Alexander Verkhovsky, Galina Kozhevnikova. Main trends of radical nationalist movement and the government's response to it 2004 - early 2005

This report was distributed on OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, Warsaw, 19-30 September 2005.

Radical nationalist activity

Radical nationalist activity

Radical nationalist activity

In 2004, the same radical nationalist political organizations were among the most active as in the previous year. These included, in the first place, the National Imperial Party of Russia (NDPR) headed by Alexander Sevastyanov and Stanislav Terekhov. Many regional branches of the Russian National Unity (RNE) which broke up earlier are still visible, including former branches of both RNEs - one of them headed by Alexander Barkashov and the other by Lalochkin brothers.

Skinheads have not become better organized over the year: no new groups have emerged, while old groups have not added to their membership; however, the skinhead movement expands geographically and grows numerically. Some minor radical political groups have involved skinheads in their ranks, including Yury Belyaev's Freedom Party, Alexander Ivanov's (Sukharevsky's) People's National Party, and Dmitry Dyomushkin's Slavic Union.

The Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) has not grown into a noticeable force, although it has not stopped its activity either. It has also attempted to involve skinheads.

Main areas of radical nationalist activity have remained the same as before: propaganda, attempts to stand for elections (most often, again, for the sake of propaganda, rather than the actual result) and acts of violence.

The radical nationalist propaganda toolbox has also remained the same since long ago. We cannot say that the propaganda has become substantially more active. There has been certain "progress', however. In 2002, after just one incident of Anti-Deza show on TVC - a show based on anti-Semitic myths - it was perceived as public scandal, and the show was immediately closed. However, in 2004, the TV-3 decimeter channel based in St. Petersburg, but broadcasting also to Moscow and a number of other regions, regularly broadcast Our Strategy show featuring nationalist (including anti-Semitic) messages, and no one seemed to be scandalized. The show hosts are Mikhail Shiryaev (the son of a well-known activist of St. Petersburg Pamyat and himself an activist of the Party for the Holy Russia) and Nikolay Smirnov (a veteran of St. Petersburg Pamyat), and their guest speakers include such radicals as Igor Shafarevich and Andrei Saveliev, and the now respectable leaders of Rodina Party, Dmitry Rogozin and Sergey Baburin. The TV-3 channel otherwise has not shown any nationalist trends: it appears that the top management choose for some reason to ignore the nationalist show. Similarly, wider public ignores it as well. The fact that this highly nationalist show is tolerated is suggestive in and of itself.

Six months later, a similar TV show -Two against One - was launched in St. Petersburg; it received an official warning once for anti-Azeri propaganda, but continues to air its openly nationalist views.

Habitualness of anti-Semitism resulted in signing in 2005 Jan. by 19 State Duma Deputies the address to the Prosecutor-General, containing demand to suspend all the Jewish organizations as extremist ones. (At that time the address was signed by 500 persons; now the number of the signatures amounts already to 10 000.) The demand was founded by a complex of long ago refuted anti-Semitic myths, among them a myth of some special aggressiveness of the Jews towards non-Jews, of ritual killings, of the all-World Jewish conspiracy.

Noteworthy is the fact that there is no LDPR Deputies among Duma Deputies having signed the address though LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovskiy seems to be best-known outside Russia as a Russian nationalist. LDPR is long since disinclined for such radical acts. These were :Rodina; [:Motherland;] block and Communist Party Deputies who signed the address. And it was :Motherland; block that brought in the late 2003 the group of the extremely radical nationalist to the Parliament. In the present Duma there are much more such Deputies than in any Russian Parliament of recent times, and the fact heavily affects the climate in the Country.

In January the President and State Duma condemned anti-Semitism, but Office of Public Prosecutor is still engaged in studying the question raised by the authors of the address. The claims of anti-Semits and the counter-claim of Jewish organizations to bring a criminal action against the authors of the address were being studied together under the framework of the single Public Prosecutor examination and were both declined. There is no question as yet of the punishment of the perpetrators of the biggest anti-Semitic provocation of the recent time.

