to be either vandalism (because an object was damaged) with racial motive or incitement of hatred. From the point of view of media, prosecution under article 282 would attract more attention because this article still remains perhaps one and the only ‘anti-racist’ one to be known by the society.

How should one put the law enforcement in this field in order? There should be a discussion on this issue but so far we are not aware of any.

Propaganda

In June to August 2010, at least 20 sentences were passed in 18 Russian regions in cases of racist propaganda and acts of vandalism qualified as propaganda (i.e. considered under article 282). Two sentences were passed in Vladimir region, two in Udmurtia, one in each of Belgorod, Chelyabinsk, Kaluga, Kirov, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Pskov, Rostov, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk, Ulyanovsk, Volgograd regions, Chuvashia, Komi Republic, Khanty-Mansi autonomous area, and Stavropol territory.

In all, 26 people were convicted in these cases.

The punishments were allocated as follows:

• two persons were released without punishment because the statute of limitations had expired;

• five persons received suspended sentences without additional sanctions;

• one person was referred for compulsory treatment;

• one person was barred from practicing his profession;

• two persons were sentenced to fines;

• eight persons were sentenced to correctional labor;

• six persons were sentenced to real prison terms, from 10 months up to four years; however, five of them were charged with an array of articles including making pornography with minors engaged in sexual acts, establishing an extremist community, or appeals for mass disorder.

For one person, the sentence is not known, we only know that he was convicted.

In all, since the beginning of the year, 43 guilty verdicts have been passed against 52 people. 20 of them received suspended sentences without additional sanctions. Thus, the rate of suspended sentences without additional sanctions for xenophobic propaganda amounted to 38 percent.

While expressing our warning due to the high rate of suspended sentences, we do not stand for such crimes to be necessarily punished by imprisonment. This needs to analyze the sentences for propaganda concerning imprisonment, more thoroughly.

We voice doubts over the sentence against the group ‘Genghis-Chelyabinsk’. In summer 2010, four members of the gang were found guilty of inciting religious hatred (article 282) and appeals for mass disorder (article 212). Two members were sentenced to two years eight months in custody, two other received suspended sentences. They were charged of spreading various aggressive texts in the Web and by leaflets. Of course, it is hard to estimate how active the group was, and we are not aware of all the texts they produced but the materials we were able to get to know, in spite of all their real aggression, are more evidence of the authors’ psychic instability than of a real social danger they could pose.

Other sentences concerning imprisonment do not raise any doubts. For instance, in July 2010, a 35-year-old resident of Mikhailovsk, Stavropol territory, was sentenced to 10 months in a strict regime prison colony for pro-Hitlerian and anti-Semite graffiti on the monument to Lenin. At the time, the sentence seemed to be extremely severe. However, after it had been published, it became known that the vandal had been on trial numerously (although all his convictions had been expunged up to the time the last sentence was passed), that he was addicted to drugs and in this situation, there are no grounds to doubt the court’s estimation of the social danger the graffitist posed. The sentence against two former policemen, members of the Slavic Union (Slavianskii soiuz) from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, was concerning in particular the charges of preparing racially motivated violent actions. The term to which a resident of Pskov was sentenced was evidently explained by the fact that he spread not only racist but also pornographic materials.

Summer also brought a rather rare sentence for the Russian court practice. It concerned barring from practicing the profession and was passed against the editor-in-chief of the Priazovye Territory (Priazovskii Krai) newspaper Vassilii Kuchkov. He was disqualified for three years for publishing an anti-Semite article. In 2010, there were three such sentences passed. Aside from Kuchkov’s case, those were a sentence against Konstantin Dushenov in St. Petersburg (he was barred from practicing his profession along with imprisonment) and Officer Evgeny Khalepchuk in Tomsk (he was disqualified to occupy leading posts).

