HONORARY CHAIRMAN ADVISORY BOARD (CHAIR) PRESIDENT Yuri Orlov Karl von Schwarzenberg Ludmilla Alexeyeva EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE VICE PRESIDENT Aaron Rhodes Sonja Biserko Ulrich Fischer

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Holly Cartner TREASURER Brigitte Dufour Bjørn Engesland Stein-Ivar Aarsæther Krassimir Kanev Andrzej Rzeplinski Wickenburgg. 14/7, A-1080 Vienna, ; Tel +43-1-408 88 22; Fax 408 88 22-50 e-mail: [email protected] – internet: http://www.ihf-hr.org Bank account: Bank Austria Creditanstalt, 0221-00283/00, BLZ 12 000

ANNUAL REPORT 1999

Russia

IHF Focus: Elections and referenda; freedom of expression and the media; freedom of association and peaceful assembly; judicial system and independence of the judiciary; conditions in prisons and detention facilities; religious tolerance; freedom of movement; protection of minorities and tolerance; death penalty; rights of the child; human rights defenders.

The August decision of the Russian government to devaluate the ruble and to default its foreign debt escalated the collapse of the already miserable economy. As a result of the financial crisis, millions of citizens lost their bank savings. The failure to pay pensions, salaries and social allowances – in some cases for as long as over a year - placed much of the population at the verge of subsistence, the situation getting even more dramatic in the winter of 1998-1999 due to fuel and food shortages in many rural areas.

In pace with economic decline, basic human rights were increasingly violated and the rule of law grew extremely weak in the Russian Federation. Regional authorities often operated in total disregard of federal laws, with little protests from . Corruption penetrated all sectors of society.

The judicial system was dependent on local authorities, and often showed little interest in administrating the law. The media faced increasing financial problems and restrictions. There were virtually no genuinely independent media outlets left in most Russian regions. In 1998 critical journalists were harassed by local authorities, and many were murdered. The trials against Alexander Nikitin and Grigori Pasko revealed the vulnerability of free expression in , the strength of the influence of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB, formerly KGB), and the weakness of the judicial system.

The murder of the deputy Galina Starovoitova, one of the most prominent defenders of the rule of law, tolerance and human rights and a member of the , who had condemned the rise of fascism in Russia, illustrates the climate of violence in the country.

The IHF has consultative status with the United Nations and the Council of Europe. MEMBER AND COOPERATING* COMMITTEES IN: Albania – Austria – - Belarus – Bosnia-Herzegovina – Bulgaria – Canada – Croatia – Czech Republic – Denmark – Finland – France – Georgia* Germany – Greece – Hungary – Italy – Kazakhstan – Kosovo – Kyrgyzstan – Latvia – Lithuania – Macedonia – Moldova – Montenegro – The Netherlands Norway – Poland – Romania – Russia – Serbia – Slovakia – Slovenia – Sweden – Switzerland – Ukraine* – United Kingdom – – Uzbekistan* COOPERATING ORGANIZA TIONS: The European Roma Rights Center – Human Rights Without Frontiers – Mental Disability Advocacy Center Elections and Referenda 1

In the past few years the electoral rights of Russian citizens have been violated in numerous cases. The methods used by authorities included tampering of election laws as well as slander campaigns and fabricated criminal charges against rivals who ended up behind bars, sometimes for years. In 1998 at least four such cases occurred:

- On 29 March businessman Andrei Klementyev was elected mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, the third largest city of the Russian Federation. Local authorities confirmed his victory in televised statements and noted - just like independent observers - that the elections were held without any substantial irregularities. The local electoral commission declared the elections valid. However, on the demand of the central electoral commission, the local commission on 1 April declared the results invalid. The following day Klementyev was arrested in the court building where he wanted to attend hearings of a longstanding criminal case in which he was accused of embezzlement of government funds. New elections were held in September, but Klementyev could not run as he was already convicted.

