Moscow Bombings: Harassment in the Name of Investigation

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Subject: Moscow Bombings: Harassment in the Name of Investigation

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Moscow Bombings: Harassment in the Name of Investigation

Susan Brazier
for
Memorial Human Rights Centre, Moscow
17 September 1999

Stunned by a wave of bombings, Russians and Muscovites are on edge.
The citizens and government of Moscow in particular, which has so far
borne the brunt of the atrocities, are understandably unnerved: over
200 people have been killed as they slept, hundreds have been left
homeless and no one knows for certain that their home will not be
targeted next.

However, the pattern of response to these horrifying incidents is
itself alarming.

A few nights after the first apartment bombing, Moscow Mayor Yury
Luzhkov stated on television that the bombers were beyond question
Chechens - this without any public evidence of any kind - and that the
Russian government should build a "cordon sanitaire" around Chechnya.
Furthermore, he continued, the Moscow government should immediately
rethink its attitude towards its "guests," by, among other things,
strictly enforcing its notorious and unconstitutional registration
regime.

By Monday evening, after the second apartment bombing, Luzhkov was
quoted as saying that "harsh and radical measures would be taken,"
that "all those of whom we cannot be certain will be removed [from
Moscow]," and that "the greatest attention will be given to transport,
the markets and guests of the capital". As many market stalls are run
by Caucasians and Central Asians, Mr. Luzhkov's not-so-subtle point
was made twice over.

Since that time, Luzhkov's interpretation of events, and his strategy
for addressing them, has been adopted by the city and national
authorities. Despite denials of involvement by the rebel leaders in
the Caucasus - an unusual if not unprecedented terrorist tactic - the
authorities have so far refused to examine any other possible
explanation.

An entire ethnic group - Chechens in particular and Caucasians in
general - are being targeted by authorities, either as suspects - or
as scapegoats.

(An interesting point was made by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta on
Monday, before the second bombing. The paper claimed that the
organizers of the attacks had recruited Slavs to carry out the
bombings, specifically because "people of Caucasian appearance" (as
they are derogatively called) are easily identifiable. Whether or not
this is true, there is a certain logic to it; in any event, it holds
up to the light the ludicrous and frankly racist assumption that Slavs
could not perpetuate such acts. It is reminiscent of the assumption
immediately after the World Trade Centre bombing that someone of "Arab
appearance" was connected to the attack, which, of course, turned out
to be completely false.)

A massive security operation has been instituted across the capital.
The police and military presence is ubiquitous. The passport and
identity checks in the streets and metro stations that have long been
a fact of life for any "guest" (ie. non-white resident) of Moscow,
have been stepped up. Police have visited thousands of homes to
undertake registration and identity checks.

The Mayor has asserted that all of Moscow's guests will have to
re-register, but it is not clear exactly who has to re-register, when
or how, or on what legal basis the re-registration rests. Civic
Assistance, a Moscow NGO that addresses the needs of the city's forced
migrants, indicates that it is not even clear if authorities have
received written instructions about how to re-register residents.
Their efforts to obtain written orders have not been successful.

In roughly the past week, up to 20,000 people have been detained for
violating registration regulations. According to one report, 1,000
people have been arrested, 27 of then in relation to the bombing.

Civic Assistance has already begun receiving complaints from
long-standing Moscow residents about harassment from the authorities.
These include:
 
- registered refugees from Azerbaijan having their legitimate
registration annulled;

- a Chechen family having lived in Moscow for four years not being
able to extend their registration period and being fined and detained
by the police;

- an Ingush man having his legitimately registered passport taken from
him by the police during an identity check.

Moscow authorities are clearly using this gruesome situation to
reinforce their long-standing efforts to address what they see the
"problem" of the city's Caucasian population. Human rights groups have
for the last several years been highlighting the issue of police
harassment and abuse of minorities in the capital that takes the form
of repeated document checks, extortion and raids on people's homes.
The government has been criticized time and again for using the city's
registration system, comprehensively declared unconstitutional in
February 1998, to restrict the rights of migrants and refugees - Mr.
Luzhkov's "guests" - in the capital.

At this time, the authorities are continuing their well-established
pattern and harassing thousands of people for administrative
violations that have nothing to do with the matter at hand. The
enforcement of re-registration does nothing to catch the perpetrators
of the bombings and only casts a net over the entire "guest" community
- a net the authorities will no doubt use in the days and weeks ahead
to ensnare people found, as many no doubt will, to be in
non-compliance.

The Moscow government now has an apparent justification for the claims
that it has made for years that Chechens and Caucasians bring disorder
and crime to the capital. It can now play on citizens fears and is
virtually guaranteed of little opposition if it implements tougher and
tougher "radical measures" against thousands of people who are trying
to live lawful and productive lives in the capital.

Given the tense atmosphere in the capital, where may have set up watch
groups in apartment blocks, organized patrols and restricted access to
their buildings, singling out for blame an entire ethnic group - a
group that is already frankly disliked by much of the population -
increases the chances that public fear and anger will be taken out on
Chechens or other Caucasians. This could range from random verbal
abuse to anonymous calls to the police, advising them of "strangers"
living in the building, to outright harassment and violence. None of
this is would be unprecedented, but the scale of it could be.

Things could still get worse:

- The police have stated that people without proper registration,
instead of being fined, could be expelled from the city; at least 12
people have in fact already been expelled.

- There has been talk of possible roundups of undocumented citizens
and of "filtration camps" being established in certain parts of the
city to house them.

The randomness and bloody nature of these attacks make them
particularly terrifying for the population and clearly present a grave
security problem for the authorities. Yet, as deeply disturbing as
these bombings are, extreme measures must be avoided:

- The Mayor's Office and the authorities must not remain unchallenged
as their statements and actions feed and exacerbate the public's
mistrust of the city's Caucasian population, possibly leading to
inter-communal strife and violence.

- The police must not see this situation as an excuse to escalate its
harassment and abuse of the city's minority populations.

- The "radical measures" of Mayor Luzhkov must not be extended to even
more extreme actions, such as round ups and the installation of
"filtration camps".

- The city should be banding together in the face of these outrages,
and that should and must include the hundreds and thousands of
Caucasians and members of other minority communities trying to live
here peacefully and lawfully. They, like all Muscovites, deserve to
live in an atmosphere of peace and security, not in one of fear and
dread.


Susan Brazier is a Human Rights Researcher. She provided this piece to
Memorial Human Rights Centre, Moscow.

Memorial's web site is http://www.memo.ru


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