We should mention one more ‘propagandist’ case of this summer. In June 2010, a 27-year-old resident of Kozelsk was referred for compulsory treatment for publishing anti-Semite and racist articles at his website. Before and during the court hearing the defendant worked as a school teacher. And this is far not the first case when convicted racist turn out to be people involved in the work with minors (we can also recall Ekaterina Melnikova from the Kazan cell of RNE who worked in a children’s activity center). Such processes attract attention to the fact that the ultra-right ideologists are serious when they declare that the right radicals are ready to work with the ‘younger generation’ in order to train the personnel reserve. One should also pay attention to the problem of indoctrination of schoolers with xenophobic ideas from the part of their teachers who practice everyday xenophobia.

The Federal List of Extremist Materials

During summer, the Federal List of Extremist Materials was supplemented seven times, items from 618 to 694 were added, and, as it was mentioned earlier, the longer the list becomes, the less useful it looks.

The claims to the list are the same.

First, there are materials that duplicate each other. Now, together with summer addition, there are 47 such items.

Second, some materials that are included in the list cannot be identified. For instance, items from 669 to 676 turn out to be a list of over 300 titles of various materials ‘found at Andrei Vladimirovich Kolchanov’s place.’

Third, part of materials is in the list illegally because the rulings to blacklist them as extremist were cancelled by courts or have not entered into force yet. There are at least 32 such items, 28 of them are scientologists’ materials.

Fourth, materials are being included without accuracy, in some cases, there are no reference to court rulings and the bibliographical description is poor[13].

For the first time since 2007, it was officially reported not only on the supplementation of the list but also on the removal of the items. In the end of July, items 362 to 364 were excluded. Those were three articles by Nikolai Andrushchenko for New Petersburg (Novy Peterburg) newspaper. In order to achieve this, Andrushchenko had to win several court cases.

Other measures of state persecution

Organizations deemed extremist

The process of approving the ban of organizations as extremist is going on. In summer 2010, two such rulings were issued.

On 28 July 2010, a court in Vladivostok liquidated the Primorye regional social organization defending human rights called the Slavic Union (Soiuz slavian). Its self-designation is the Slavic Union of the Far East (Soiuz slavian Dal’nego Vostoka). On 24 August 2010, a group of Nazi skinheads, Pit Bull (Pit-Bul’), was pronounced extremist by a court in Krasnodar territory.

As for the Slavic Union, the necessity of a court ruling against it does not raise any doubts because the organization actively spread xenophobic propaganda; in particular, it aimed at provoking racially motivated incidents of violence. But the ban of a local Nazi skinhead group turns out to make not so much sense. This group had no ideological activity but only committed neo-Nazi attacks for which some of its members had been convicted.

We would like to hope (?) that declaring local Nazi skinhead groups extremist will not turn into a stable practice because the efforts aimed at their ban through the court are clearly unproportional to the range of their activity.

Besides, the activity of Yuri Mukhin’s People’s Will Army (Armiia voli naroda) was stopped, and the request to declare it extremist was taken to the court. Unfortunately, so far we are unaware of the grounds on which the prosecutor’s office demands to close the organization and we cannot estimate the appropriateness of this action.

It should be also mentioned that the List of organizations declared extremist by the court[14] , that is being published at the Justice Ministry’s website, as well as the Federal List of Extremist Materials, is being updated extremely inefficiently. The last update was on 30 July 2010, when the list was supplemented by an organization banned... in October 2007 (Muwahids’ Jamaat). At the moment the report is being written (September 2010), the list included 13 items and no court ruling made after February 2010.

Administrative sanctions

The administrative prosecution under article ‘Mass Spreading of Extremist Materials’ (20.29, Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) and ‘Propaganda and Public Demonstration of the Nazi symbols’ (20.3) is going on. For instance, in June, a resident of Novosibirsk was fined for spreading ‘The Eternal Jew’ movie that is included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. In the same month, director of a St. Petersburg bookstore had to pay the fine when a book from the same list was found in his stock. In July, a justice court considered the case of a resident of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk charged of demonstrating Nazi symbols: the young man had a tattoo of the emblem of the Nazi Germany on his body. Unfortunately, the court sentenced him to a fine only but did not oblige him to remove his tattoo, as a court in Novgorod did in a similar case in 2009.