- On 14 June, six months earlier than stipulated by the constitution, presidential elections were held in Bashkortostan. This was done in order to allow incumbent president Murtaza Rakhimov to run before his 65th birthday, the age limit to run for president. Rakhimov’s main rivals were groundlessly denied registration as candidates and were refused access to the local government-controlled press. Independent media were attacked (see below).

- In October at the eve of the elections for mayor in the city of Vladivostok (Primorsky region), the electoral commission decided to take the city’s incumbent mayor, Victor Cherpkov, off the list of candidates, citing violation of law during his election campaign. This act was preceded by a long animosity between Cherpkov and the local governor, Evgeny Nazdratenko. The majority of the electorate protested the act by voting against all the candidates remaining on the list. As no one was elected mayor, by law, the incumbent mayor should have stayed in office until the second elections, which were scheduled for January 1999. But in December 1998 President Yeltsin dismissed Chepkov, without legal authority to do so.

Mr. Konyakhin, mayor of the town of Leninsk-Kuznetsky in Kuzbas, was dismissed and arrested after Izvestia newspaper had published articles alleging that he had used municipal funds to acquire personal property. These allegations could not be substantiated in a year-long investigation, during which time Konyakhin was held in custody. Finally, Konyakhin was released under the sole condition of paying a fine for minor violations of business management regulations.

Freedom of Expression and Media2

Freedom of expression suffered serious setbacks. In mid-September the new Prime Minister Evgeni Primakov banned government officials from talking to reporters without prior permission. Draft regulations submitted by the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) regarding the Internet and e-mail would allow the security services to monitor all such communications without obtaining prior permission.3 The FSB played a central role in restricting free expression generally, and in the prosecution and trials of Alexandr Nikitin and Grigori Pasko in particular. Both proceedings were dangerously reminiscent of the Soviet system

- Alexandr Nikitin, former submarine captain and nuclear engineer, was charged with espionage and disclosure of state secrets after co-writing a report on the Russian Northern fleet’s treatment of nuclear waste. The right to report on environmental issues, however, is protected by both the Russian constitution (article 41) and international law. The charges were based on secret decrees of the Ministry of Defense. Throughout the investigation, which lasted more than three years, the FSB’s methods amounted to harassment and intimidation. In October 1998 Nikitin stood trial before the St. Petersburg City Court. On 30 October the judge remanded the case for further investigation. On 4 February 1999 the Supreme Court avoided issuing a final decision, which was in violation of the defendant’s right to be judged without delay and the presumption of his innocence. It upheld the decision of the lower court, declaring the indictment vague and depriving the defendant of any possibility of defense – and remanded the case for further investigation.4 Nikitin will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

- A similar case was that of Grigori Pasko, a naval captain and correspondent for the newspaper of the Russian Pacific Fleet, Boyevaya Vakhta. Pasko also worked for the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and the Japanese national daily Asahi Shimbun. Pasko was imprisoned in November 1997 in Vladivostok and faced trial on charges of treason. The charges were based on his publications on the problem of nuclear waste disposal, which has created a major environmental danger. The authorities admitted that none of the facts he had published revealed state secrets or endangered national security. Moreover, all of Pasko's contacts with the Japanese media were sanctioned or coordinated with the leadership of the Pacific Fleet, and all material published in the Fleet's newspaper had passed the military censor. Nevertheless, the authorities argued that the net effect of his publications resulted in revealing a pattern whose exposure constituted a challenge to Russian state security.5 The trial continues in 1999.

A return to the Soviet practice of misuse of psychiatric institutions was reported in Kalmykia:

In early March the Kalmyk authorities placed Lidia Dordzhieva, head of the humanitarian organization "Heart to Heart," in a psychiatric hospital after she had led a hunger strike of disabled people and mothers of large families to protest government allowance arrears. After about one week she was released, as doctors diagnosed her as healthy. She was later granted asylum abroad.6 Freedom of the Media

The mass media grew increasingly dependent on local authorities, serving their needs rather than distributing objective information. Only very few regions still had independent newspapers, radio or television companies. Most of them suffered serious financial problems: they were being reined by taxes, fines and fees, while loyal media outlets enjoyed various privileges and subsidies. Rising costs, devaluation of money received from subscription, and a collapsing advertising market added to their financial difficulties.