Radical nationalists have participated in the 2003 parliamentary elections, and even attempted to stand for the 2004 presidential elections. However, radicals are much more visible at local elections; their local campaigning is much more aggressive. A couple of examples can serve as illustrations. A candidate for the mayor of Vladivostok said publicly that he was prepared to involve skinheads in law enforcement [1]. Alexey Mitrofanov and Alexey Golubyatnikov members of the Liberal Democratic party standing for governors, respectively, of Pskov and Volgograd Oblasts, ran their election campaigns under slogans such as :Criminal Southerners - get out of Pskov Oblast; and "We are not in the Caucasus here!" Notably, the court refused to prohibit the two Zhirinovsky's candidates responsible for inciting ethnic hatred from standing for elections.

Street violence is an increasingly common activity of radical nationalists. It would be difficult to offer a quantitative estimate of racially motivated violence. Members of ethnic communities say that only a fraction of violent attacks get documented. Extensive evidence suggests that police fails to document many attacks, and fails to recognize those attacks that it does document as racially motivated. Obviously, only a small part of actual incidents are covered by the local and federal press. We cannot even roughly estimate what proportion of the attacks is covered by various statistics.

It is not much easier, unfortunately, to assess the dynamics of the violence. Given that the media and local NGOs serve as the principal sources of information, it is impossible to differentiate between the dynamics of events and the dynamics of attention to such events. In February 2004, the killing of a nine-year-old Tadjik girl Khursheda Sultonova in St. Petersburg elicited a broad public response. Many people said that the attention to this individual incident was disproportional. It may be true to an extent, but public response tends to focus on individual cases, and the public perceives general issues through individual case stories. The 'disproportional' attention to the killing of one child increased media coverage of attacks by skinheads in general.

The statistics collected by SOVA Center[2] are based on publications in a broad range of federal and regional broadcast and print media, on websites, private mailing lists and messages. According to these statistics, in 2004, there were at least 45 attacks by skinheads resulting in the victim's death - compared to about 20 such attacks in 2003. Apparently, the media attention to such events has been growing gradually, but judging by the overall coverage of ethnicity-related issues, it seems unlikely that the media attention has more than doubled to reflect the dynamics of racist crime - the increase has been by 50% at best. It is hard to say how many hate killings have occurred in addition to the 45, but the real figure may be 'only' twice or three times higher, because murder warrants attention, there has to be an investigation, it will be covered in crime news, and the racist motives will be more visible to observers than, say, in a case of beating.

So many beatings happen in this country that they are hardly ever noticed. In case of racially motivated beating police will often refuse to investigate or will conduct a merely formal investigation, and such attacks per se, in the absence of additional circumstances, are not of much interest to most journalists. Therefore, SOVA Center believes that the figure of beatings quoted in the same report (about 200 victims of beating, minus group fights) may be one order less than the real figure.

Main victims of skinhead attacks (or Cossack attacks in the Russian South) are Black Africans, and persons originating from the Caucasus and Asian countries. Statistically, most victims are people from the Caucasus and the post-Soviet Central Asia, but the reason is their greater number in Russian cities, as opposed to Chinese, Indians and other ethnic groups. It is easy to fall victim to skinheads "by mistake' - the attackers determine race by appearance alone. Some victims of racist beatings have been ethnic Slavs who happened to be among persons of other ethnicities. Besides, skinheads often target homeless people regardless of ethnicity: in addition to the 45 documented racist killings, 14 hate killings of homeless people were reported.

Skinheads and other radical nationalists usually attack individuals, always acting as a group, but increasingly, there have been cases of massive fighting. While few massive fights were reported in 2004 in Moscow, many more were documented in a number of other cities. Very often, fighting would take place at a café, in the marketplace, at events held by radical leftist groups, in "ethnic' dormitories, etc. It is difficult to assess even roughly the number of victims of such fights.

Notably, until recently, attacks against Jews were fairly rare, although they did happen. There were a few attempts to blow up the buildings of Jewish secular and religious associations, but most of these attempts failed. But the in December 2004 alone, two attacks were reported that were clearly anti-Semitic in nature. In January 2005, three more assaults occurred, as a result of which at least five people were injured. Most of the incidents in Moscow took place in one district, in Mar`ina's Roscha, where the synagogue of the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Russia is located. This enables us to surmise that all of these incidents were provoked by some internal processes within the skinhead groups themselves, and even in one grouping localized in this district. It is no accident that after the detention of some adolescents suspected in the beating of two rabbis on 14 January 2005, the attacks in this district ceased.

