Paul Goble
Vienna, April 21 – According to a Moscow court, Russian officials can close down an internet portal if visitors to the site leave comments that the authorities deem to be extremist, a ruling that could force Russian sites to moderate all comments before they are posted or to stop allowing such comments, thereby ending one of the most lively forums in the Russian media.
Yesterday, the Federal Arbitration Court of the Moscow District rejected an appeal by the Urals information agency, URA.ru, which held that it should not be subject to warnings that could open the way for its closure for posts visitors to that site left and the site’s own editors took off within a day (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.150179.html).
That decision, Aksana Panova, the site’s chief editor, said that the decision not only creates “a dangerous precedent” that could be used throughout the Russian Internet but opens the way for abuse because officials could arrange to have someone post “extremist” materials and then pounce even before the site took them off.
She told “Kommersant” that she is convinced that they have been the victims of “a planned campaign,” because URA.ru twice received a warning for the appearance twice of the same “extremist” message that the editors in both cases removed within a day and now is at risk of being shut down (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1158744).
Even more, she continued, the URA.ru editors immediately turned to the law enforcement agencies of all the regions in which the site has correspondents in an effort to find who had made these posts. But the agencies did not turn up the guilty party despite URA.ru’s provision of the IP addresses of the computers from which these posts came.
Officials responsible for media registration said that they would not necessarily close down sites that carry posts of this kind by visitors to such sites. But that is hardly reassuring because it opens the way to the kind of arbitrariness that is completely at odds with the Russian government’s proclaimed goal of becoming a “law-based” state.
Media and human rights activists are concerned that the Russian government will use this new ruling to selectively punish sites that the powers that be deem to be their opponents. Aleksey Simonov, the president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, said that “in every region,” the authorities include “people who know which media outlets are loyal and which are not.”
In an open letter to its visitors that appeared on the URA.ru site late yesterday, the editors that “from today, it will be dangerous to find out the opinions of its readers” because that may lead to “quarrels with the government” and ultimately the closure of media outlets that do so (www.ura.ru/content/urfo/20-04-2009/articles/1036253533.html).
“It is no secret,” the editors continue, “that URA.ru does not please everyone: We do not refrain from writing about doubtful financial schemes or the participation of highly-placed bureaucrats in corruption scandals. [And] we consider it correct to publish photographs such as of the cottage of the deputy presidential plenipotentiary and to indicate the cost of its lot.”
From our point of view, they say, “this is the responsibility of journalism and ordinary journalistic work. But certain bureaucrats prefer to deal only with media outlets they ‘control.’” And as this case shows, such bureaucrats now have a new means of putting pressure on media they don’t control or like.
Fortunately, the editors add, the powers that be did not take the final step of closing down URA.ru, but “nevertheless,” they continued, we have been “warned,” and “we have taken the decision to close [the site’s Internet] forum in general,” thus “depriving our readers of the opportunity to discuss news and events in the country.”
Such visitors, they conclude, are now “without a space for discussion.” That is a misfortune for those who rely on URA.ru. But if this case leads other portals to take the same decision – and that seems likely – it will be a tragedy for Russia and a clear indication that the powers that be there have little interest in defending media freedom.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Finns Call on Medvedev to End Violations of Rights and Freedoms in Russia
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 21 – Four leading Finnish non-governmental organizations have called on visiting President Dmitry Medvedev to live up to his promises to protect human rights and civic freedoms and to end the violence against journalists and ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation that are creating a gulf between Moscow and Europe.
The appeal, signed by the leaders of the Kiila Social Union, the Finno-Russian Civic Forum, the Finnish Section of Amnesty International, and the Finnish PEN Center, says that its members “had hoped for the development in Russia of a society which shares European values like human rights and civic freedoms” (www.finrosforum.fi/?p=2529).
But given recent developments in various sectors of Russian life, it continues, the signatories “are deeply concerned by the state of the observation of human rights in Russia,” all the more so because Medvedev, as in his interview with “Novaya gazeta,” offered himself as a defender of these rights.
“Are you seriously prepared for a change in the law on non-governmental organizations,” the appeal’s authors ask. Are you genuinely attached to the rule of law and the defense of human rights? And with regard to these questions, the Finnish NGOs challenge the Russian president, “will we see actions and not just words?”
“Over the past 15 years,” the appeal notes, “more than 150 journalists have been killed. And attacks against them and other supporters of civil society “must be stopped, and the guilty brought to justice,” regardless of whether the victims have attracted the attention of the international community or involve less well-known people.
The appeal also expresses the concerns of these groups about the status of national minorities in the Russian Federation. “The multi-cultural tradition is the wealth of Russia,” it says, adding that “we hope for the decisive interference of the government leadership of Russian in the area of racist crimes.”
It continues with an expression of concern about the status of Finno-Ugric peoples in particular, noting that “the open oppression” of one of these groups “has been continuing in the Mari El Republic since 2001,” when then-president Vladimir Putin installed his own man and called for the imposition of a power vertical there.
And the appeal calls for a full investigation of “the military crimes and violation of human rights which took place during the Chechen wars,” for the support of the Chechen people in reestablishing not only the economy of their republic but also democracy and human rights.” Justice requires, it says, “the scrupulous identification of those who violated” these rights.
But perhaps the most provocative part of the appeal is the following. “We are concerned,” the Finnish NGOs say, “that among the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation are people who have been charged with murder and are wanted on international warrants” but against whom Moscow has failed to take action.
The Finnish appeal calls on Moscow to obey the decisions of the European Human Rights Court, to ratify the protocol on that court, and to help build “effective horizontal cooperation” not just government to government but people to people as part of the European Union’s action plan for Russia.
