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RUSSIA

Human Rights Developments

The dramatic events of October 3 and 4 in Moscow, in which armed defenders of the parliament (or Supreme Soviet) attempted to seize power, threw into question the state of Russian democracy. Government sources estimated that 143 people died and more than 700 were wounded as a result of the armed uprising, which was crushed by the Russian army and troops under the Ministries of Interior. Unofficial sources, however, speculaated death figures might be as high as 400 or more.

The Supreme Soviet had throughout 1993 undermined President Boris Yeltsin's reform program and executive power in Russia. Although President Yeltsin's September 21 decree suspending parliament, which sparked the armed uprising, violated key articles of the Russian constitution, he was supported in his action by the heads of state of many democratic governments including the United States. But the consequences of Yeltsin's decision and his actions in the aftermath of the violence were very damaging to human rights in Russia.

In accordance with a state of emergency declared by President Yeltsin on October 3, about fifteen opposition newspapers were suspended, some of them well-known for racist and fascisttendencies. Two newspapers were restored a week later, and two others were offered the option of changing their titles, editors-in-chief, and general political line in exchange for regaining the right to operate. The right-wing news program "600 Seconds" was taken off the air, reducing further the meager access of opposition opinion to Russian state-owned television. During October 5 and 6, censors cut at least ten articles from major newspapers. When government censorship was lifted, the Ministry of Press and Information encouraged journalists and editors to practice self-censorship. Six political parties and organizations were suspended and banned from participating in the December 12 parliamentary elections. With Yeltsin's temporary suspension of the Constitutional Court, the opportunity to appeal these violations of civil rights on constitutional grounds was severely limited.

Police brutality, long a problem in Moscow, worsened during the two-week state of emergency. Dozens of supporters of the Supreme Soviet, including deputies themselves, were captured and beaten by riot police and Interior Ministry troops as they left the parliament building. Victims of police beatings included at least thirty-three journalists and hundreds of individuals detained for violating the 11 p.m. curfew.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov used the state of emergency as a pretext to enforce the propiska, or residence requirement, system already established in the capital. Earlier, when the Russian Supreme Soviet finalized legislation abandoning the propiska system for Russia, the Moscow mayor's office had issued regulations that retained it for Moscow, but these regulations, on the whole, were not implemented. The regulations required non-Muscovites to register with the police and pay a fee for each day they remained in the city, and set out administrative penalties for violators. Although applicable to any non-Muscovite, the mayor's office told Helsinki Watch in May that they were intended mainly for people from the Caucasus, who, it said, were responsible for the lion's share of organized crime.

During the state of emergency, police strictly enforced these regulations, forbidding cars with license plates from the Caucasus to enter the city and forcing non-Russians in Moscow to leave. As of November the Ministry of Interior estimated that 9,000 individuals had been put on trains and sent out of Moscow, and that 10,000 others had left voluntarily. Detention centers sprang up in Moscow to hold individuals while they proved they were in the city legally. Most were from the Caucasus and Central Asia, which pointed out the discriminatory manner in which the regulations were conceived and enforced. Helsinki Watch and local human rights groups received many reports of individuals beaten by police in their homes, on the streets, and in police stations during passport checks.

Police brutality during the state of emergency brought to the surface the long-standing problem of police beatings during detention. Helsinki Watch received two reports of murder suspects who were so beaten badly as to require hospitalization; one of the victims also required exploratory surgery. Although police maintained that the two men incurred their bodily damage attempting to escape, a state medical examiner's report on one of the victims supported his claim that he had been beaten. The May 1 marches in Moscow demonstrated that police and riot police had poor crowd control techniques. Thousands of radical, anti-Yeltsin demonstrators, violating a city ordinance, marched from a major square in Moscow south, away from the city. When demonstrators approached a police barricade, they apparently attacked police and riot police, who responded violently. No tear gas was used, and water cannons did not function properly. One policeman died in the incident, and as many as 300 on each side are believed to have been wounded.

