Yaroslav Kuzminov, the head of the Higher School of Economics (VShE) in Moscow received a disturbing letter from the Main Department of Internal Affairs (GUVD). The letter strongly recommended that the dean expel “politically unreliable” students, reports Nezavisimaya gazeta. “Politically unreliable” in the police’s opinion, are those youth who participated in last December’s Dissenters March sponsored by “Other Russia.” Six students from VShE’s Economics and Political Science departments were detained as they were leaving the Mayakovskaya metro station on their way to the demonstration. They never made it. Now the police recommends that the university consider expelling them. NG reports:
The most specific passage of the document is: “Participation in unsanctioned protests are one type of extreme activity and have a high level of social danger that demands security organs to take the adequate measures of reaction.” GUVD asked “to examine the question about removing conditions that contribute to the perpetration of offenses” and “to decide on the necessity to continue educating the aforementioned persons.” After this the security organs spelled out the appropriate measures.
This is not all. The heads of two departments, political science and economy, were ordered to answer an inquiry into “extremists” and to force the most frequent perpetrators to sign declaratory statements. The names of “said persons” in the letter were numerous.
How VShE will officially respond remains to be seen. They have to make an official declaration by 4 Feburary. In the meantime, Tatiana Chetvernina, the university’s vice dean gave this comment to Nezavisimaya:
“The letter that came from the police was a recommendation. They, of course, have the right to recommend what they think is necessary. Just like the university has the right to make a decision in accordance with the workings of laws on the property of the Higher School of Economics. And namely, if a student participates in meetings and groups and if he is not breaking the law, then that is the private affair of the students. We live in a free country and we have a working Constitution. If they break the law then the university will look into it. But, certainly, this question is connected not so much with dismissal as with violating law and order. Participating in groups has no relation to studying.”
Olga Kolesnikova, the school’s press secretary, was more blunt. “We can dismiss students if they are underachievers,” she said. “But if they study well, what right do we have to expel them? They are not criminal offenders, why should we forbid them from studying? In a word, we don’t let anyone get at our children.”
Of course, the letter harks back to both Tsarist and Soviet times when students were expelled for participating in political activities. Except this time, in the words of Oleg Shchebakov, a Moscow lawyer, where the parameters of acceptable political ideology are murky unlike in Soviet times the ideological lines were clearer. “The punished understood and clearly accepted that he lived in a rigidly ideological political system.” Now, he contents, “There is no general ideology! We complain about its absence all the time. It is simply undeveloped! So excuse me, what kind of ideology should these students use that someone has established? Today fascists are even permitted to go out into the streets. And no one singles them out . . . Evidently, they are not politically suspect in the opinion of the authorities.”
Update:
Moskovskii komsomolets reports that similar letters were sent to other universities in Moscow. And apparently, the cops can’t even get their information straight when they send out such “recommendations.” Of the six students named in the letter to VShE, two don’t even study there.
“Today fascists are even permitted to go out into the streets. And no one singles them out”
Ahem? Aren’t they like the main target?
Ahem? Aren’t they like the main target?
I’ve seen very little evidence of this, Chris. If they are the main target, the Russian police must be hopelessly incompetent.
It is amazing how utterly efficient Russian police can be when it comes time to bust heads of any liberal marchers or protestors, or storm the offices of an NGO, or (as in this case) harass some students and pressure a university to expell them for their political beliefs.
But when it comes to finding killers of decapitated Tajiks or pressing charges against 7 skinheads for killing 20 people, or breaking up a neo-fascist march, the police suddenly become gentle and/or incompetent.
It becomes little wonder that according to recent statistics, approximately half the world’s neo-nazi skinheads reside in Russian. They and their actions are tolerated there to a far greater extent than anywhere else.
So, until I start seeing police clubbing skinheads and pressing charges against them for illegal marches, witness police raids against skinhead headquarters and siezing they records and funding information, see swift arrests of skinhead groups that release public statements taking credit for murders … until those things start to happen, I think you are wrong Chris. They are not the main target.