There was a worrisome tendency toward huge media monopolies owned by banks and other major companies, often with close links to political leadership. For example, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov had a huge media network at his disposal. It included the television network TV-Center, and several influential newspapers and weeklies. In July the Russian government granted advantages to the holding company All-Russian State TV and Radio (VGTRK), an act criticized by other media as a violation of the Russian constitution, which forbids monopolies and guarantees equal conditions of business operations to all organizations regardless of their form of ownership.

The media situation in the Republic of Bashkortostan was particularly serious. There all media outlets focused on praising President Rakhimov, while the slightest attempt at criticizing him kindled repression.

- On the eve of the presidential elections, the newspaper Vecherny Nefteyugansk and the independent radio station Titan were shut down, their offices sealed and their equipment confiscated. Although its rights were recognized in a trial which was held outside Bashkortostan – no local court would have ruled so - the newspaper never began to publish again as it no longer had premises, equipment, or funds. The radio station Titan remained shut as of the end of 1998.7 Its director, Altaf Galeev, was arrested in May and is still being held in detention. Prior to the elections, broadcasts by Russian television were often tampered with by local television companies, and issues of Russian newspapers that criticized President Rakhimov were unavailable. Attempts were made to obstruct the work of the correspondent of the Russian television program "Vesti".8

- On 2 July the local economic crime prevention unit of the city of Beloretsk confiscated 5,000 copies of the opposition newspaper Otechestvo from distributors.

- On 7 August Victor Shmakov, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Vmeste in Ufa, was assaulted.9 A week later in the same town Sergei Fufaev, a journalist with Otechestvo, was attacked by unknown individuals. Fufaev reported that one of the assailants told him: "You know the reason [for this assault]." He had received several threatening phone calls and believed that the assault might be connected with his publications concerning the presidential elections in Bashkortostan.10

Harassment of Journalists

Journalist faced harassment, physical ill-treatment, and several were killed in 1998. In most cases it was difficult to establish whether the killings were direct acts of reprisal for the victims’ reporting. However, throughout the Russian Federation there was a frightening tendency of senior local authorities to threaten and intimidate critical journalist. According to the Glasnost Defense Foundation, at least nine journalists were murdered in the first eight months of 1998, six of them possibly for investigating and exposing criminal structures and corruption within the administration as well as in banks. Still, the police in most cases announced that they died as a result of family arguments. Dozens of other journalists were attacked. 11

- On 7 June Larisa Yudina, editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya, was found stabbed to death by a pond in the Kalmyk capital, Elista. She was working on a case involving misappropriation of funds by the Kalmyk Republic’s president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Local authorities had previously threatened Yudina with closure of her newspaper. By November four suspects were arrested.12 In December Yudina’s husband and successor as chief editor, Gennadi Yudin, said at a press conference that harassment by authorities had continued throughout 1998.13

On 21 August Anatoly Levin-Utkin, deputy editor of the new St. Petersburg weekly Yuridichesky Peterburg Segodnya, was fatally beaten in the doorway of his apartment, in an apparent reprisal for his work as a journalist. He was robbed of his briefcase, which contained materials he had gathered for an investigative series of articles on rivalries between major local financial and political figures. Levin-Utkin died three days later of serious brain injuries. Alexei Domnin, editor of the weekly, said at a news conference on 25 August that he was certain the murder was connected with the series of investigative stories on politically sensitive issues published by the magazine. He added that officials from customs and the secret services, who were subjects of the articles, had called him after the second issue was published demanding to know the names of sources and reporters who worked on the series. The officials later denied having made the calls. Domnin blamed local officials and financial interests for at least two attempts to prevent the printing and distribution of the newspaper's second issue.14

Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly15

Registration of NGOs, which were critical of state or local authorities, became more and more difficult, and many such NGOs were stripped of registration.