So far during his two day visit to Helsinki, Medvedev has not commented on this declaration, and most Moscow media have ignored it. But at least two Russian websites have posted it, allowing Russians some access to this Finnish expression of concern about their problems (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=49EC51027C27E and www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2009/04/20/n_1353915.shtml).
Vienna, April 21 – Four leading Finnish non-governmental organizations have called on visiting President Dmitry Medvedev to live up to his promises to protect human rights and civic freedoms and to end the violence against journalists and ethnic minorities in the Russian Federation that are creating a gulf between Moscow and Europe.
The appeal, signed by the leaders of the Kiila Social Union, the Finno-Russian Civic Forum, the Finnish Section of Amnesty International, and the Finnish PEN Center, says that its members “had hoped for the development in Russia of a society which shares European values like human rights and civic freedoms” (www.finrosforum.fi/?p=2529).
But given recent developments in various sectors of Russian life, it continues, the signatories “are deeply concerned by the state of the observation of human rights in Russia,” all the more so because Medvedev, as in his interview with “Novaya gazeta,” offered himself as a defender of these rights.
“Are you seriously prepared for a change in the law on non-governmental organizations,” the appeal’s authors ask. Are you genuinely attached to the rule of law and the defense of human rights? And with regard to these questions, the Finnish NGOs challenge the Russian president, “will we see actions and not just words?”
“Over the past 15 years,” the appeal notes, “more than 150 journalists have been killed. And attacks against them and other supporters of civil society “must be stopped, and the guilty brought to justice,” regardless of whether the victims have attracted the attention of the international community or involve less well-known people.
The appeal also expresses the concerns of these groups about the status of national minorities in the Russian Federation. “The multi-cultural tradition is the wealth of Russia,” it says, adding that “we hope for the decisive interference of the government leadership of Russian in the area of racist crimes.”
It continues with an expression of concern about the status of Finno-Ugric peoples in particular, noting that “the open oppression” of one of these groups “has been continuing in the Mari El Republic since 2001,” when then-president Vladimir Putin installed his own man and called for the imposition of a power vertical there.
And the appeal calls for a full investigation of “the military crimes and violation of human rights which took place during the Chechen wars,” for the support of the Chechen people in reestablishing not only the economy of their republic but also democracy and human rights.” Justice requires, it says, “the scrupulous identification of those who violated” these rights.
But perhaps the most provocative part of the appeal is the following. “We are concerned,” the Finnish NGOs say, “that among the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation are people who have been charged with murder and are wanted on international warrants” but against whom Moscow has failed to take action.
The Finnish appeal calls on Moscow to obey the decisions of the European Human Rights Court, to ratify the protocol on that court, and to help build “effective horizontal cooperation” not just government to government but people to people as part of the European Union’s action plan for Russia.
So far during his two day visit to Helsinki, Medvedev has not commented on this declaration, and most Moscow media have ignored it. But at least two Russian websites have posted it, allowing Russians some access to this Finnish expression of concern about their problems (www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=49EC51027C27E and www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2009/04/20/n_1353915.shtml).
Monday, April 20, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Medvedev ‘Imitates’ Political Reform to Defend Putin’s System, Moscow Commentator Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 20 – Despite a series of much-publicized events that some commentators in Moscow and the West suggest represent significant “breakthroughs” to “liberalization,” a Russian commentator argues that Dmitry Medvedev is in fact offering “the imitation of political reform” in order to defend Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian system.
In an article in today’s “Gazeta,” Vladimir Milov, the head of the Moscow Institute of Energetic Politics, says that during April, President Medvedev has “thrown out to society a whole bouquet” of “’signals’” suggesting a dramatic change in the political climate in Russian toward a more liberal order (www.gazeta.ru/column/milov/2976296.shtml).
But a careful consideration of what the Russian president has said and even more of the sources of his comments and actions suggests that “there is no basis to expect serious changes in the policy of the ruling clan” and that any “hopes for the softening of the [current] political course are once again premature.”
Indeed, Milov says, “there is no doubt that we are dealing with the latest playing with liberal society, the goal of which consists of the neutralization of any outburst of freedom-loving attitudes as a result of the sharpening of the crisis and the ineffectiveness of government anti-crisis measures.”
As in the past, the Moscow analyst says, Medvedev’s words into which so many have invested so much do not point to anything “concrete.” Instead, they suggest yet again that “the president has taken upon himself the role of the good cop,” with the task of keeping off balance and parrying those “dissatisfied with the authoritarianism of the representatives of the elite.”
This “tactic,” which Medvedev has practiced so long that one could call it a strategy, “was most clearly formulated in a report of the Center for Political Technologies on ‘Democracy: the Development of the Russian Model.” That paper “denied the need for a significant liberalization of the social-political system and the creation of conditions for pluralism.”
“On the contrary,” Milov notes, that paper called for the continuation of the existing system and its defense through the elaboration of “a certain kind of pseudo-democratic accessories” such as the use of government-controlled “opposition” parties and the creation of possibilities for their representation in the parliament.
Such actions do little or nothing to change the system, however much many want to believe otherwise, but they do make for good public relations, Milov argues. And they can under conditions of economic crisis distract the attention of those who are suffering but who want to be offered some hope for the future.
Public reaction even to the efforts of Boris Nemtsov to raise certain “sharp” questions in his campaign for mayor of Sochi demonstrated to the siloviki and the bureaucracy, the Moscow analyst continues, just how dangerous for them would be any “weakening of control over politics and the media.”
