Action week “Stop racism”

Pressmeddelande från YHRM (direktlänk)

International network – Youth Human Rights Movement
Youth network against racism and intolerance
                          International movement ‘Young Europe»

Brief description of situation with intolerance and xenophobia in Russia and Ukraine :

Russian Federation

According to the monitoring of the informational and analitic center «Sova», the number of hate crimes has being rising up. Up to the December 2007 there was information about 632 victims of attacks, including 67 murdered people. Antifascists has become the special target group of neo-nazi’s violence: form the beginning of 2008 year already several young activists were killed by radicals.

As for mirgation issue, the constanst increase of migrantophobia has remained due to the new law adopted by goverment last year.

Public campaign against Estionians and Estonia was launched by officials in 2007 year and was dedicated to Russian — Estonian conflict concerning the removing of the Bronze Soldier monument in Tallin. In 2006 year similar campaign against Georgian citizens and ethnic Georgians in Russia was carryied out by authorities during Russian-Georgian political conflict.

As for right wings radicals , their activity has become more widespread and legitime: for instance, the annual nationalists action «Russian march» (November, 4) were permitted by local officials in different regions of Russia in 2007 year and has become quite popular among Russians because the same rhetoric has been also used by authorities and politicians without any punishments.

You can find more information in English on the web-site of the «Sova» – www.sova-center.ru.

The Ukraine

According to official resources over 100 cases of racism and xenophobia took place in 2007 year. From the beginning of this year 13 murders of foreigners were recognised, but only 3 of them are suspected to be based on the racial or national hatred. The majority of victims were refugees and asylum seekers.

Expressions of antisemitism is an average 20 percents of all xenophobic cases. But antisemitic propaganda has been spreaded not only by right wing radicals or nationalists organisations, the main part of antisemitic literature has been published by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (Mezhregionalnaya Academiya Upravleniua Personalom).

Up to this moment there are no sufficiant legal instruments to prevent the setting up and development of web-sites promoted ideas of national and racial superiority.

You can find more information in English in the Bulletin “In the same boat” – http://www.eedi.org.ua.

About the International week “Stop racism!”

From 14th to 21st of March the annual international week of enlightenment action “Stop Racism!” took place in Russia and Newly Independent States (NIS). This year 17 groups from Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan carried out various events against racism and for tolerance in 20 regions.

This was already the fourth action week organised by the international Youth Human Rights Movement, by the Youth Network against racism and intolerance as well as by the international network „Young Europe“ in the framework of the European Action Week by “UNITED for intercultural action”. More than 1000 people took part in events conducted during the week. The largest action was carried out in the Gorlovka State Pedagogical University of Foreign Languages (Ukraine) and it attracted over 400 students of several faculties.

The prep-team of “Stop Racism” recommended to speak and to act against such forms of racism which is observed in everyday life, here and now. Therefore participants form different regions held actions devoted to official\governmental nationalism, to xenophobia concerning people from the Caucasus and migrants of former-Soviet states. Open lectures and lessons for students and schoolchildren, film screenings and discussions, special seminars within university courses, public debates were carried out in different regions. Leaflets of the project “Epigraph” with extracts from works of famous people were sticked on over the walls in several cities.

“Efforts on combating Racism. Neo-Nazism and violence carrying out by officials are obviously insufficient. Moreover the definition “patriotism” is substituted by the “nationalism” frequently as well as a lot of challenges are neglected by media and authorities or reported from the position of prejudices (for instance, intolerance towards natives of the Caucasus). Our main goal is not to give ready answers or schemes of behaviour to participants but to provide them with opportunity to realize the social environment in the alternative way, to ask critical questions to themselves”, – organizers stated.
Action week “Stop racism” in regions

Russian Federation

• Anapa

Volunteers of the Youth group for Tolerance “ETHniCS” conducted the intellectual game “What? Where? When?” devoted to week’s topic and organised the presentation on “hate symbols in Krasnodar” . The screening of the movie “Plakat” with the discussion were arranged by “ETHniCS” together with the Center of Armenian culture.

• Voronezh

The activists of the Youth Human Rights Movement hold the open lesson for schoolchildren and students, that was aimed to make them to have second thoughts about different social challenges. Participants were asked to take a stand to a number of statements concerning their attitudes towards people from foreign cultures. But majority of youngsters declared that they would prefer not to live or to study together with people of another ethnics. Their position stressed again the necessity of enlightenment actions on tolerance for youth.

