Friday, September 7, 2007

Russian Extremism Law Casts Wide Net

By MIKE ECKEL – 4 days ago

MOSCOW (AP) — Among the locals, retired truck driver Pyotr Gagarin says he's known as a man who doesn't mince his words. Now he's known around Russia as a man who called his governor "scum" and wound up accused of extremism.

"It's all a comedy that's being staged to rig elections," he said. "Insult someone, and suddenly you're an extremist?"

Gagarin, 71, who is due in court Tuesday to defend himself against criminal charges, is the latest to be caught up in a widening net of criminal prosecutions being brought in Russia under a newly updated law on extremism.

The government maintains the legislation, first passed in 2002 and amended by parliament in July, is aimed at curbing nationalist groups and slowing a nationwide surge of xenophobic attacks and hate crimes. But many of those who have been targeted are journalists, rights advocates and opposition leaders, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

With just three months remaining before parliamentary elections — and six months before Russians chose a new president — fears have grown that President Vladimir Putin's government is using the legislation as another tool to consolidate its grip on the country's political life.

"This is a very dangerous law that will open the road to mass repression," said Andrei Piontkovsky, a political analyst and member of a liberal political party who faces extremism charges over his book, "Unloved Country," which is critical of the Kremlin.

Among the people and organizations suspected of extremist activity in recent months:

_ A columnist at the business newspaper Vedomosti who has been critical of the Kremlin and who said he was forced by police to sign a document saying he was not a member of an extremist organization;

_ A prominent human rights activist accused of shouting extremist slogans during a protest against what he said was a politically motivated court case;

_ The National Bolshevik Party, a radical group that has teamed up with Kasparov's political organization, and the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a rights group fiercely critical of the government's military campaign in Chechnya, both declared extremist organizations by courts.

_ Kasparov, now a leading opposition figure, who was questioned by federal security agents about whether he had made extremist statements in a radio interview and in articles published in his opposition group's newspaper.

The law's broadly worded language gives authorities wide latitude to charge people — or close down organizations for otherwise insignificant violations, critics say.

"In practice, as a tool, it's used randomly," said Alexander Verkhovsky, whose SOVA rights center monitors extremism, hate crime and religious freedoms. "Any group could end up targeted by the law — any group, neo-Nazi, human rights groups, center, left, completely apolitical groups."

Rights groups, including SOVA, have long complained that little has been done to address a surge in hate crime attacks, often targeting dark-skinned migrants from the Caucasus region or former Soviet Central Asia.

Putin has spoken out with increasing frequency about the problem, and many lawmakers cited the rise in ethnically motivated violence in voting for the amendments, which added crimes driven by political, ideological or social hatred to the existing definition of extremism.

More strikingly, however, the law now prohibits media from referring to organizations that were banned as extremist without mentioning the ban, and introduces fines for printers and publishers for disseminating extremist literature and bars those suspected of extremism from running for public office.

In arguing for the legislation, Sergei Abeltsev, a member of Russia's lower house of parliament, said the Bolshevik revolutionaries who seized power in 1917 were essentially extremists — a suggestion that reflects Kremlin fears about a Ukraine-style Orange Revolution, when youth groups helped organize mass protests that overturned a rigged presidential election in 2004 won by a Kremlin-friendly candidate.

"1917 was a tragedy and the lack of a fight against extremism and the liberal policies of the police allowed this exact tragedy to happen," Abeltsev said in comments on Ekho Moskvy radio.

As the Kremlin under Putin has steadily stifled political opposition, leaders in regions have also moved to silence their critics.

Gagarin was one of several hundred people who gathered for a demonstration in January in Orel, a largely agricultural region some 220 miles southwest of Moscow. Demonstrators were angered by high food prices and a lack of jobs, and accused the regional governor of destroying the local economy, he said.

He made no apologies for using a few choice words to criticize the governor — "liar," "scum" and "carrion" among them, but no obscenities. He also called for the administration to be shot.

"I wouldn't have said it if it wasn't the truth," he said. "If he doesn't leave (on his own), then people should throw him out themselves."

Prosecutors in Orel refused to comment on the case and officials in the Orel governor's press office did not answer repeated phone calls. If convicted, Gagarin could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and ordered to pay a fine equal to two years of his pension.

Defense lawyer Lyubov Samoilova said Gagarin spoke in the heat of a political demonstration, where emotions were high. She said his calling for the government to be shot, while perhaps unwise, was not taken seriously, otherwise he would have been charged with a more serious offense.

Samoilova also said the fact that the governor and his lawyer did not show up for the first day of hearings last week — forcing the court to reschedule until Tuesday — highlights the precariousness of the case.

"Genuine extremists are going unnoticed. Organized crime groups are going unseen. In order to view a 71-year-old retiree ... as an extremist, you have to be a truly abnormal person," she said.

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