- A Moscow NGO "Man in Prison," led by human rights activist and journalist Olga Chaikovskaya, was not registered in 1998 as the officials of the Ministry of Judiciary did not like the name of the organization. The NGO examined the situation of inmates in Russian prisons and camps in order to improve conditions in them. In early 1999, the NGO was registered.

In May the regional court of Ulyanovsk revoked the registration of the national- democratic ethnic Tatar party Vatan for six months. It had organized a peaceful public Koran reading at the site of a former Tatar cemetery (now a park) during the town’s 200th anniversary celebrations, which Vatan had denounced. Vatan members wanted to remind the inhabitants of the Tartar heritage of the region. In the early 1990s a stone was erected in the park, and since then a Koran reading would be organized there each year. However, the new governor, elected in 1997, ordered the memorial stone to me removed. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision of the lower court that had revoked Vatan’s registration. Vatan and the Moscow Helsinki Group will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Judicial System and Independence of the Judiciary16

The Moscow Helsinki Group called 1998 the "year of disorganization of the Russian judicial system". The judiciary was virtually subordinated to local authorities, and the existence of a chain of loyalty and mutual dependence between all agencies involved in prosecution, from the police to the judges, resulted in passing more unfair sentences than fair ones. Other reasons for inadequate judicial proceedings were the failure to enforce the necessary judicial reforms, lack of funding and material poverty, widespread corruption, an extreme shortage of judges, a huge backlog of cases, and the persistence of Soviet mentality among judges who were trained in the authoritarian era. In addition, the law on defense in court, which would have given equal rights to the defense and to the prosecution, did not pass the in 1998. The state no longer had the funds to support the operation of the courts. No means were available either for repairing old court-buildings or for providing judges with lodging. Ironically, many courts could not even send orders to witnesses to attend trials because they did not have envelopes, stamps, stationary, or other necessities. As a result, courts were basically "kept" by local authorities, which increased the courts’ already significant dependence on them. The decisions of the judges were no longer guided by the letter of the law but by the interests of local officials - and corporations.

Both the investigative authorities and the courts operated under the pressure of keeping the clarification rates improbably high. In the past year this resulted in a vicious circle: Police officers used torture and ill-treatment to make suspects "confess," judges based their sentences on such false evidence and convicted innocent people - even if they were aware of obvious shortcomings or errors in the investigation – and allegations of torture were not investigated. According to the Moscow Helsinki Group, sometimes cases were literally fabricated by all of those in the link leading from the police to the judge, with the sole purpose of extortion. This was facilitated by the fact that all superior bodies of judiciary power, i.e., the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court, rarely bothered to thoroughly explore the cases presented to them, but simply confirmed the decisions of their subordinates.

Widespread corruption and depravity of the judicial system became so overwhelming that there remained no place for those judges, who were genuinely guided by the law.

- Sergei Pashin, father of the Russian judicial reform and the new criminal procedure code (not yet approved by the State Duma) was banished from the judiciary by the Moscow Qualifying Board of Judges on clearly far-fetched reasons. The Qualifying Board of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation confirmed the decision. Pashin appealed the verdict to the Civil Board of the Supreme Court and won the case, probably due to extensive national and international publicity. Pashin had frequently acquitted defendants if evidence provided by the prosecution was insufficient, and he had pursued investigations on allegation of torture at police stations.

- Soon after Pashin’s trial another judge, Sergei Mironov, who had given testimony in support of Pashin, was banished by the Moscow Qualifying Broad, and the Qualifying Board of the Supreme Court confirmed the decision.

Similar measures were taken against several other honest judges, but the Moscow Helsinki Group was aware of no other cases than that of Pashin’s, in which the banishment was finally prevented.