Several laws adopted by the Russian parliament in 1993 chipped away at civic freedoms. Amendments to the law on freedom of conscience adopted in August attempted to ban foreign missionary work, including proselytizing, publishing, and advertising, and would have required missionaries to be registered by Russian religious organizations. President Yeltsin's amendments proposed a softer variant, requiring foreign religious organizations to register (or re-register)with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. July amendments to the Law on State Security Bodies granted the Ministry of Security the right to search private homes without warrants. During the summer the Supreme Soviet attempted unsuccessfully to disband the parliamentary human rights committee.

Hardships connected to economic reform disproportionately affected women, who in 1992-1993 accounted for 70 percent of layoffs. Gender discrimination in the workplace was reportedly rampant and ignored or even sanctioned by public officials. In a February press conference on privatization, the Minister of Labor remarked, "Why should we employ women when men are unemployed? It's better that men work and women take care of children and do the housework. I don't want women to be offended, but I seriously don't think women should work while men are doing nothing."

As a result of the 1992 armed conflict in the northern Caucasus between two indigenous ethnic groups, the Ossetians and the Ingush, 65,000 Ingush from the North Ossetian republic of Russia remained refugees in Ingushetia, and Ingush claimed that about 287 Ingush continued to be held hostage, although this figure may also have included disappeared persons. Ossetians claimed that Ingush continued to hold about forty Ossetians hostage. Ingush settlements in the mountains of North Ossetia remained basically in a state of blockade, relying heavily on accompaniment by Russian Interior Ministry troops or international relief organizations to travel to Ingushetia for supplies. The Russian Constitutional Court in September ruled unconstitutional a North Ossetian government decree stating that Ossetians and Ingush could not live peacefully together, thereby deflecting responsibility for resettling Ingush refugees.

Regions outside Moscow continued to enforce the propiska system, mainly to prevent the settlement of ethnic minorities. In the Mineralnye Vody region, for example, local government officials attempted to expel seventy-two families (most of them Armenian) dwelling in villages without propiskas, and between four and seven families were actually expelled, with the assistance of local Cossacks. Cossacks also attempted to expel nine Chechen families dwelling in the Don region. Cossacks reportedly forced six Armenian families to leave the village of Nizhny Podkumsk, located near the resort town of Piatigorsk; local authorities were either unwilling or unable to stop the action. Some reports indicated that Cossacks were targeting Jews as well in the Krasnodar area. Given the dangers that Cossacks pose to ethnic minorities the Russian government's decree, signed in March, granting Cossacks the right to set up their own military using special Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry forces was very troubling.

Far-right nationalist and neo-Nazi groups regularly published anti-Semitic newspaper articles and tracts, and anti-Semitism was palpable among the crowds supporting the parliament in September and October. Attackers twice during the summer broke windows of the Moscow synagogue and left graffiti saying "Kill the Kikes." After the second incident the Moscow city police set up a guard booth outside the synagogue, and although no further attacks occurred, "Kill the Kikes" graffiti reappeared around the synagogue during the September-October parliament uprising.

Russia's generous refugee law came into effect in March, but its implementation was disappointing. The newly created Federal Migration Service (FMS), overburdened and underfunded, processed 348,000 refugees and displaced persons in Russia from July 1992 through October 1993, while unofficial figures put the total number of refugees and displaced persons as high as two million. Many non-Russians complained of discriminatory treatment at FMS, whose staff often insisted that they had an overwhelming number of Russians to process and encouraged non-Russians (in cases that Helsinki Watch is familiar with, Tajiks and Uzbeks) who were facing no immediate problems simply not to apply.

Prison conditions in Russia remained a serious human rights concern, with overcrowding worsening in pre-trial detention centers. Five people died and forty were injured (about half of them law enforcers) during a prison uprising in Vladimir that was suppressed by police andmostly unarmed Interior Ministry troops using two armored personnel carriers. Local prisoners' rights groups noted no significant implementation of the much-acclaimed 1992 prison reform. Some reports indicated that, in institutions for the criminally insane, inmates were forceably drugged with Sulfazine, which had been forbidden in Russia.