In 2004, the incidence of violence and threats by radical nationalists against their political opponents (regardless of their assumed ethnicity) increased. The most tragic and widely covered was the killing of scholar Nikolai Girenko in St. Petersburg on June 19, 2004. Besides publishing theoretical texts, the scholar had, on many occasions, testified as expert in court against nationalists. The method of killing (Girenko was shot dead through the door of his apartment) left no doubt as to the ideological nature of the crime.

The murder of Girenko was the first of its kind in contemporary Russian history (as opposed to either high-profile political assassinations or the killings of people formerly unknown to the public). The reaction of radical nationalists was also noteworthy. A minor nationalist group, Vladimir Popov's National Republic, claimed responsibility for the killing (although it is highly improbable that Popov should have been involved; apparently, the investigation is not considering this version either), while NDPR leader A. Sevastyanov publicly welcomed the murder and expressed his hope that similar acts should continue. Formerly, being directly associated with a specific killing was considered risky even by extremists.

In 2004, other radical nationalists, primarily D. Dyomuskin's SS, openly threatened prominent human rights activists, such as Dmitry Krayukhin, Andrei Yurov, and Lyudmila Alexeyeva. There have been a number of attacks (in Izhevsk, in Voronezh) [3].

There were two attacks against judges involved in RNE cases in Dolgoprudny (one of the judges was killed). Possibly, the perpetrators were also members of local criminal gangs (there is a strong link between radical nationalists and criminals). Bandits had killed judges before, but this in case, for the first time, the perpetrators were identified as radical nationalists.

In 2004, religious and cultural intolerance was at the same level as before. Vandalism in cemeteries and around places of worship of virtually all religions continued. However, protestant prayer houses were targeted by attacks, including arson and blasts, more often than others; in Nizhny Novgorod, the perpetrators were members of the local RNE.

The situation changed drastically after the events in Beslan: following the tragic outcome of the hostage tragedy, a number of anti-Islamic attacks took place in different cities. Most of them occurred in the first two months after the tragedy.

It's too early to summarize information on the current year, but we may notice some significant developments in this area in the first eight months of 2005 as compared to 2004. There are much less murders in our statistics (14 persons murdered), but there are more violent attacks in general (195 beaten).

The government's response to radical nationalism

Unfortunately, in 2004, authorities, and law enforcement agencies in particular, offered a rather passive response to the criminal activities of radical nationalists.

There have been reports from many regions that police refuse to take complaints from victims of racist attacks, and sometimes even attempt to blame the victims. Not infrequently, police themselves are a source of discrimination and selective violence, making victims even more reluctant to ask police for help.

Another concern is that some police officers need psychological rehabilitation in connection with the violence they use at work; the need is especially urgent in those who have served in Chechnya, where many officers learn to hate all Chechens and all people originating from the Caucasus.

Combating radical nationalists through legal means is the most important method of dealing with the problem. There are not so many options for legal actions; they include criminal prosecution for incitation of hatred or for other hate crimes, administrative sanctions against individual offenders, and termination or liquidation of radical nationalist groups or publications.

Administrative sanctions are very rare. Sometimes, radicals are fined for participation in non-authorized mass events.

Bans or restrictions imposed on organizations or publications are also extremely rare. In 2004, only one nationalist organization was closed for the content of its extremist activity; it was a group of "Old Believers - Inglings" in Omsk. The single decisive factor in the Inglings case, like in similar cases before them, was the use of a swastika, which, in essence is a weak argument. In 2003, a number of nationalist organizations were closed, in most cases, again, for the use of symbols that looked like a swastika.

There have been no prosecutions against radical organizations that continued their activity after being banned. The relevant Article 282(2) of the Criminal Code has being used only against one Islamist organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In 2004, like a few times before, a number of nationalist organizations (in Pskov, Vladimir, and other cities) had their registrations revoked following a general legal review. The fact that these dangerous organizations were closed for purely formal reasons reduces the significance of such closures; indeed, in Novgorod and Vladimir, for example, these legal reviews checked formal aspects of registration and did not target any organization in particular; it is seen from the fact that they resulted in closure, besides radical groups, of the loyal and officially acceptable Party of Life branches.