Torture, Ill-Treatment and Misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials

The police in Russia has had a long tradition of resorting to ill-treatment and torture. In 1998 such abuses at police stations and prisons increased dramatically, became routine and reached a massive scale. Even officials admitted to the offences, but no serious measures were taken to prevent them.17

According to a investigation carried out in three of Russia’s regions, torture occurred mostly in the early hours of detention when police isolated the suspects from family and lawyers. Police forcibly extracted confessions by using asphyxiation, electroshocks, and other forms of physical and psychological violence. Demands for a lawyer were routinely refused and often resulted in more violence. Torture victims who confessed faced almost insurmountable obstacles when trying to prove that they had done so under duress. Police sometimes intimidated complaining torture victims as well as procurators and judges dealing with criminal cases against them. 18

If Prosecutors’ Offices processed complaints of torture, the cases were investigated by the very same agencies against whom they were filed. In 1998 only 1,000 law enforcement officers were dismissed, despite the fact that many thousands of complaints about torture and ill-treatment were submitted.19

Radio Oblako, for example, reported the following alleged cases of abuse:

- Alexei Gerasimov from the city of Kostroma complained that he pleaded guilty to a murder he had not committed after being beaten severely by investigator Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov had allegedly placed a pistol to his face and threatened to kill him. On 11 February the investigator forced him to repeat his confession in front of a video camera. As soon as the investigation was completed, Gerasimov filed a complaint about ill-treatment to several governmental bodies, but never received a reply.

- 25-year-old Alexei Bardusov from Tver was arrested on charges of robbing a kiosk. After he had been taken into custody in the militia precinct, he reportedly was beaten so brutally that he fainted and suffered kidney injuries. He said he was handcuffed and suspended by his hands for periods of up to 40 minutes. A plastic bag was placed over his head so that he nearly suffocated. Investigator Dvortsov demanded that he confess to the robbery. Bardusov signed the confession, as he could no longer endure the suffering.

On 14 March 29-year-old Sergei Pochanin from Pokrov, Vladimir region, was arrested and accused of stealing a car. He was interrogated by Investigator Akishev from 7 A.M. until midnight and tortured with electroshocks. Akishev allegedly said he would let Pochanin go if Pochanin gave him US$10,000, otherwise Pochanin would end up spending ten years in prison. Pochanin signed a statement in which he confessed the theft. 20

Conditions in Prisons and Detention Facilities

As required by the Council of Europe, the Russian government transferred responsibility for the prison system from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Justice. This, however, did not bring about any improvements in prison conditions: prisons were overcrowded, and prison conditions extremely poor, amounting to torture and inhuman treatment. Hygiene in these facilities was on substandard level and tuberculosis was widespread. 21

According to the Moscow Helsinki Group, extreme overcrowding in prisons and pre- trial detention centers could largely be explained by the stream of fabricated criminal cases that were supposed to give the public the impression that law enforcement officials were tirelessly fighting crime. In addition, pre-trial detention periods were long, due to slow and inefficient investigations and operation of courts of law. Sometimes individuals have been held in pre-trial detention for four years or more.22 Minister of Justice Pavel Krasheninnikov announced plans to alleviate overcrowding by limiting pre-trial detention terms to one year, but, in the middle of an economic and political crisis, it was unclear when these plans may realistically be expected to be turned into legislation.23

Religious Tolerance 24

The 1997 Federal Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious showed its effect in 1998. Officially, it was addressed against religious "sects," i.e., to hinder the spread of the so-called "new" religious movements in Russia.

The new law divided religious organizations into several categories, granting the most favorable terms to the , Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism, and placing "new religions" in the worst category. The category in which a religious association was placed had a significant effect, for example, on the community's right to conduct religious ceremonies outside its own buildings, to print, import, and publish religious literature, to create educational institutions or media outlets, and to invite foreign preachers. These rights were granted only to those religious organizations, which were able to prove that they had operated in Russia for at least 15 years. All associations also had to re-register with the Ministry of Justice by the end of 1999. The most privileged communities were granted tax reductions.

This law was in clear violation of the Russian constitution. Moreover, regional laws and regulations for its implementation and local practices often contradicted federal legislation. Among the most targeted associations were small Protestant churches such as the Pentecostal Church, the Catholic Church, alternative branches of the orthodox Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Local authorities illegally revoked their registration, evicted them from their places of worship and no longer rented meeting halls to them or only at extremely high prices, carried out searches in members’ homes, or otherwise harassed them.