The powers that be, he argues, understand that their “extraordinarily egoistic defense of interests of the narrow ruling clan over the last ten years” could under those circumstances open the way to a more general attack on their leaders and themselves, a risk that none of them is now prepared to take.
It is of course “possible” that Medvedev would like to change things – indeed, the plausibility of the idea that he would makes him more effective in his current role – but he is surrounded by people who do not want change because any change would be a threat to their power and property. And consequently, Milov says, they remain in a position to block it.
Meanwhile, in today’s “Yezhednevny zhurnal,” Aleksandr Podrabinek provides details about one of Medvedev’s efforts to present himself as committed to some kind of liberalization, his meeting last week with those human rights activists who have been “co-opted” into the Presidential Council for Supporting the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.”
From Medvedev’s perspective, the meeting was clearly “successful” because it showed off “as it were the human face of the current Russian powers that be” and “showed Russian society that even the enemies of authoritarian power – the human rights activists – are very successfully being integrated into the power vertical” (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8994).
Moreover, Podrabinek continued, this unusual and much-covered meeting “gave the human rights activists the chance to melt in an ecstasy of love and gratitude to President Medvedev and gave Medvedev the rare chance to present himself as a man of broader views with a great political future.”
In remarkably brutal terms, Podrabinek attacks those who attended the meeting and concludes that “it is becoming shameful to call oneself a human rights activist when others who do so in an obsequious fashion run to the Kremlin to say flattering words to a nonentity who is occupying a post other than his own.”
Podrabinek’s comments about those human rights activists who did attend are certainly too sharp. Many of those at the meeting could and would certainly respond that they did so not because of what Medvedev and his mentor Putin have done but rather because they are committed to exploiting any remaining chances they have to improve the situation.
But Podrabinek’s comments are appropriate for those not there who celebrated that meeting and several other recent Medvedev actions as turning points in the history of the country. They, unlike the rights activists Podrabinek criticizes, are not only deceiving themselves but serving precisely the interests of those whose policies they claim to oppose.
Vienna, April 20 – Despite a series of much-publicized events that some commentators in Moscow and the West suggest represent significant “breakthroughs” to “liberalization,” a Russian commentator argues that Dmitry Medvedev is in fact offering “the imitation of political reform” in order to defend Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian system.
In an article in today’s “Gazeta,” Vladimir Milov, the head of the Moscow Institute of Energetic Politics, says that during April, President Medvedev has “thrown out to society a whole bouquet” of “’signals’” suggesting a dramatic change in the political climate in Russian toward a more liberal order (www.gazeta.ru/column/milov/2976296.shtml).
But a careful consideration of what the Russian president has said and even more of the sources of his comments and actions suggests that “there is no basis to expect serious changes in the policy of the ruling clan” and that any “hopes for the softening of the [current] political course are once again premature.”
Indeed, Milov says, “there is no doubt that we are dealing with the latest playing with liberal society, the goal of which consists of the neutralization of any outburst of freedom-loving attitudes as a result of the sharpening of the crisis and the ineffectiveness of government anti-crisis measures.”
As in the past, the Moscow analyst says, Medvedev’s words into which so many have invested so much do not point to anything “concrete.” Instead, they suggest yet again that “the president has taken upon himself the role of the good cop,” with the task of keeping off balance and parrying those “dissatisfied with the authoritarianism of the representatives of the elite.”
This “tactic,” which Medvedev has practiced so long that one could call it a strategy, “was most clearly formulated in a report of the Center for Political Technologies on ‘Democracy: the Development of the Russian Model.” That paper “denied the need for a significant liberalization of the social-political system and the creation of conditions for pluralism.”
“On the contrary,” Milov notes, that paper called for the continuation of the existing system and its defense through the elaboration of “a certain kind of pseudo-democratic accessories” such as the use of government-controlled “opposition” parties and the creation of possibilities for their representation in the parliament.
Such actions do little or nothing to change the system, however much many want to believe otherwise, but they do make for good public relations, Milov argues. And they can under conditions of economic crisis distract the attention of those who are suffering but who want to be offered some hope for the future.
Public reaction even to the efforts of Boris Nemtsov to raise certain “sharp” questions in his campaign for mayor of Sochi demonstrated to the siloviki and the bureaucracy, the Moscow analyst continues, just how dangerous for them would be any “weakening of control over politics and the media.”
The powers that be, he argues, understand that their “extraordinarily egoistic defense of interests of the narrow ruling clan over the last ten years” could under those circumstances open the way to a more general attack on their leaders and themselves, a risk that none of them is now prepared to take.
It is of course “possible” that Medvedev would like to change things – indeed, the plausibility of the idea that he would makes him more effective in his current role – but he is surrounded by people who do not want change because any change would be a threat to their power and property. And consequently, Milov says, they remain in a position to block it.
Meanwhile, in today’s “Yezhednevny zhurnal,” Aleksandr Podrabinek provides details about one of Medvedev’s efforts to present himself as committed to some kind of liberalization, his meeting last week with those human rights activists who have been “co-opted” into the Presidential Council for Supporting the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.”
From Medvedev’s perspective, the meeting was clearly “successful” because it showed off “as it were the human face of the current Russian powers that be” and “showed Russian society that even the enemies of authoritarian power – the human rights activists – are very successfully being integrated into the power vertical” (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=8994).
Moreover, Podrabinek continued, this unusual and much-covered meeting “gave the human rights activists the chance to melt in an ecstasy of love and gratitude to President Medvedev and gave Medvedev the rare chance to present himself as a man of broader views with a great political future.”
In remarkably brutal terms, Podrabinek attacks those who attended the meeting and concludes that “it is becoming shameful to call oneself a human rights activist when others who do so in an obsequious fashion run to the Kremlin to say flattering words to a nonentity who is occupying a post other than his own.”
