Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 22 – Neo-Nazi
violence in Russia, after declining between 2009 and 2012, is again on the rise
with an increasing share of it now directed against immigrants from Central
Asia rather than “persons of Caucasus nationality” because those involved in
such attacks feel they are less likely to be punished if they do, according to
the SOVA Center.
Part of this shift undoubtedly reflects the
fact that there are now far more immigrants from Central Asia in Russian cities
than there are migrant workers from the North Caucasus, but part of it also
reflects, SOVA experts indicated that the neo-Nazis are convinced that the Russian
authorities are more willing to allow the former to be attacked.
And that in turn, although this is
not something the SOVA experts said, raises a truly disturbing possibility:
Because for most Russians distinguishing between Central Asians and North
Caucasians is not easy, the Russian authorities themselves may very well be
involved at some level in directing such attacks.
Last week, human rights experts met
in Moscow to discuss “Neo-Nazi Force in Contemporary Russia. Where are We
Heading?” Some of the news they had was
good; other aspects of it are extremely troubling and point to new dangers
ahead (rusplt.ru/society/eksperty-o-nacistah-7413.html).
Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the director
of the SOVA Information-Analytic Center, noted that the number of neo-Nazi
attacks had risen continuously from 2004 to 2008, then fallen slightly through
2012 but last year, although data are incomplete, appear to have increased
slightly once again.
He suggested that this trend
reflects the actions of police officials. When there are few mass protests, the
police tend to focus on violent attacks, but when the number of protests
increase, the police focus on them because “such crimes are easier to investigate,”
even if many would say they were not crimes at all. Changing that patter will
be “complicated.”
According to Verkhovsky, “if earlier
the Nazis mainly attacked people from the Caucasus, now they choose people from
Central Asia because [such a choice] seems to them more secure.”
This shift reflects both a change in
the self-definition of the neo-Nazis who increasingly see themselves as “an
opposition and even revolutionary” movement and in their preferred method of
action, raids or purges on particular locations which allows them “almost
legally to use moderate force.”
According to Verkhovsky, such “new
type of neo-Nazi activity will not be put down by the powers that be because it
is completely congruent with the current rhetoric of the latter.” Instead, at least some in the police will
view the Nazis as “socially near elements” or even allies in the fight with
groups the police and the powers don’t like.
Another participant in the
presentation, Svetlana Gannushkina, president of the Civic Support Committee,
said that there were no migrants in the Russian Federation at the present time
who had not been subject to one or another form of persecution. “We have not an epidemic but a pandemic of
xenophobia,” adding that the situation is “explosive.”
The activist added that the fears many Russians have
about immigrants are “irrational.”
Residents are far more likely to be threatened by “aggressive
nationalists” who often use violence than by gastarbeiters who only want to
earn money and send it back to their families at home.
She
said that she was concerned not only by the recent passage of increasingly
repressive legislation in Moscow but by the fact that Russian officials are
enforcing laws very differently in different parts of the country. Those who
feel they can get away with it are going far beyond the letter of the law and
making the situation even worse.
Aleksey Sakhnin, a Left Front
activist who has requested political asylum in Sweden, took part in the
conference via Skype. He said that it
was his view that “the [Russian] government was specifically creating panic in
society” in order to make people “more inclined to approve the use of force by
the police.”
This approach has the effect of
legitimating nationalist extremism, he said.
Verkhovsky for his part said that
one of the saddest aspects of the current situation is that many opposition
figures now “share the same prejudices that the authorities do: they think that
once xenophobia has spread through society, they need to use it.” Some of them think that if they do “millions
of xenophobes” will follow them. But they won’t, he said.
Gannushkina summed up the feelings
of her colleagues: any “tolerance for intolerance will lead to fascism,” she
said, and consequently, those who care about human rights have to fight it
wherever it appears.
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