(April 15, 2005)
In what appears to be a coordinated campaign, two extremist Russian news organs have attacked UCSJ and its activity in Russia, in one case going so far as to call for criminal charges to be brought against UCSJ. The following are translations of the two articles.
On April 6, the extremist Russian Orthodox web site “Russkaya Liniya”—a wire service of sorts for other extremist publications—printed the following appeal on behalf of the antisemitic writer Oleg Platonov.
Also referenced in the article is the late Metropolitan Ioann—the most openly antisemitic member of the church leadership before his death ten years ago (his works are still widely distributed in extremist Orthodox circles); the Jackson-Vanick amendment, which tied the USSR’s trade status with freedom of emigration for Soviet Jews and which UCSJ was instrumental in passing; Aleksandr Brod, head of the Moscow Bureau on Human Rights (UCSJ’s affiliate in Russia); and Semyon Reznik, a writer and long-time friend of UCSJ (though not, as this article asserts, its employee).
ARTICLE #1
“On the Illegal Actions of Jewish Extremist Circles Towards the Orthodox Academic and Writer Oleg Platonov”
An Appeal by “The Moscow Committee on Human Rights” [UCSJ Note: Probably a fictitious organization]
Russkaya Liniya April 6, 2005
The Moscow Committee on Human Rights informs the Russian public and the appropriate agencies about illegal actions of Jewish extremist (including international) circles towards the Orthodox academic and writer Oleg Platonov.
Platonov is the spiritual student of the great Christian zealot and theologian Metropolitan Ioann of Petersburg and Ladoga, who blessed his publications that expose the secret war of Judaism and masonry against Christian civilizations. The Metropolitan gave these works of Platonov the title “Russia’s Crown of Thorns.” Around 50 books were written [by Platonov] on these themes, with over 1 million copies, some in foreign languages. The works of this academic, dedicated to the study of the activities of anti-Christian secret societies, received the approval of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus Alexi II.
The appearance of the first volumes of the series “Russia’s Crown of Thorns” inspired a hostile reaction from Jewish extremist circles. Instead of the calm inter-ethnic dialog suggested by the Orthodox author, the Jewish extremists chose the path of libelous attacks and threats. The center for the organized persecution against him was the American organization Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ), which is financed by the intelligence services of the USA. Its activities have always had a destructive anti-Russian character, it was this organization which came up with the anti-Russian Jackson-Vanick amendment, because of which our country to this day suffers discrimination in the world economy. UCSJ has a series of subsidiary organizations all over the world, including its representative in Moscow in the person of the so-called Buread on Human Rights [sic] headed by A. S. Brod. On the Internet sites of Jewish agencies and organizations the Bureau is listed as “the Moscow bureau of UCSJ.”
In the beginning of the 2000s, one of the leading members of UCSJ, Semyon Reznik, published in Israel using the money of this anti-Russian organization the book “The Depravity of Hate” in which, using distorted facts, he used libelous accusations of Judeophobia and fascism against the Orthodox Church and the Russian patriotic movement. In the book appeared fantastic details about the life of Oleg Platonov, his many trips around the world to “collect antisemitic materials” and constantly hinting that Russian patriots are preparing a “worldwide Jewish pogrom.” Before his emigration to the USA and his work for UCSJ, S. Reznik was a Soviet citizen and member of the Communist Party, in 1972 he wrote a biography praising the murderer of the Russian tsar Yankel Yurovsky, for which he received a prize from the Sverdlovsk party branch. His attacks on “Russia’s Crown of Thorns” were carried on Radio Israel and Radio Liberty.
With the publication of the new series of books by Platonov called “The Conspiracy Against Russia,” the colleague of Reznik at UCSJ A. S. Brod joined the libelous campaign against him. In the fall of 2004 he sent to the Prosecutor General’s office two appeals for criminal investigations to be launched against Platonov for inciting religious and ethnic hatred. Brod’s appeal is based on tendentious quotes from the book taken from their context. Brod distorts the real meaning of the general content of the books and the fragments from which the quotes were taken. In the efforts of Brod to “judge” Platonov one can see the anti-Christian context at the essence of UCSJ’s and Brod’s actions. In the summer of 2004, Brod organized an anti-Christian campaign to ban the showing of the Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” which showed the final days of the life of Jesus Christ and His views of “the children of the devil.” Because of his religious hatred and intolerance towards Christianity, Brod demanded that discriminatory measures be applied to Orthodox believers that violate their rights, freedoms, and legal interests. Brod’s attacks on Gibson’s film and Platonov’s books took place at approximately the same time and were part of the same anti-Christian campaign.