In 2004, there were virtually no sanctions against hate publications. Possibly, it was due to major reorganization of government, which temporarily paralyzed many of its functions, especially those perceived of less importance. Prosecutors are also empowered to warn media for hate publications and to request courts to close a media outlet for non-compliance, but they avoid using this power and rely on government to do the job. In 2005 Government is more active in warning mass-media.

But we must stress that only one newspaper was closed for hate propaganda since the beginning of year 2003.

In 2003 there were five persons sentenced under Article 282 of Criminal Code for hate propaganda, but four of them weren't really punished because of amnesty or other reasons. In 2004, in three out of four cases under Article 282 courts did not impose any real punishment - the cases of Mikhail Trapeznikov, Igor Kolodezenko (it is his second case under Article 282), and even the well-known anti-Semitist Victor Korchagin. Only Pavel Ivanov was sentenced to a fine.

Till September 2005 ten persons were sentenced under Article 282 for propaganda. One of them was sentenced to fine, one - to half-year compulsory working and three others - to limitation their journalistic or other media activities for 3 years. Five others avoid any real punishment.

And in 2005 two human rights activists were sentenced to huge fine under Article 282 for organizing the exhibition of contemporary art pieces related to religion. We are sure, that the court made a mistake: many people didn't like this exhibition, but it didn't incite hatred.

There was some progress in 2004 in criminal prosecution of violent hate crimes. Given that only some cases of racist attacks become known to the public, there is no doubt that only some of the convictions have become known. Anyway, a total of about 20 convictions were reported over the year 2004, and eight of them recognized the racist motive - which is a dramatic increase since 2003, where racist motives were recognized only in three cases. The nine recognized racist crimes included, in addition to high profile cases (such as the killing of a Roma girl-child in St. Petersburg metropolitan area, threats to blow up the synagogue in Novgorod, and the killing of a Black African student in Voronezh), some of the less known cases as well. It means that investigators and judges do not just respond to public pressure, but they are changing their attitude to such crimes.

In eight months of year 2005 we know 11 sentences recognized the racist motive of violent crime. Up to 30 persons were sentenced.

Unfortunately, they still have a long way to go. Most of the known sentences in 2004 did not mention racist motives - even in some high-profile cases, like the pogrom in Yasenevo Market in 2001 and skinhead attacks on Fili Underground Station in Moscow. Most sentences were symbolic or probational, except in the Fili case, where a policeman was killed, so eight people were sentenced to between 4.5 and 18 years of prison. As to 2005, we know only few sentences without mentioning racist motives, and we consider this fact as a very good trend.

There have been virtually no trials under the new Article 282(1) introduced in the Criminal Code pursuant to the Law on Combating Extremist Activity. This article criminalizes the organization of extremist community, i.e. a group planning to engage in certain types of offences (there are some problems with the proposed list of offences, but just now it is of less importance), and involvement in such groups. There has been so far no ruling in the first case under this article involving the leader and members of Schultz-88, a group of skinheads in St. Petersburg. According to the regional report, the group may still be active. It was only on May 31, 2005, that the court in Novgorod passed the first conviction (but with a probational sentence) under this article.

The main trend in the government policies towards radical nationalism is unclear at the moment. In fact, two trends co-exist in Russia now: efforts to suppress and combat dangerous and destabilizing actions of radical nationalists, and the tendency to ignore the problem as not so urgent. Possibly, the tendency to ignore the problem (reflected in investigative and judicial practices, as well as in statements by many government officials) is caused not only by the lack of awareness and concern, but also by the general confusion: the Law on Combating Extremist Activity which many had welcomed as a panacea, does not work at all, and it is unclear what else can be done.

[1]. Margarita Ussova, Call Me Crazy // Zolotoy Rog (Vladivostok), 2004. 11 May.

[2].The 2004 findings are summarized in the report by Galina Kozhevnikova Radical Nationalism in Russia: Manifestations and Responses. A review of 2004 events. The report is available from SOVA Centre website

Since October 2004, the site has published daily monitoring findings in the section on Nationalism and Xenophobia: http://xeno.sova-center.ru - this article is largely based on these findings and on regional reports provided to the Foundation for Civil Society.

[3]. Nazi Threaten Human Rights Defenders // Human Rights in Russia, 2004. 23 August.

This paper is prepared in collaboration with :For Civil Society; Foundation