Actually Wally the authorities have done more against neo-nazis than it seems. They just don’t have advocates like liberals do so we don’t hear about it as much. Here is a list from Novaya gazeta that chronicles 23 criminal cases of nazis just in December and January alone.
But as you suggest and I agree, these are individual cases as opposed to the apparent systematic campaign against NGOs, liberals, and leftists.
I think that the authorities are against both what they consider the extreme right and the extreme left. However, those identified on the “extreme left” encompasses far more political tendencies and ideologies.
The nationalist Right, particularly those like the DPNI are allowed to demonstrate virtually without inference. In Nizhni, they decided to form militias to help local police keep the public order.
Chris, you are in Moscow now. With respect to the neo-fascist presence, have you noticed any difference in the last few years? Graffiti, people, books? Or even if nothing to do with fascism, has racism become more acute? I guess if you looked African or Central Asian you would probably be more careful than before, but I wonder if you noticed anything.
Incidentally, in a recent phone conversation, my mother told me that a couple, old acquaintances of her, recently had a bad experience in Moscow. An American couple in their late seventies, children of White emigres. They consider themselves Russian and speak Russian to each other. Since Gorbachev they’ve been to Moscow five or six times. Well, this was the first time they were ever harassed and threatened in the street. For some reason some young men assumed the husband is from the Caucasus and they heaped insults and threatened to beat him up. It was in broad daylight and at the end the thugs simply walked away. Ironically, this old guy is Russian. His face is sharp featured and has a rather ostentatious droopy mustache, but I cannot say he does not look Russian.
Actually Wally the authorities have done more against neo-nazis than it seems. They just don’t have advocates like liberals do so we don’t hear about it as much. Here is a list from Novaya gazeta that chronicles 23 criminal cases of nazis just in December and January alone.
I understand what you are saying, however when you consider the statistics that cite between 20,000 to 50,000 skinheads in Russia, the increase each of the last few years in murders that appear racially motivated, and the poor arrest and conviction rate in these cases, this appears to be compelling evidence that the police care much more about harassing students and NGOs than arresting skinheads who decapitate Tajiks.
I think there are newspapers and TV stations in Russia that would have a vested interest in showing police dealing harshly such people … but again, those images and stories are not there or are not there in a quantity proportional to the problem.
Regarding Kolya’s remarks, I know friends of Russian/Ukrainian heritage in Central Asia who are unwilling to live in Russia for fear of being verbally or physically assaulted or mistreated. They apparently feel that even the slightest hint of Asian features will draw negative attention. However, I do think their concerns are exaggerated.
http://trinixy.ru/2009/01/30/arest_goda_7_shtuk.html
Досмотрев эти фотографии до конца, вы тоже будете смеяться )
Активист “Greenpeace” пришел к мэрии, чтобы отдать письмо про вред мусоросжигательных заводов.
Но по дороге его встретил ОМОН.
Смотрим далее за развитием событий
Yep … skinheads are the primary target for policy.
Ooops … police … not policy.
“The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake.”
Alan Greenspan
History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
Alan Greenspan
Here’s this item on the original subject of the post from today’s JRL (I wouldn’t paste such a large block but it’s interesting and not available online):
BBC Monitoring
Russian TV raises issue of politics students threatened with expulsion
RenTV
January 29, 2009
The story of two students in Moscow who the police recommended should be expelled from their university after they took part in a protest – they were arrested and accused of extremism – was flagged up by corporate-owned Russian Ren TV in its late-night news on 29 January.
In the report, of some eight minutes long, a range of public figures condemned the actions of the police with regard to the two students, and suggested that the public interest would be better served by action to tackle real extremism, as in the case of a lawyer and a young woman journalist murdered in central Moscow recently.
Expulsion recommended
“The recommendation is that university heads get rid of politically unreliable students. That was the gist of a letter the heads of the Higher School of Economics received from the MVD (Interior Ministry),” as the TV introduced its report.