In September a trial of significant importance opened against the local community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Golovinskiy People’s Court in Moscow. The prosecutor required the community to be banned because it had allegedly violated the law on religious associations by promoting religious discord, breaking up families and withholding medical treatment in the name of one true religion. The prosecutor also labeled it anti-governmental, anti-social, anti-traditional and anti-Christian. A large part of the prosecution involved attempts to prove that that religion was theologically incorrect, with strong backing by the Russian Orthodox Church. Four previous investigations had found no evidence to support the accusations. The Moscow human rights community regarded this trial as precedence: if the community lost the case, authorities would feel free to attack other groups, too. The trial continued as of early February 1999. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been active in Russia for over a hundred years and have some 250,000 members, 10,000 of them in Moscow. 25

- In St. Petersburg, Ulan-Ude, Magadan and other places, prosecutors also initiated civil judicial proceedings with the aim of banning certain religious organizations, which had not committed any crimes. Many prosecutors changed the charges into criminal ones, once they realized that there was no legal basis for civil prosecution. The political character of such lawsuits was demonstrated by the fact that members of various extreme nationalistic groups were present in court hearings, or even initiated such proceedings.

- On 19 November, according to the United Church, the federal Dzerginskij Court of St. Petersburg opened judicial proceedings against the United Church. As a result, the St.Petersburg branch of the church was refused registration.

- On 23 September a local court in Tuim, Khakassia, ordered the closure of an Evangelic Lutheran Mission following a trial in which irregularities and intimidation of witnesses had occured. The mission had been closed a year earlier, but the local Ministry of Justice overturned the ban, apparently as a result of public pressure following wide publicity. 26

- In Volgodonsk (Rostov oblast) no non-Orthodox sites of worship could be built.

- In the suburbs of Moscow the prayer houses were taken away from the local. communities of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

- In Magadan the Word of Life Church, a congregation associated with the Pentecostal Union in Russia, became the subject of serious harassment by city authorities who wanted to close the church. In September prosecutors tried to declare the church illegal, but failed to do so. Police and security agents reportedly raided the church, tax officers confiscated its funds and members of the congregation were stripped of their jewelry and threatened with the loss of their homes and other possessions. In addition, the police carried out nightly raids to the pastor’s home. 27

Foreign missionaries were particularly targeted. Some of them were expelled for peculiar reasons, others had problems with receiving visas. Even the Catholic Church was treated as "foreign," for which reason its real estates were not returned to it.

It appears that the Russian Orthodox Church was a leading figure behind the persecution of non-Orthodox religious groups. The Moscow Patriarchy took measures to have other churches’ status as non-profitable organizations annulled, and participated in the activities of nationalist political movements and pre-electoral agitation.

Freedom of Movement

Local authorities continued to implement the internal registration system (propiska), despite a Constitutional Court ruling ordering a loosening of the federal law governing registration. The Propiska system was used particularly in wealthier regions such as Moscow, and in places with a strong flow of refugees and internally displaced persons. The , Yury Luzhkov, publicly announced that Moscow would not abide by the ruling but would continue to implement the old regulations. 28

In Moscow the regulations for foreigners became even stricter. Everyone who stayed in the city longer than three days had to have their passports stamped at a police station.29

Protection of Minorities and Tolerance

In Moscow violence against ethnic minorities, particularly Caucasians, Central Asians, Africans and Asians, was commonplace. The perpetrators in the reported cases were skinheads – and frequently police officers. Around Adolf Hitler’s birthday, attacks by youths against minorities increased significantly. 30

Registration rules were implemented in a discriminatory manner. The police beat and harassed particularly individuals with dark skin color, gained forced entry into their homes, and destroyed their identity documents. This happened frequently during the Olympic Youth Games in June. The police even detained a Council of Europe representative with dark features, who had come to Moscow to participate in a human rights education seminar. 31

In the past few years, the Russian procurator has received numerous allegations of hate crimes, which violate the constitutional prohibition against incitement of racial violence. But investigations led nowhere because there has not been enough political pressure to bring perpetrators to justice.