Podrabinek’s comments about those human rights activists who did attend are certainly too sharp. Many of those at the meeting could and would certainly respond that they did so not because of what Medvedev and his mentor Putin have done but rather because they are committed to exploiting any remaining chances they have to improve the situation.
But Podrabinek’s comments are appropriate for those not there who celebrated that meeting and several other recent Medvedev actions as turning points in the history of the country. They, unlike the rights activists Podrabinek criticizes, are not only deceiving themselves but serving precisely the interests of those whose policies they claim to oppose.
Window on Eurasia: Is Official Ankara Distancing Itself from the Circassians?
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 20 – Turkish government officials at the last moment announced that they would not participate in a long-scheduled conference on relations between Turkey and the Caucasus, a decision that suggests Ankara may have decided to lower its public profile in this area as part of its effort to expand its cooperation with Moscow in the Caucasus.
But if Ankara has indeed decided to do so – and Russian pressure on Turkey has been strong, especially given Moscow’s sensitivities about the Sochi Olympics whose convention many Circassians oppose – Turkish officials are certain to come under increasing pressure from the more than five million Turkish citizens of Circassian descent to reverse this course.
Officials of the Khase Circassian Federation of Turkey (KAFFED) said they were “extremely surprised” that Turkish government officials who earlier had agreed to come and were listed on the program announced the day before the conference began that they would not take part (www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=3831).
“Nevertheless,” the organizers from KAFFED said, “the conference took place as scheduled,” and they insisted that “the large number of people who visited the conference provides evidence that [many in Turkish] society consider the questions raised at [this April 14 meeting] to be important.”
Some speakers, like Guven Sak, the head of the Turkish Foundation for Economic Research, even suggested that the failure of Turkish officials to take part in the meeting had the effect of underscoring just how important and sensitive issues involving the Circassians in the North Caucasus have become.
Sak argued that discussions of these issues are helping people in Turkey to see that the Caucasus cannot be reduced to the question of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. That region, he said, “is very important from any point of view. It must be considered as a whole. And only such a view will be effective.”
KAFFED President Jihan Jandemir said that his organization had created a Center for Scientific and Strategic Research on the Caucasus (KAFSAM) in order to make use of its ability to draw on reports from Circassian co-ethnics in the Caucasus and thus provide a more accurate picture of what is taking place in the Caucasus.
“The situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is very important for us,” Jandemir continued, “and Turkey can play an essential role in improving it.” Among the steps Ankara should take, he said, was to simplify the visa regime between Abkhazia and Turkey, something he had hoped to have a foreign ministry official explain at this meeting.
Another speaker, Onur Oymen, the deputy chief of the Turkish Popular Republican Party, said that the issue of Ankara’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia was not now on the agenda of Turkish officials. And he suggested that Circassians should not expect any movement anytime soon.
“Not one country has ever been recognized immediately,” he said, somewhat distorting the historical record. “The Soviet Union, for example was recognized [by the United States] only in 1933. And the Chinese People’s Republic, [which] was formed in 1949, was recognized [by Washington] only in 1975,” 26 years later.
Another speaker, Hasan Kanbolat, the head of the ORSAM Center for Strategic Research on the Near East, pointed both to Ankara’s past reluctance to pay close attention to the Caucasus, which after all is in Turkey’s backyard, and to the reasons why many in Turkish society are going to push their government to do so in the future.
According to Kanbolat, Turkish military sources did not even publish maps of the Caucasus between 1887 and 1993, unwilling to focus on these regions. But, he continued, “the collapse of the USSR has opened the eyes of Turkey and forced it to look at the Caucasus” and at its peoples.
And at the same time, the ORSAM Center head said, “almost 40 percent of the population of the Black Sea and Aegean coasts of Turkey consists of people who were resettled there as a result of genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced migration approximately 130 years ago.” They have not forgotten that past, and they will not let Ankara forget either.
Vienna, April 20 – Turkish government officials at the last moment announced that they would not participate in a long-scheduled conference on relations between Turkey and the Caucasus, a decision that suggests Ankara may have decided to lower its public profile in this area as part of its effort to expand its cooperation with Moscow in the Caucasus.
But if Ankara has indeed decided to do so – and Russian pressure on Turkey has been strong, especially given Moscow’s sensitivities about the Sochi Olympics whose convention many Circassians oppose – Turkish officials are certain to come under increasing pressure from the more than five million Turkish citizens of Circassian descent to reverse this course.
Officials of the Khase Circassian Federation of Turkey (KAFFED) said they were “extremely surprised” that Turkish government officials who earlier had agreed to come and were listed on the program announced the day before the conference began that they would not take part (www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=3831).
“Nevertheless,” the organizers from KAFFED said, “the conference took place as scheduled,” and they insisted that “the large number of people who visited the conference provides evidence that [many in Turkish] society consider the questions raised at [this April 14 meeting] to be important.”
Some speakers, like Guven Sak, the head of the Turkish Foundation for Economic Research, even suggested that the failure of Turkish officials to take part in the meeting had the effect of underscoring just how important and sensitive issues involving the Circassians in the North Caucasus have become.
Sak argued that discussions of these issues are helping people in Turkey to see that the Caucasus cannot be reduced to the question of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. That region, he said, “is very important from any point of view. It must be considered as a whole. And only such a view will be effective.”
KAFFED President Jihan Jandemir said that his organization had created a Center for Scientific and Strategic Research on the Caucasus (KAFSAM) in order to make use of its ability to draw on reports from Circassian co-ethnics in the Caucasus and thus provide a more accurate picture of what is taking place in the Caucasus.