In the report, the two students, from the department of politics at the higher-education school, spoke. At the protest they attended, a Dissenters’ March, “they gained invaluable experience: how one could be detained for participation in a rally – hooliganism – then accused of extremism”, the report said.
One of the two, Aleksey Kurmashev, described how they were detained without any charges read out, and inter alia how an older fellow inmate in their police van had been “dragged by police by his beard”, with a tuft of his hair pulled out in the process. The other, Igor Yudanov, deplored the accusation of extremism.
An excerpt from the letter by Moscow’s first deputy police chief, Maj-Gen Aleksandr Ivanov, followed. The letter, we were told, gave the names of the six students detained at the rally, and “asked for action to be taken”.
“The holding of unauthorized mass actions is a form of extremist activity and is highly dangerous socially,” it said in particular. “Please consider the issue of how to eliminate the circumstances conducive to the breaking of the law, as well as the advisability of further tuition for those named. Please inform us about the action taken,” the letter said.
Kurmashev said it was a “Soviet classic”, when such supposed recommendations from the security agencies were acted on as an order. “We can see that we are now heading in the same direction,” he thought.
“The heads of the university were tough in their response: they are good students who will not be expelled for their political views, while the police should not interfere and write letters in this tone,” the report noted.
Valeriya Kasamara, deputy dean of the department of politics, said: “I resent the very fact that this letter has been written. I resent the fact that the police are not dealing with catching criminals who are killing lawyers and journalists, and I resent the fact that they are not hunting fascist and terrorist organizations, but are pursuing peaceful students who want to take a civil stand. Thereby, we are being forced to bring up a generation of servile youth,” she said.
Public figures outraged
In their comments for the report, a range of public figures condemned these actions by the police, while the TV said the affair was reminiscent of what used to happen in the USSR.
Yasen Zasurskiy, head of the department of journalism at the Moscow State University, said: “They must learn to mind their own business, of which there is a lot as we known. A student could be expelled but could also be murdered, as our young woman student was recently murdered in Prechistenka. Why don’t they protect people in the street, rather than interfere in other people’s business?”
Nikolay Svanidze, journalist and Public Chamber member, echoed this sentiment. If the police have a problem, he also said, they should take it to court, not harass universities.
Sergey Udaltsov, leader of the Red Youth Vanguard movement, said that “the fight with so-called extremists is much easier, much simpler and much cheaper than the real fight against real criminals”, hence the fight against “mythical extremists”.
Lawyer Shota Gorgadze pointed out that the expulsion of students on the grounds that they take or do not take a civil stand, or in public voice any political views, was unacceptable.
Ilya Yashin, of the Solidarity movement, noted that “the Russian Constitution prohibits interference in the private life of citizens”. This, on the other hand, amounts to “extrajudicial persecution”.
“In the USSR, such recommendations from the police were normal practice. Students could easily be expelled for reading unsuitable literature,” the TV noted.
Ivan Bogachev, of the Kommersant newspaper, recounted his own experience in the USSR, when he was detained in the metro as he read the “Gulag Archipelago” and taken to the Lubyanka HQ of the KGB, where he was questioned all night long.
Zasurskiy recalled the experience of three of his female students in the Soviet period, who went to church and who it was suggested by the security agencies should be expelled but were not. He attacked these actions as “police zeal”.
Svanidze said that while Russia was now another country, the style of some of its police chiefs remained the same.
Finally, the TV quoted the insistence of Russia’s 19th-century secret police chief Aleksandr Benkendorf that the terms in which to describe Russia should be that “Russia’s past and present are excellent, while its future defies the bravest of imaginations”. “It looks like now, too, some officials are very keen to convince the intelligentsia and students that there is no place for any criticism in Russia, with similar means in use: whereas previously it was Benkendorf’s tsarist secret police, now it is an agency of persuasion by force such as the MVD,” the TV summed up.
Thanks, Lyndon. It’s very heartening that university officials (and others) are openly criticizing MVD’s outrageous recommendation.