At the end of 1998 the mass-media published anti-Semitic statements of many high ranking politicians and authorities. Gennadi Zyuganov, in an open letter, blamed the demise of the Russian economy on "Zionist capital" and the "Zionization of the government authorities". In October two other Communist Duma members made such statements: General Albert Makashov of the State Duma fraction of the Communist Party of Russian Federation asked for thousands of to be killed, while V. Ilyukhin proposed that all Jews be removed from the Russian government. Neither of the two suffered any punishment and the State Duma, by the majority of votes, refused to denounce Makashov himself or his statements. The Governor of the Krasnodar Region, Nikolai Kondratenko also resorted to similar statements.

A month later Makashov in a televised speech proposed that a legislative quota be passed for the acceptable number of Jews occupying important offices in the government. Only then did President Yeltsin and the media react to Makashov's anti- Semitic slogans, and the State Duma expressed its strong disapproval. Some Duma members forced the Communist fraction to pass a decree against nationalistic statements. Still, Makashov's name was not mentioned in that decree, and the Communist deputies never expressed the slightest disapproval of him.

In its press release the IHF and the Moscow Helsinki Group urged political figures from all over the world to demonstrate their displeasure with anti-Semitic statements by reducing contacts with the Duma leadership and in particular with the Communist Party. 32

Death Penalty33

The death penalty was still formally in force although President Yeltsin had proclaimed a moratorium on executions in 1996. However, death sentences were still handed down in 1998.

When member of parliament Galina Starovoitova was murdered, Prime Minister Primakov, Minister of Internal Affairs Stepashin, and Deputy-Minister of Judiciary Kolesnikov spoke up in favor of punishing criminals with more severity all the way to the point of their actual physical extermination. Oleg Mironov, Ombudsman of the Russian Federation, made a statement in favor of retaining the death penalty, but gradually decreasing the number of crimes which could be punished by death. According to sociological surveys, more than 60 percent of the Russian population are in favor of the death penalty.

Rights of the Child 34

Thousands of Russian children were abandoned to state orphanages were exposed to cruelty and neglect.35

According to the Europe and Central Asia Division (IHF affiliate) of Human Rights Watch, about 200,000 children were living in state institutions, many of whom did not need to be institutionalized at all, but could have been better cared for at home, or in foster homes, at considerably less expense.

Beginning with infancy, many orphans classified as disabled were segregated into the "lying down" rooms in 252 "baby houses," where they were changed and fed but were bereft of stimulation and lacking in medical care.

At the age of four, those labeled retarded or "oligophrenic" (smallbrained) were diagnosed as "ineducable," and warehoused for life in "psychoneurological internats." After this diagnosis, it was virtually impossible for an orphan to appeal the decision. According to official statistics, some 30,000 children were confined to these locked and isolated institutions, which were little better than prisons.

Orphans were often restrained in cloth sacks, tethered to furniture, denied stimulation and were sometimes left to lie half naked in their own filth. In both "baby houses" and "internats," children were sometimes given powerful sedatives without medical orders.

Even "normal" abandoned children were sometimes beaten, locked in freezing rooms for days at a time, sexually abused or publicly humiliated. According to orphans and institution staff, children who tried to run away were sometimes sent to a psychiatric hospital for punishment or treatment.

Human Rights Defenders 36

Several human rights activists were prosecuted in 1998.