Not succeeding in their efforts to ban the sale of Platonov’s books through legal means, Jewish extremists chose the path of deception and violence. Groups of people calling themselves representatives of Jewish public organizations started going to bookstores where Platonov’s books were on sale in Moscow, Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Chelyabinsk. They demanded that the managers of these bookstores ban the sale of Platonov’s books. In Moscow in February 2005, a group of Jewish extremists tried to disrupt the presentation of new books by Platonov in the “Molodaya Gvardiya” bookstore. Threats and insults flew against the publishers of Platonov’s books.
Actions against him by the Dorogomilovsky prosecutor’s office in Moscow deserve special attention among the incidents of persecution against Platonov. A certain Demidenko, an official of this office, persecuted him with phone calls while the writer was seriously ill, demanding that he appear immediately at his office, threatening him with physical harm with the help of the police. The shocking behavior of this official made the writer’s illness worse.
The Moscow Committee on Human Rights is preparing extreme measures to defend Oleg Platonov from illegal persecution at the hands of unbridled anti-Russian extremists.
ARTICLE #2 (as reported by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations on April 14, 2005)
Nationalist Newspaper Demands a Ban on Zionist Human Rights Activities
The Editor-in-Chief and the founder of the “Duel” newspaper write in their letter addressed to the Russian State Duma (Russian Parliament):
“In the course of a journalistic investigation it was revealed that a racist foreign-based Jewish organization named “Union of Councils for Soviet Jews” (UCSJ) has received a large amount of funding designated for fighting racism from the European Union by presenting itself to the European Union’s Commission as the Russian human-rights organization “Moscow Bureau on Human Rights”.
UCSJ has been using these funds to carry out the following criminal activities in Russia:
to continuously threaten Russian Jewish citizens with Russian “anti-Semitism” and “fascism” and in doing so to incite hatred for Russians and other peoples living in Russia among our Jewish citizens, which constitutes a crime under article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code;
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to stimulate Jewish emigration from Russia and to consolidate Jews into “a fifth column” under the leadership of Jewish racists by harping on the imaginary threat of “Russian fascism”, which undermines Russia’s security and constitutes a crime under article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code;
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to establish censorship of the Russian media that is at this point not being controlled by Jewish racists, which constitutes a crime under article 144 of the Russian Criminal Code.
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Journalists working for the “Duel” newspaper have petitioned the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to initiate criminal proceedings against UCSJ which is in violation of articles 275, 282 and 144 of the Russian Criminal Code and they have sent a request to the Minister of Justice asking him to discontinue the financing of UCSJ and terminate this organization on the basis of article 58 of the Law on the Media.
“However, the corruption of the Russian bureaucracy is well known around the world, whereas UCSJ clearly has money for pay-offs, so it is quite unlikely that this problem will be resolved within Russia,” the “Duel” newspaper concludes.
This is why the journalists are asking the State Duma to appeal to the Parliament of the European Union requesting that it suspend the financing of Russian Jewish racists from the European Union’s budget, the newspaper says.
UCSJ’S RESPONSE
In the recent time, nationalistic and chauvinistic Russian organizations have started to include themselves in the chorus of some governmental and non-governmental agencies attacking local and foreign human rights organizations and their grant receiving system. The monitoring of antisemitism and other forms of xenophobia is organized by UCSJ’s affiliate, the Moscow Bureau, and our partner the Moscow Helsinki Group, and is financially supported by the European Union's Commission.
The success of this monitoring project is proven by the fact that prosecutors offices in Russia have started to use some of the information we have uncovered for investigations and opening some criminal cases of the most brutal hate crimes. The Ministry of Information has finally started to warn newspapers that incite inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatred, including the antisemitic newspaper "Duel.”
The main aim of this work is to build a Coalition of GOs and NGOs for fighting against xenophobia, antisemitism and racial discrimination in Russia. We categorically state that all the accusations in these articles are terrible lies reminiscent of the Cold War period, when Soviet newspapers attacked the Moscow Helsinki Group, Amnesty International, UCSJ, and many other human rights organizations for their protection victims of the Soviet regime.