Nationalism and xenophobia: Autumn 2007: Nazi Raids, Russian Marches, and Putin as Schtirlitz
СОВА / SOVA. Национализм и ксенофобия / Nationalism and xenophobia: скинхеды, язык вражды, этнические конфликты, антисемитизм, расизм, экстремизм, радикализм, фашизм, скинхэды, скины, толерантность // Galina Kozhevnikova. Autumn 2007: Nazi Raids, Russian Marches, and Putin as Schtirlitz
Wе publish our seasonal report on radical nationalism and counteraction to it in autumn 2007. As usual, the report is based on the results of the SOVA Center daily monitoring. Most of the trends which we have described earlier continued in the autumn of 2007. Racist and neo-Nazi violence were both on the rise, and by the end of November the number of victims had exceeded that which was reported in 2006. Nationalist organizations were slightly less active than expected. Apparently, this may have been caused by serious conflicts among the ultra-right, which escalated as elections approached. However, these conflicts – only a small fraction of which were visible to outsiders – did not stop the ultra-right from conducting the Russian March almost on a national scale on 4 November, covering at least 20 different regions of the country. Pro-Kremlin youth movements (particularly “Mestnye” – “The Locals”) increasingly appealed to xenophobic sentiments towards the Russian public, and authorities appeared quite willing to use the youngsters’ racist practices to further their own agendas. In the period covered by this report, ethnic xenophobia was utilized as an electoral resource, although to a much lesser degree than was expected. The “xenophobic resource” was not universally used by all candidates, but instructively all four political parties which reached the State Duma made some use of it. Ultra-nationalists appeared rather weak during the election campaign. Admittedly, the percentage of votes for the only party list in which radicals were represented was comparable (if adjusted for „administrative influence“) to results achieved by SPS and Yabloko parties. Similarly, earlier trends continued in the sphere of counteractions to radical nationalism. NGOs did not go beyond their traditional activities, while public events under anti-fascist slogans failed to steer clear of partisan bias. Criminal prosecution of nationalist and neo-Nazi violence decreased in comparison to previous years; it was obvious that by the end of 2007 the number of convictions for racist crimes was not going to double that of the previous year (which had been the trend before), but rather, the convictions would be fewer than in 2006. In contract, some positive developments in suppressing racist propaganda – observed in the spring and summer of 2007 – continued into autumn. Rates of prosecution targeting hate promoters were maintained, while most sentences were adequate to the seriousness of offenses. The practices of declaring certain materials extremist and punishing media outlets for xenophobic publications continued to evolve. However, in many cases of the labeling of materials as extremist, and particularly in cases of media publications being warned for extremism, authorities excessively limited the legitimate freedom of expression. Obviously, such unlawful enforcements were politically motivated, but we do not know of a single case where abusive authorities were punished for manipulating the law. Unfortunately, counteracting radical nationalism and xenophobia is not yet seen as a priority, particularly by the government, and very often it appeared that the main reason for enforcement was not due to the danger of unlawful acts, but as a reaction to disloyalty to the current political regime. This selective enforcement created a sense of impunity among radical groups which did not act in opposition to the government.
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