Because Russia is the most powerful state to have emerged from the former Soviet Union, and because it sought to exercise considerable influence in the newly independent states, its foreign policy in the region (known in Russia as the "near abroad," a term deeply resented by many of its now-independent neighbors) merited close examination. In the area of human rights, a double standard prevailed. While the rights of ethnic Russians in the Baltics led the Russian government to maintain constant diplomatic and economic pressure on the Estonian and Latvian governments, the truly massive human rights violations committed by governments that Russia supported in Central Asia (in Tajikistan especially, with the country's economy and security heavily dependent on Russia) drew little or no public criticism. In February, President Yeltsin announced that Russia should be given special powers to conduct peacekeeping in the conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and in June he stated that Russia would seek to maintain its military bases in the former Soviet Union. This was a troubling development indeed, considering the Russian army's practice of taking sides in such conflicts, its reputation for providing the weapons that escalate conflict, and, as a result, its responsibility for worsening violations of humanitarian law in places like Moldova, Abkhazia, and Tajikistan.

The Right to Monitor

Human rights groups, local and international, operated basically freely in Russia. A Helsinki Watch representative was denied entry into the Supreme Soviet compound, as were all newspaper correspondents, on September 28, after it had been surrounded by police and Interior Ministry troops but several days before the outbreak of fighting.

U.S. Policy

The Clinton administration unswervingly supported President Yeltsin throughout 1993. This support was evident in the vigor with which the administration promoted a $2.5 billion aid package to the former Soviet Union, of which two-thirds was earmarked for Russia, and in the many public statements of support issued at critical moments during President Yeltsin's confrontations with the Supreme Soviet.

The unqualified nature of this support for Yeltsin was disturbing because it apparently crippled the administration's ability to offer criticism of Russia's human rights record. When Yeltsin suspended the Supreme Soviet on September 21, Secretary of State Warren Christopher remarked:

    Just as we did at the time of the April referendum, the Clinton administration supports President Yeltsin and his program for democratic reform. We believe that the Russian people should have the right to determine the political future of their country at the ballot box. We urge Russian leaders at all levels to work together in a democratic process that maintains peace and stability while fully respecting civil liberties and individual human rights.

On September 29, five days before the Supreme Soviet building was stormed, Secretary Christopher expressed concern for the rights of those individuals holding out there.

Yet two weeks later, following the attempted coup by the Supreme Soviet, as the Russian government engaged in blatant violations of civil rights-including the closing of opposition newspapers and political organizations, routine and brutal police beatings, and the eviction from Moscow of ethnic minorities-the Clinton administration offered no substantial criticism. WhileSecretary Christopher rightly pointed out that Russians would determine their political future at the ballot box, distressing signs that the December elections would not be fully democratic drew no later remarks from the Clinton administration.

The administration's personalized Russia policy centered on President Yeltsin was reminiscent of the Bush administration's "Gorbymania." It became defined in late March, when Yeltsin first attempted to dissolve the ultra-conservative Supreme Soviet. On this occasion President Clinton announced:

    The United States supports the historic movement towards democratic political reform in Russia. President Yeltsin is the leader of that process, he is a democratically elected national leader. He has United States support, as do his reform government and all reformists throughout Russia.

The Clinton administration apparently lobbied European governments to adopt such a personalized policy as well. According to the Associated Press, after German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's late September statement of support for democracy and democratic forces in Russia, President Clinton telephoned the German leader and convinced him to issue a statement backing Yeltsin personally. American embassies throughout Europe reportedly had instructions to likewise lobby their host governments.

On September 30, President Clinton signed into law a $2.5 billion aid package (two-thirds of which was to go to Russia, the remainder to be distributed among the rest of the former Soviet Union), perhaps the cornerstone to his administration's Russia policy. The aid breaks down into $750 million to assist privatization and private sector development, $500 million to encourage trade and investment, and $200 to $300 million for programs in each of the following areas: democracy development, humanitarian assistance, energy and environmental restructuring, and housing for demobilized Russian officers from the Baltic and other countries.