“The situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is very important for us,” Jandemir continued, “and Turkey can play an essential role in improving it.” Among the steps Ankara should take, he said, was to simplify the visa regime between Abkhazia and Turkey, something he had hoped to have a foreign ministry official explain at this meeting.
Another speaker, Onur Oymen, the deputy chief of the Turkish Popular Republican Party, said that the issue of Ankara’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia was not now on the agenda of Turkish officials. And he suggested that Circassians should not expect any movement anytime soon.
“Not one country has ever been recognized immediately,” he said, somewhat distorting the historical record. “The Soviet Union, for example was recognized [by the United States] only in 1933. And the Chinese People’s Republic, [which] was formed in 1949, was recognized [by Washington] only in 1975,” 26 years later.
Another speaker, Hasan Kanbolat, the head of the ORSAM Center for Strategic Research on the Near East, pointed both to Ankara’s past reluctance to pay close attention to the Caucasus, which after all is in Turkey’s backyard, and to the reasons why many in Turkish society are going to push their government to do so in the future.
According to Kanbolat, Turkish military sources did not even publish maps of the Caucasus between 1887 and 1993, unwilling to focus on these regions. But, he continued, “the collapse of the USSR has opened the eyes of Turkey and forced it to look at the Caucasus” and at its peoples.
And at the same time, the ORSAM Center head said, “almost 40 percent of the population of the Black Sea and Aegean coasts of Turkey consists of people who were resettled there as a result of genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced migration approximately 130 years ago.” They have not forgotten that past, and they will not let Ankara forget either.
Window on Eurasia: Regions Propose Radical Changes in Russia’s Federal Arrangements
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 20 – Even though President Dmitry Medvedev has made clear that Moscow will have the last word on all anti-crisis measures and even though polls suggest Russians trust the center more than the regions to cope with the crisis, many of Russia’s regions and republics argue that the crisis underscores the need to revamp existing federal arrangements.
In the current issue of “Versia,” Mikhail Izmalkov surveys the proposals regional officials have offered over the last month. And while it is unlikely that all or perhaps even many of their ideas will be implemented, the list itself provides a measure of within-system regional aspirations (versia.ru/articles/2009/apr/13/antikrizisnie_programmy_regionov).
Izmalkov says that the economic crisis has become “a crisis of the Russian Federation,” one during which “the regions are demanding an increase of the political and economic freedoms” of the country’s component parts, demands that would not only reverse much of Vladimir Putin’s effort to construct a power vertical but in some cases go much further.
Some of the proposals, like Kostroma oblast’s call for drafting all young men in order to ease unemployment, would simply change Moscow’s general policy, but many call on the center to cede control over important levers of power to regional officials and to restructure political arrangements in the regions, even while providing more money from the federal treasury.
Chechnya’s demand for control over the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service offices on its territory and for the emission of money there have attracted the most attention and the most immediate dismissal by central officials, but other proposals are both more serious and apparently being taken more seriously in Moscow given the depth of the crisis.
Kaliningrad oblast has proposed changing the rules so that those parties which win regional elections will have the right to form regional governments and that governors will again have the power to nominate officials in the representations of federal organs of power located on their territories and will gain direct control over many federal offices there.
Many republics in the North Caucasus in turn have asked for more federal money to cope with the crisis and fewer federal controls over how it is used. Krasnodar kray has called for Moscow to allow regional banks to gain credits at the Bank of Russia and to form a new state corporation for agriculture, something that would help that southern region.
Volgograd officials have called for simplifying the procedure allowing governments to exercise eminent domain and for ensuring that the representatives of central government ministries and agencies regularly inform regional and local officials about what they are doing rather than acting unilaterally.
And a variety of federal subjects, including Kemerovo, Kursk, and Nizhny Novgorod, have called on Moscow to provide more aid given that federal law requires them to support things that existing revenues do not allow, thus creating the problem of unfunded liabilities that exist in many federal systems around the world.
Meanwhile, Izmalkov continues, Karelia would like to set up a system whereby the most successful regions would get more money from the center, something its leaders say would cause regional officials to work harder. But other regions appear to oppose that idea lest their different situations cost them federal money.
Among the other proposals the regions have offered are the following: Saratov wants a greater say in controlling immigrant workers as does Primorsky kray. Tyva and Magadan want greater control over the licensing of their natural resources and a greater share of profits from their sale. And Kamchatka wants more protectionism and subsidies for transport costs.
Clearly, each region is seeking to maximize the amount of money it gets from Moscow and to minimize Moscow’s control over how that is spent, but the very diversity of demands will likely allow the center to pick and choose, playing off one region against another, unless of course the crisis lasts long enough for the regions to begin forming a common front.
That does not appear to be an immediate danger, but given that ever more predictions suggest that the crisis will extend into 2010 or even longer, the chance that Moscow will be confronted by more demands from the regions and even greater coordination among them will increase, a development that will help to define Russian politics as the country approaches 2012.
Vienna, April 20 – Even though President Dmitry Medvedev has made clear that Moscow will have the last word on all anti-crisis measures and even though polls suggest Russians trust the center more than the regions to cope with the crisis, many of Russia’s regions and republics argue that the crisis underscores the need to revamp existing federal arrangements.
In the current issue of “Versia,” Mikhail Izmalkov surveys the proposals regional officials have offered over the last month. And while it is unlikely that all or perhaps even many of their ideas will be implemented, the list itself provides a measure of within-system regional aspirations (versia.ru/articles/2009/apr/13/antikrizisnie_programmy_regionov).
