MINELRES: RFE/RL: Russian Political Weekly (excerpts)

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RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 2, No. 43, 19 December 2002

A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics

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KRASNODAR

KRASNODAR GOVERNOR WILLING TO SEND MESKHETIANS TO THE U.S. Leaders of
the Meskhetians living in Krymskii Raion in Krasnodar Krai have been
invited to meet with representatives of the krai's migration service to
fill out migration cards, Interfax-South reported on 17 December. A
migration service official told the agency that after filling out the
cards, the Meskhetians could have temporary registration for 90 days.
According to a press release from the Novorossiisk Committee for Human
Rights, some 13,000 Meskhetians have been refused even temporary
registration since 31 October. According to the release, Krasnodar Krai
Governor Aleksandr Tkachev has said his administration would cooperate
in transferring the Meskhetians to the United States, where there has
been discussion of giving them refugee status. According to Interfax,
some 21,000 Meskhetians live in Krasnodar Krai. JAC

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STAVROPOL

KILLING THE MESSENGER? The trial of Stavropol State University Professor
Viktor Avksentev on charges of provoking interethnic strife opened on 17
December in Stavropol, ITAR-TASS reported. The prosecutor charged that a
monograph edited by Avksentev called "Stavropol: An Ethnographic
Portrait" includes expressions impugning non-Slavic ethnic groups,
"Vremya MN" reported. For example, a call is made for driving out all
migrants and transporting them in train cars. The xenophobic statements
were made by local residents participating in a sociological survey
commissioned by the krai government, according to "Vremya MN." In an
earlier interview, Avksentev told a local newspaper that he and his team
were trying to show the real situation in the krai regarding interethnic
relations. Polit.ru on 16 December noted that the application of the
article of the Criminal Code on inciting ethnic tension is "extremely
rarely used." It was not used, for instance, in a recent case in
Volgograd when seven swastika-clad youths beat to death two Roma, and it
was not used in the recent trial in Moscow of five men for involvement
in the 2001 Tsaritsyno market rampage that left three foreigners dead
and about 30 injured, the website noted. JAC/RC

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TATARSTAN

MUSLIM WOMEN WITHOUT PASSPORTS FACING DIFFICULTIES IN TATARSTAN. A group
of Muslim women from Kazan has complained to the chief inspector of the
federal Interior Ministry regarding the refusal of the republic's
passport service to accept photographs of women in headscarves for their
passports, islam.ru reported on 16 December. Zulfii Fatkhullina of the
Union of Muslim Women said Muslim women who have refused to have their
passport photos taken without headscarves have faced difficulties
because they don't have passports. One woman was reportedly refused
admittance to the maternity ward of a local hospital, while others
cannot find work or receive state-subsidized medical care. JAC

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DEPUTIES APPROVE BILL ON STATE LANGUAGE. Legislators in the State Duma
on 11 December approved in the second reading a draft law that would
establish Russian as the state language, ORT reported. According to "The
Moscow Times" on 28 November, the bill requires that Russian be used in
all official contacts and bans "foreign words that have commonly
accepted Russian equivalents," as well as "vernacular, disdainful, or
foul" language. However, it does not specify how the law would be
enforced or how language offenders would be punished. ORT noted that
contrary to earlier speculation, the latest version of the bill does not
impose fines for distorting the Russian language in public. "The Moscow
Times" also commented that since the Duma approved the bill in the first
reading in June, deputies have loosened proposed restrictions on
journalists and television personalities, who would be able to use
prohibited language if it is "an inalienable part of an artistic
concept." LB

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Copyright (c) 2002. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

The "RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly" is prepared by Julie A. Corwin on
the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every Monday.

Direct comments to Julie A. Corwin at corwinj@rferl.org.
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