We receive information on such administrative prosecution quite rarely. That is why it is almost impossible to speak on any dynamics in this field.

The anti-extremist activity of the Federal Service for the Supervision of Information Technologies and Communications (Roskomnadzor) continues as well. In summer 2010, the agency issued at least seven warnings to the editorial boards of various media on the inadmissibility of the extremist activity. Two of them can certainly be called inappropriate, those to the Vedomosti newspaper for the article on the motives of female suicide bombers, and to the APN.Ru website for the comments to one of the articles. But four warnings can be called appropriate with the same certainty because they were issued for pronounced xenophobic articles (anti-Semite, first of all) and for publishing a poem included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. Such a proportion means a clear improvement in the Roskomnadzor’s work. However, it is not evident whether this would become a tendency.

[1] In preparation of this report we used state grant funding, awarded in accordance with the 19 March (???) 2009 Order of the President of Russian Federation № 160-rp.

[2] It is necessary to repeat the main restrictions of our quantitative analysis now. The SOVA Center’s monitoring does not include the republics of the North Caucasus. Our statistical data are selected with maximum caution even from the facts we know. This means that the real number of hate motivated crimes is far bigger. Certain categories of victims are not included as well (see in detail in the appendix tables). We often receive information with a big delay, so one can have no doubt that the data for the current year (and not only the current one) will be supplemented in the future.

[3] The correction is usually about 20 percent within six months.

[4] We should remind that on 25 July 2009, Moscow saw a brawl between the fans of the Lokomotiv football team and the police, a rock concert for the ultra-right, and a series of other various actions.

[5] Perhaps, the nearest example of such mobilization were actions in memory of Anna Beshnova, a schoolgirl violated and killed in 2008.

[6] See further in Kozhevnikova Galina. Nepravomernoe primenenie antiekstremistskogo zakonodatel’stva v pervoi polovine 2010 goda // Polit.Ru. 22 September 2010. (http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2010/09/22/antiextremism_jul10.html).

[7] Three people were targeted in the investigation of the case. In April 2008, they were fully acquitted by the jury and the court. In 2009, it became known that one of them faced problems with credit institutions. In 2010, the same happened to another one.

[8] The Federal Law № 197 ‘On Making Changes to Separate Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in the Area of Counteracting Legalization (Laundering) of Incomings Received by Illegal Means, and Financing Terrorism.’ Adopted by the State Duma 7.07.2010; approved by the Council of Federation 14.07.2010; signed by the President of the Russian Federation 27.07.2010. Published 31.07.2010. Enters into force in 90 days after publication.

[9] This sentence was not included into the general statistics of convictions considered in this report.

[10] See further in Kozhevnikova Galina. Manifestations of Radical Nationalism and Efforts to Counteract It in Russia during the First Half of 2010. // SOVA Center. Racism and Xenophobia. July 2010. (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2010/07/d19289/).

[11] The cases of two members of the group. Anton Tabachkov and Elena Rasskazova, were considered separately, sentences been passed already. See: V Tveri vynesen prigovor odnomy iz uchastnikov rasistskikh napadenii // SOVA Center. 15 July 2009. (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2009/07/d16873); Delo Tverskogo RNE: Elene Rasskazovoi vynesen prigovor // SOVA Center. 4 August 2010. (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2010/08/d19473/).

[12] His graffiti included texts threatening a policeman who took part in the investigation of the case.

[13] See further in Verkhovskii Alexander. Nepravomernoe primenenie antiekstremistskogo zakonodatel’stava v Rossii v 2009 godu. // SOVA Center. Natsionalizm i ksenofobia v Rossii. 18 March 2009. (http://www.sova-center.ru/misuse/publications/2010/03/d18261/).

[14] Its official title is the List of social and religious associations, other non-profit organizations in respect of which the court has made a ruling (that has entered into force) on its liquidation or banning its activity on the grounds provided by the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity.