Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 25 – It is
extremely difficult for non-Russians to prove that Russians are discriminating
against on an ethnic basis, but it is extremely easy for the Russian
authorities to charge one of their number or others with extremism, just one of
the maddening asymmetries in Russian life under Vladimir Putin.
The case of the first was made
yesterday by journalist Grigory Naberezhnov on Lenta.ru (lenta.ru/articles/2013/09/23/bigotry/);
the case for the second proposition was made by Vladimir Titov, a commentator
for the “Osobaya bukva” portal (specletter.com/obcshestvo/2013-09-24/byl-by-chelovek-a-ekstremizm-naidetsja.html).
According
to Naberezhnov, Russian “hotels refuse service, employers refuse to hire,
beauty parlors refuse to cut hair, and military commissions refuse to allow
[non-Russians] to serve in the army.” In each case, these acts of
discrimination involve Russian citizens “whose names are not like ‘Slavic’
ones.”
Typically,
he continues, these acts of discrimination in both the private and public
sectors are explained by “completely pragmatic reasons.” But an examination of a number of cases
suggests that hostility toward members of other ethnic and religious groups is
being manifested in illegal and unconstitutional ways.
After
providing several examples of such discrimination, Naberezhnov talked to
experts and rights activists about the situation. Mikhail Ahshakov, head of the Society for the
Defense of Consumer Rights, says that “any offer of goods and services is a
public offer, and it must be concluded with any consumer.” But obviously that
does not always happen.
According
to some observers, the Lenta.ru journalist continues, discrimination against
non-Russians reflects everyday xenophobia, a kind of “new racism” which is “connected
as a rule not with dislike to particular nations as such but with a total lack
of acceptance of their culture.”
Such
discrimination is both unconstitutional and illegal, but “to prove
discrimination on the basis of nationality is very complicated,” Naberezhnov
says. Written materials or witnesses are generally required, and those are not
always easy to acquire or to get the authorities to recognize what they show.
Moreover,
he continues, “discrimination is not always punished by law. On the one hand, offers to rent an apartment
that include statements like ‘we rent to Slavs’ are illegal. On the other, the
owner of an apartment can decide on his own to whom he will rent his apartment
without explaining his reasons.”
“Such
a manifestation of xenophobia remains within the law. But even here one is not
always able to specify that national prejudices are primary.” Class prejudices or other considerations may
be involved, and Russian officials are inclined to look for them rather than
assuming that any action is based on ethnic hatred alone.
The
only group which by law has the right to focus on the nationality of a Russian
citizen is the police. In the West, this
has led to charges of “racial profiling,” but in the Russian Federation, it is
completely legal. But often, police
actions against one or another individual may have more to do with class than
with nationality, Naberezhnov says.
Russian
society, according to the article, is “very hierarchical, and ordinary
militiamen often are themselves new arrivals to major cities, people with
financial and cultural problems” not terribly difficult from the migrants they
have to supervise. Often, what the police
do, it continues, is to use “xenophobia and racism” not as an end but “only as
a means” for their own ends.
Meanwhile, in an “Osobaya bukva”
article, Titov points out that it is very easy for the authorities to bring
charges of extremism against anyone even if they think they are protecting
themselves by avoiding any involvement in politics. And he provides numerous
examples of the ways the authorities do so, even when they are not interested
in protecting the citizenry from discrimination or some other violation of
their rights.
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