- Criminal proceedings against Vasily Chaikin, a community defense lawyer of the Human Rights Association from the village of Leningradskaya in the Krasnodar region, continues, and he remains in detention. In April 1997 Chaikin had been charged with having a sexual relationship with a minor, depravity, and producing and selling of pornography, accusations which were widely regarded as fabricated. Chaikin had frequently written critical articles about various officials, particularly Krasnodar Territory’s Prosecutor A. Shkrebets. Chaikin’s lawyer Vasily Rakovich claimed that the investigation of the case had involved numerous violations of law, including tampering with the documentation on the case, and falsification of material evidence. On 23 October 1998, during a break of the trial, Vasily Rakovich was severely beaten by two unidentified men and had to be hospitalized. A local district judge had remanded Chaikin’s case for additional investigation for lack of evidence. However, in January 1998 the Territorial Court overturned the ruling of the district judge and ordered the court to handle the case. As the criminal procedure code allows a judge to keep a case on file for an unlimited length of time without calling a trial, Chaikin appears to be doomed to indefinite detention pending trial.

- The case against Yury Shadrin, a community defense lawyer from Omsk, continues. In November 1996 he was arrested after he had repeatedly brought light to violations of law by judges in the city of Omsk. Shadrin was charged with threatening a judge and with being a party in a traffic accident. Moreover, criminal proceedings from 1992, which had already been terminated due to lack of evidence, were reopened. In April Viktor Prudnikov, an activist from Tyumen, was beaten up while in administrative detention for contempt of court and petty hooliganism. 37

FOOTNOTES: 1. Based on Violations of the Electoral Rights of Russian Citizens, Moscow Helsinki Group, September 1998; and the Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 2. Based on the Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 3. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 4. "Back to the USSR: Trial of Alexandr Nikitin Closed to International Observers," press release, IHF, 20 October 1998. See also "Rule of Law: Non-Decision in Nikitin Case; De Facto Violation of the Presumption of Innocence," press release, Moscow Helsinki Group, Norwegian Helsinki Committee and Helsinki Committee in Poland, 5 February 1999. 5. "Military Trial of Journalist Set to Begin," IFEX Action Alert, 14 October 1998. Source: IPI. 6. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 7. Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 8. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 9. Ibid. 10. "Journalist Sergei Fufaev Attacked; Persecution of Media in Republic of Bashkortostan Continues," IFEX Action Alert, 18 August 1998. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. RFE/RL Newsline, 18 December 1998. 14. A letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists to President Yeltsin, 4 September 1998. 15. Based on the Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 16. Based on the Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 17. Violations of Human Rights by Law-Enforcement Agencies and Courts, Moscow Helsinki Group, September 1998. 18. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 19. Violations of Human Rights by Law-Enforcement Agencies and Courts, Moscow Helsinki Group, September 1998. 20. Reported in Violations of Human Rights by Law-Enforcement Agencies and Courts, Moscow Helsinki Group, September 1998. 21. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 22. Violations of Human Rights by Law-Enforcement Agencies and Courts, Moscow Helsinki Group, September 1998. 23. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 24. Unless otherwise noted, based on the report On Human Rights Violations in the Field of Freedom of Conscience in the Russian Federation, Moscow Helsinki Group et al, November 1998. 25. "Russia: Trial Testing Russia’s Religion Resumes Tuesday," Human Rights Without Frontiers, 9 February. 26. "Russia: Ban Renewed on Siberian Lutheran Mission," Human Rights Without Frontiers, 30 September 1998. 27. "Russia: Russia Harasses and Threatens Christians," Human Rights Without Frontiers, 20 January 1999. 28. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 29. Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 30. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 31. Ibid. 32. "IHF/Moscow Helsinki Group Appeal: National Parliaments Must Denounce Anti- Semitism in the Russian Duma," press release, IHF/Moscow Helsinki Group, 26 November 1998. See also Ludmilla Alexeyeva and Aaron Rhodes, "Russia: Hate Instead of Reform," Human Rights and Civil Society, Vol. 4, No. 3. 33. Based on the Annual Report 1998 of the Moscow Helsinki Group. 34. Abandoned to the State Cruelty and Neglect in Russian Orphanages, Human Rights Watch, 1999. 35. Human Rights Watch pointed out the wide variation among state institutions and cited an independent program in one "psychoneurological internat" that had made remarkable progress with disabled children. 36. Unless otherwise noted, based on Persecution of Human Rights Activists, Moscow Helsinki Group, September. 37. Ibid.