Izmalkov says that the economic crisis has become “a crisis of the Russian Federation,” one during which “the regions are demanding an increase of the political and economic freedoms” of the country’s component parts, demands that would not only reverse much of Vladimir Putin’s effort to construct a power vertical but in some cases go much further.
Some of the proposals, like Kostroma oblast’s call for drafting all young men in order to ease unemployment, would simply change Moscow’s general policy, but many call on the center to cede control over important levers of power to regional officials and to restructure political arrangements in the regions, even while providing more money from the federal treasury.
Chechnya’s demand for control over the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service offices on its territory and for the emission of money there have attracted the most attention and the most immediate dismissal by central officials, but other proposals are both more serious and apparently being taken more seriously in Moscow given the depth of the crisis.
Kaliningrad oblast has proposed changing the rules so that those parties which win regional elections will have the right to form regional governments and that governors will again have the power to nominate officials in the representations of federal organs of power located on their territories and will gain direct control over many federal offices there.
Many republics in the North Caucasus in turn have asked for more federal money to cope with the crisis and fewer federal controls over how it is used. Krasnodar kray has called for Moscow to allow regional banks to gain credits at the Bank of Russia and to form a new state corporation for agriculture, something that would help that southern region.
Volgograd officials have called for simplifying the procedure allowing governments to exercise eminent domain and for ensuring that the representatives of central government ministries and agencies regularly inform regional and local officials about what they are doing rather than acting unilaterally.
And a variety of federal subjects, including Kemerovo, Kursk, and Nizhny Novgorod, have called on Moscow to provide more aid given that federal law requires them to support things that existing revenues do not allow, thus creating the problem of unfunded liabilities that exist in many federal systems around the world.
Meanwhile, Izmalkov continues, Karelia would like to set up a system whereby the most successful regions would get more money from the center, something its leaders say would cause regional officials to work harder. But other regions appear to oppose that idea lest their different situations cost them federal money.
Among the other proposals the regions have offered are the following: Saratov wants a greater say in controlling immigrant workers as does Primorsky kray. Tyva and Magadan want greater control over the licensing of their natural resources and a greater share of profits from their sale. And Kamchatka wants more protectionism and subsidies for transport costs.
Clearly, each region is seeking to maximize the amount of money it gets from Moscow and to minimize Moscow’s control over how that is spent, but the very diversity of demands will likely allow the center to pick and choose, playing off one region against another, unless of course the crisis lasts long enough for the regions to begin forming a common front.
That does not appear to be an immediate danger, but given that ever more predictions suggest that the crisis will extend into 2010 or even longer, the chance that Moscow will be confronted by more demands from the regions and even greater coordination among them will increase, a development that will help to define Russian politics as the country approaches 2012.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Window on Eurasia: Some of Russia’s Muslims Seeking to Define a Place between ‘Dar ul-Islam’ and ‘Dar ul-Harb’
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 19 – Muslim theorists traditionally have divided the geography of the world between the “dar ul-Islam,” or “abode of peace,” in which Muslim governments rule over Muslim peoples, and the dar ul-harb, or “abode of war,” in which Muslims find themselves in places with non-Muslim governments and are urged to practice jihad to change that.
But some Muslim writers now argue that Muslims living in non-Muslim areas must make a distinction between countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely and whose governments have good relations with Muslim countries and those where Muslims remain subject to discrimination and whose governments are hostile to the world of Islam.
If Muslims in the latter must continue to view themselves as living in the dar ul-harb with all the religiously-based demands for struggle that entails, these writers say, Muslims living in the former need to revise that approach and recognize that they live in a third space, the “dar ul-akhd,” which might be rendered as “abode of coexistence.”
This idea has been at the margins of a broader discussion on Muslim minorities, and to this day, a large majority of the world’s Muslims appears to reject the whole idea either because it represents the kind of “innovation” of the faith that traditionalists reject or because it appears to be a tool by non-Muslims against the faithful.
That makes any treatment of the subject particularly important. And the appearance of a sympathetic treatment of this idea by Ruslan Kurbanov, a leading Moscow expert, in an article on the Russian Federation’s largest Islamic web portal and even more his promotion of such ideas on a Muslim Internet television channel especially intriguing.
Kurbanov, a senior specialist at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, reviews the works of those Muslim writers who have suggested that modernity requires unpacking the concept of “dar ul-harb,” given the number of Muslims who live in states governed by non-Muslims and the diversity of those states (www.islam.ru/pressclub/analitika/hijihad/).
Many of these authors, he notes, suggest that Koranic requirements for conducting jihad should be adjusted depending on whether these countries protect the rights of Muslims and seek friendly relations with Islamic countries or fail to protect the rights of the Islamic community and are hostile to the worldwide umma.
In the former category, Kurbanov suggests on the basis of the writings of these authors, are European countries, and there Muslims should work within the political system which protects them. In the latter category, the Moscow investigator says, is Israel, and there, these writers agree, the requirements for jihad remain unchanged.
But even more important perhaps than his article is Kurbanov’s more forceful presentation of it on Internet television (www.emin.tv/video/go_west/). That broadcast is likely to reach a larger audience, simultaneously attracting support and generating opposition in the coming weeks and months.
This search for a middle ground between “dar ul-Islam” and “dar ul-Harb” may be a harbinger of further changes in the relationship between Russia’s Muslims and the Russian state, either prompting a strengthening of the traditional deference of that community to the authorities or alternatively sparking dissent to this reformist approach.
At the same time – and this is implicit in both Kurbanov’s article and his television presentation – at least some of the Muslims of the Russian Federation may use this argument to demand that Moscow protect their rights more than it has in the past or possibly face a more open challenge from that increasingly numerous community.