• Krasnodar

An interactive poll devoted to the reasons of racism beginning was carried out among pupils of local gymnasium. The activists also arranged the action on sticking over city’s walls leaflets of the project “Epigraph”.

• Nizhniy Novgorod

The Youth Human Rights Group organized a film screening of “Fanatic“ movie with the following discussion on the nature of Fundamentalism. The participants made a conclusion that fascism, nationalism, anti-semitism and other radical ideologies – even of the left wing – are similar in their destructiveness and fundamental attitudes and that there are many alternative solutions of the problem of xenophobia and racism.

• Perm

Over 120 schoolchildren took part in a series of lessons on „intercultural dialog“ and „tolerance“ that were hold in the local school. The activists also prepared the special information desk on the problems of neo-racism existing. They proposed to wear a paper clip on the clothes as a sign of resistance to racism.

• Rostov-on-Don

On the 19th of March the round table “Security of foreign students in Rostov-on-Don: cooperation between governmental and social structures” was conducted by the local branch of the Network “Young Europe” together with informational agency “Rosbalt-Yug”. During this conference the results of the project “Overcoming barriers: legal defence of foreign students in Rostov-on-Don” and of the research “Problems of foreign students in Russia” as well as current results of the regional hotline work were presented to journalists.

On the 20th of March students participated in the three hour training on tolerance, arranged by local activists. Participants discussed their understanding of tolerance and modern theories of tolerant person, they were introduced to the model “Pyramid of hatred” and to the model of tolerant cooperation called “I-message”.

• Taganrog

Within the action week „Stop Racism!“ volunteers of the organisations „Centre for Human Rights“ and „Youth of the 21st century” conducted the discussion “Racism and intolerance among youngsters” in which participated students of the Taganrog Radiotechnic University, the Youth Federal University and the University of Management and Economics. Furthermore informational and enlightenment materials were spread in schools and universities.

• Yakutsk (republic Sakha(Yakutia))

Discussions “Xenophobic tendencies in Yakutia“ were organized together with “Youth Assembly of nations of the republic Sakha” and with the Center of debates development „Dabaan“. The Yakutian organisation “Society of knowledge” also supported these actions.

Other cities of actions are Kaluga, Volgograd, Moscow, Lyswa an Ulyanowsk.
The Ukraine

• Gorlovka

An open lecture „The role of modern suggestive technologies in the forming of religious and ethnic stereotypes“ was organized by the State Pedagogical University of foreign languages. Students had a possibility to to take part in a discussion about hate speech and in the last one titled “Introduction into religion”. On the 21st of March students of the history faculty designed a collage on anti-racism issue. Over 400 of them were involved in these events.

The students discussions about modern forms and features of racism were carried out in the local branch of the Open International University of the Human development «Ukraine». This university deals with rehabilitation of disabled people, therefore events on tolerance are regular for its students. But the Week «Stop racism!» let them a chance to see this issue from another focuses.

• Makeevka

A discussion was organized for the students of the school „Hope“.

Events in the South Ukraine were arranged with the support of the Human Rights organizations “Good will” and the branch of the international Youth Human Rights Movement.

• Kherson

The seminar on Human Rights, democracy and combating racism was arranged in which participated over 30 students.

• Poltava

The seminar for 40 young activists and students of Poltava was conducted by volunteers of the NGO „Good will“. The special presentation about Human Rights violations and racism issues in modern Ukraine was carried out for lecturers and professors of local universities.

• Odessa

The local activists launched the petition campaign “Human Rights – stop violence against women!” and spread informational materials.

• Ismail

The round table on the results of the Mini-schools on Human Rights and the scientific conference “Legal mechanisms to prevent xenophobia among students in Ukraine” were organised. The regional project on preventing xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance has been evaluated according to outcomes of these events. Official talks about possibility to implement the special course on tolerance teaching into local universities were launched. Furthermore the brochure “Tolerance 4ever” is ready to be published.

The SMS action “Youth against xenophobia” was also conducted.

• Kyrgyzstan

There were the seminar about racism and tolerance issues in the modern society in the international university of Ataturk Alatoo, arranged by members of the Bishkek Youth Human Rights Group.
Prep-team of the Week:
Irina Aksenova
Alexandra Nazarova
stopracism@anti-fa.ru