Conditions placed on aid included the timely withdrawal of Russian troops from Latvia and Estonia, respect for territorial integrity within the former Soviet Union, and ceasing aid to Cuba. No human rights conditions were attached to the aid, however, other than those set out elsewhere in U.S. foreign aid legislation. This was a serious shortcoming considering the fragile state of Russian democracy and civic freedoms. Indeed, the Clinton administration's failure to link human rights to U.S. aid was similar to that of the previous administration.

Ambassador Strobe Talbott testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 21 that "the Administration would rather not have these restrictions and conditionality, because we feel that it limits somewhat our ability to use these programs as a fully effective instrument of our foreign policy goals." This policy seemed to Helsinki Watch misguided: if it aimed to create and strengthen democracy and free markets, then surely the aid should have been connected to continued fulfillment of democratic freedoms and respect for human rights.

Russia's apparent involvement in the armed conflicts outside its borders, which seriously worsened human rights conditions in those areas, drew only mild criticism from the Clinton administration. In his September 7 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ambassador Talbott stated that, for example, while there was evidence that elements of the Russian army may have been assisting the Abkhaz separatists in Georgia, the Russian role in Georgia was "overall a constructive and stabilizing one." During the summer of 1993, the Clinton administration unveiled a policy for peacekeeping in regions of armed conflicts in the former Soviet Union. Under the coordination of James Collins, former Chief of Mission to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, American mediation would be available, within the framework of the CSCE and the United Nations, to those parties who requested it.

The Work of Helsinki Watch

Through published articles and reports and in consultation with officials, Helsinki Watch repeatedly cautioned the U.S. administration against employing a policy in Russia that gave unqualified support to one Russian leader, President Yeltsin, as the previous administration had done with Mikhail Gorbachev. Helsinki Watch carefully monitored any actions by President Yeltsin's government that were anti-democratic in nature and cautioned U.S. policy makers about Yeltsin's anti-democratic tendencies. During a May visit with Moscow Deputy Mayor Anatolii Braginskii, Helsinki Watch also objected to Moscow's unimplemented but discriminatory residence requirements.

In October Helsinki Watch wrote a letter to President Yeltsin protesting the crackdown on the media and police brutality following the October 4 uprising. The letter was published in full in Nezavisimaia Gazeta (The Independent Newspaper) and Express Khronika. After the October crackdown on residence requirement violators, Helsinki Watch wrote a letter of protest to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and a press release protesting the regulations and their racist application, and gave many press interviews on the topic. A press release issued during Secretary Christopher's October visit to Moscow sharply criticized the Clinton administration's neglect of human rights in its Russia policy. During a November visit to Moscow, Helsinki Watch met with high-level government officials in Moscow in part to insist that the residence regulations be dropped.

A letter to President Yeltsin and Defense Minister Grachev sent in March expressed Helsinki Watch's deep concern over the proposal for the Russian army to play an expanded role in "peacekeeping" in the armed conflicts plaguing the former Soviet Union, and set out recommendations for preventing violations of humanitarian law in these conflicts.

In June, Helsinki Watch wrote a letter pressing the Russian Procurator General to release the opinion submitted by an independent medical expert in the case of a murder suspect reportedly beaten for ten hours during questioning and to investigate the beating itself. The medical information was later released to the man's attorney.

Committed to strengthening the human rights movement in the former Soviet Union, Helsinki Watch continued to maintain a staff and office in Moscow. During 1993, Helsinki Watch's Moscow representatives conducted a series of training seminars for local human rights groups and assisted in the formation of a Moscow-based human rights monitoring group for Central Asia.

Helsinki Watch selected Yuri Markovich Schmidt, a former dissident activist and well-known human rights lawyer, to be one of the international monitors honored by Human Rights Watch at its observance of Human Rights Day in December.

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