And this idea could have some international resonance as well by providing the Russian government with a new argument in its campaign to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other institutions in the Muslim world – although in this case too, the argument could have exactly the opposite effect.
Vienna, April 19 – Muslim theorists traditionally have divided the geography of the world between the “dar ul-Islam,” or “abode of peace,” in which Muslim governments rule over Muslim peoples, and the dar ul-harb, or “abode of war,” in which Muslims find themselves in places with non-Muslim governments and are urged to practice jihad to change that.
But some Muslim writers now argue that Muslims living in non-Muslim areas must make a distinction between countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely and whose governments have good relations with Muslim countries and those where Muslims remain subject to discrimination and whose governments are hostile to the world of Islam.
If Muslims in the latter must continue to view themselves as living in the dar ul-harb with all the religiously-based demands for struggle that entails, these writers say, Muslims living in the former need to revise that approach and recognize that they live in a third space, the “dar ul-akhd,” which might be rendered as “abode of coexistence.”
This idea has been at the margins of a broader discussion on Muslim minorities, and to this day, a large majority of the world’s Muslims appears to reject the whole idea either because it represents the kind of “innovation” of the faith that traditionalists reject or because it appears to be a tool by non-Muslims against the faithful.
That makes any treatment of the subject particularly important. And the appearance of a sympathetic treatment of this idea by Ruslan Kurbanov, a leading Moscow expert, in an article on the Russian Federation’s largest Islamic web portal and even more his promotion of such ideas on a Muslim Internet television channel especially intriguing.
Kurbanov, a senior specialist at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, reviews the works of those Muslim writers who have suggested that modernity requires unpacking the concept of “dar ul-harb,” given the number of Muslims who live in states governed by non-Muslims and the diversity of those states (www.islam.ru/pressclub/analitika/hijihad/).
Many of these authors, he notes, suggest that Koranic requirements for conducting jihad should be adjusted depending on whether these countries protect the rights of Muslims and seek friendly relations with Islamic countries or fail to protect the rights of the Islamic community and are hostile to the worldwide umma.
In the former category, Kurbanov suggests on the basis of the writings of these authors, are European countries, and there Muslims should work within the political system which protects them. In the latter category, the Moscow investigator says, is Israel, and there, these writers agree, the requirements for jihad remain unchanged.
But even more important perhaps than his article is Kurbanov’s more forceful presentation of it on Internet television (www.emin.tv/video/go_west/). That broadcast is likely to reach a larger audience, simultaneously attracting support and generating opposition in the coming weeks and months.
This search for a middle ground between “dar ul-Islam” and “dar ul-Harb” may be a harbinger of further changes in the relationship between Russia’s Muslims and the Russian state, either prompting a strengthening of the traditional deference of that community to the authorities or alternatively sparking dissent to this reformist approach.
At the same time – and this is implicit in both Kurbanov’s article and his television presentation – at least some of the Muslims of the Russian Federation may use this argument to demand that Moscow protect their rights more than it has in the past or possibly face a more open challenge from that increasingly numerous community.
And this idea could have some international resonance as well by providing the Russian government with a new argument in its campaign to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other institutions in the Muslim world – although in this case too, the argument could have exactly the opposite effect.
Window on Eurasia: Even Moscow’s Closest Allies in the CIS are Switching Off Russian TV
Paul Goble
Vienna, April 19 – Ever more former Soviet republics, including some Moscow views as its closest allies within the Commonwealth of Independent States, have decided to drop Russian TV channels, a development that threatens the survival of the broader Russian-language space Moscow has wanted to maintain and thus of Moscow’s influence in these countries.
That Georgia and Ukraine have made that choice, according to a lead article in “Gazeta” on Friday, will come as no surprise given the tensions between the Russian Federation and those two countries. But that Tajikistan and Belarus have done so raises some serious questions, the editors say (www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/04/17_e_2975271.shtml).
Each of the governments has its own reason for taking this action, the paper notes, thus undermining any notion that this is “a conspiracy” against Russia as some might be inclined to think. Tajikistan, for example, says that RTR-Planeta was not willing to pay higher rates. And Belarus suggests that the Russian channels have not followed the required procedures.
On the one hand, the editors of “Gazeta” say, it would be a mistake to exaggerate what is going on: “Not all Russian television channels have been switched off, and those which have retain a chance after the submission of the required [documentation] to continue their broadcasts in friendly countries.”
But on the other hand, they say, “let us not minimize” what is happening in this sphere, especially in those countries Moscow lists as its “friends.” Indeed, in these cases, the governments involved appear to be using “just the same methods which are used in Moscow against any foreign business attempting to operate in the Russian market.”
Indeed, the “Gazeta” editor say, Moscow’s example has turned out to be “contagious” in ways few in the Russian capital expected. And to make its point, the paper offers the following quotation without initially identifying its author: “An information war is being directed against us to lower our role in international affairs … [Our] Independence doesn’t please certain circles.”
These words or at least the sentiment behind them could have been advanced by Vladimir Putin, Vladislav Surkov and Sergey Lavrov, “Gazeta” points out. But in fact, their source is Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon, who the paper helpfully notes “until recently bore a family name with a Russian ending, Rakhmonov.”
In this way, the Russian government has influenced its neighbors, the editors of “Gazeta
say. And consequently, it is not just Russia that is “rising from its knees” but also some of her neighbors who are doing so – and against Moscow, an interesting example of an unintended consequence of Moscow’s recent approach.
And in Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s policy of maneuvering “between West and East requires a particular precise propagandistic accompaniment,” something that he clearly has concluded Russian television broadcasting does not provide the right notes for the song he now wishes to sing.
Moreover, the paper’s editors continue, all around Russia, there are now states with their own sense of “power, pride, and suspicions” which sometimes openly and sometimes now their governments are directing against Moscow. And “the logical result of this is growing pressure in the CIS countries against Russian official propaganda and its televised retranslation.”
As the governments restrict Russian television broadcasting, the first to suffer will be the native Russian speakers in these countries, the Moscow paper observes. But the decline in such broadcasts will reduce still further one of the Russian government’s most beloved forms of “soft power”—the maintenance of a Russian-language world beyond the border of the country itself.
Unfortunately, as the editors of “Gazeta” conclude, Moscow and Russian television need to recognize that no one is more to blame for this outcome than they are themselves: “never before has our television been so provincial, empty and unprofessional,” the paper says, “so disgusting for viewers with taste and so boring” for many others.
Meanwhile, at the end of last week, there were two other developments on the Russian language front which highlight the sensitivities to which the “Gazeta” editors alluded. On the one hand, in the Duma, a United Russia deputy called for excluding foreign words from all future legislation (www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews.shtml?/20090417134224.shtml).
Gennady Kulik made that proposal during debates on a law governing “insaidersky” information. He said that English-language word, which has become an international one, should be translated into Russia since, in his opinion, “this word is not familiar to a majority of the residents of Russia,”
And on the other, the nationalist Russian Observer portal denounced efforts by the Kazan Tatars to have their language, the second most widely spoken indigenous tongue in the Russian Federation, declared the second state language of the country as a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia (www.rus-obr.ru/days/2599).
Vienna, April 19 – Ever more former Soviet republics, including some Moscow views as its closest allies within the Commonwealth of Independent States, have decided to drop Russian TV channels, a development that threatens the survival of the broader Russian-language space Moscow has wanted to maintain and thus of Moscow’s influence in these countries.
That Georgia and Ukraine have made that choice, according to a lead article in “Gazeta” on Friday, will come as no surprise given the tensions between the Russian Federation and those two countries. But that Tajikistan and Belarus have done so raises some serious questions, the editors say (www.gazeta.ru/comments/2009/04/17_e_2975271.shtml).
Each of the governments has its own reason for taking this action, the paper notes, thus undermining any notion that this is “a conspiracy” against Russia as some might be inclined to think. Tajikistan, for example, says that RTR-Planeta was not willing to pay higher rates. And Belarus suggests that the Russian channels have not followed the required procedures.
On the one hand, the editors of “Gazeta” say, it would be a mistake to exaggerate what is going on: “Not all Russian television channels have been switched off, and those which have retain a chance after the submission of the required [documentation] to continue their broadcasts in friendly countries.”
But on the other hand, they say, “let us not minimize” what is happening in this sphere, especially in those countries Moscow lists as its “friends.” Indeed, in these cases, the governments involved appear to be using “just the same methods which are used in Moscow against any foreign business attempting to operate in the Russian market.”
Indeed, the “Gazeta” editor say, Moscow’s example has turned out to be “contagious” in ways few in the Russian capital expected. And to make its point, the paper offers the following quotation without initially identifying its author: “An information war is being directed against us to lower our role in international affairs … [Our] Independence doesn’t please certain circles.”
These words or at least the sentiment behind them could have been advanced by Vladimir Putin, Vladislav Surkov and Sergey Lavrov, “Gazeta” points out. But in fact, their source is Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon, who the paper helpfully notes “until recently bore a family name with a Russian ending, Rakhmonov.”
In this way, the Russian government has influenced its neighbors, the editors of “Gazeta
say. And consequently, it is not just Russia that is “rising from its knees” but also some of her neighbors who are doing so – and against Moscow, an interesting example of an unintended consequence of Moscow’s recent approach.
And in Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s policy of maneuvering “between West and East requires a particular precise propagandistic accompaniment,” something that he clearly has concluded Russian television broadcasting does not provide the right notes for the song he now wishes to sing.
Moreover, the paper’s editors continue, all around Russia, there are now states with their own sense of “power, pride, and suspicions” which sometimes openly and sometimes now their governments are directing against Moscow. And “the logical result of this is growing pressure in the CIS countries against Russian official propaganda and its televised retranslation.”
As the governments restrict Russian television broadcasting, the first to suffer will be the native Russian speakers in these countries, the Moscow paper observes. But the decline in such broadcasts will reduce still further one of the Russian government’s most beloved forms of “soft power”—the maintenance of a Russian-language world beyond the border of the country itself.
Unfortunately, as the editors of “Gazeta” conclude, Moscow and Russian television need to recognize that no one is more to blame for this outcome than they are themselves: “never before has our television been so provincial, empty and unprofessional,” the paper says, “so disgusting for viewers with taste and so boring” for many others.
Meanwhile, at the end of last week, there were two other developments on the Russian language front which highlight the sensitivities to which the “Gazeta” editors alluded. On the one hand, in the Duma, a United Russia deputy called for excluding foreign words from all future legislation (www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews.shtml?/20090417134224.shtml).
Gennady Kulik made that proposal during debates on a law governing “insaidersky” information. He said that English-language word, which has become an international one, should be translated into Russia since, in his opinion, “this word is not familiar to a majority of the residents of Russia,”
And on the other, the nationalist Russian Observer portal denounced efforts by the Kazan Tatars to have their language, the second most widely spoken indigenous tongue in the Russian Federation, declared the second state language of the country as a threat to the territorial integrity of Russia (www.rus-obr.ru/days/2599).
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