We are publishing the following translation of an article that recently appeared on the website of the Institute for Collection Action and was distributed to various activist listservs. We are doing so only out of solidarity with our comrades in Omsk. Although we believe what they tell us, we are aware that the lack of details in this article might leave a reader in the outside world somewhat befuddled. We apologize for the vagueness of the article and promise that we will update this posting as soon as more details become available. Unfortunately, in recent days and weeks, another wave of harassment and harassment of Russian leftists, oppositionists, and human rights activists  seems to have begun. With the blows coming fast and furious, not all activists have the means or the time to prepare detailed accounts of the state’s actions against them.

www.ikd.ru/node/11558

Authorities in Omsk have begun a campaign of persecution and coercion directed against members of the Siberian Confederation of Labor (SKT). The SKT, an interregional trade union organization, was founded in 1995 by the Confederation of Anarch0-Syndicalists.  The SKT has a large number of supporters and is involved in defending their labor and social rights. The SKT also has a youth organization, the Union of Autonomous Youth (SAM), and supports a committee for the defense of former orphanage students. The SKT’s active political stance has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies, who have begun persecuting SKT activists. In this sense, they now practically function as a political police.

The trouble began on August 31, when SKT activists organized a demonstration against the violation of civil rights and liberties on the part of law enforcement officers. The immediate cause for the demonstration was the recent murder of a man by two police officers. A large number of young people gathered for the event and the actions of the activists were widely publicized in the mass media. The authorities tested methods for disrupting the demonstration by using plainclothes provocateurs (who were, naturally, police officers) and the Young Guard of United Russia, who tried to interfere with the demonstration. After this episode, the authorities began in earnest to persecute SKT activists for their convictions.

Subseqently [in October] another policeman committed a double homicide [and then killed himself]. A demonstration was organized by the Yabloko Party youth organization in which SKT activists took part. Despite the fact that the demonstration had official permission, it was attacked by approximately one hundred plainclothes police officers, who used Russian flags as weapons. The site of the demonstration was entirely cordoned off with buses [parked there by police]. Journalists were on hand, however, and Novaya Gazeta published an article about the demonstration. This greatly angered the police and local authorities.

In order to have an official excuse to summon SKT members and demonstration participants for questioning, the police have begun fabricating a case against an activist from another organization, the Left Front, which, in the opinion of law enforcement officials, is influenced by the SKT. The reason a criminal case has been opened against him is that the police allegedly found Nazi leaflets in his possession. In reality, SKT members themselves have always publicly taken a consistently internationalist and antifascist stance.

Nevertheless, at a subsequent demonstration police provocateurs handed out a leaflet in which Elena and Vasily Starostin, two founders of the SKT, were accused of ties with the Nazi movement. In addition, the authors of the text alleged that the SKT manipulates former orphanage students by promising to solve their problems. In reality, the SKT has initiated more than 120 successful lawsuits and approximately fifty young people have been granted housing as a result of these court rulings.

After this incident, the police began interrogating activists whom they had been able to identify during demonstrations. The Starostins were among those summoned. They were told by their interrogators that they were a bad influence on young people and they should cease their activities. The authorities have begun to pressure Elena Starostin’s employer by conducting various inspections: the goal is to coerce him to fire her.

The authorities have also begun to pressure young people who participate in SKT actions through the university. They are summoned to the rector’s office for discussions of their “extremist” activity and they are threatened with expulsion. As if that were not enough, the police have begun summoning their parents in order to pressure them to stop the activities of their children. In one case, an activist’s mother has been threatened with being fired from her job, and other parents can expect the same fate.

During their interrogation, police announced outright to the Starostins that the young people who go to protests and participate in the SKT will be unable to find employment in the city. In addition, police have begun to hint that they are physically threatened, saying things like “Aren’t you afraid that skinheads will break your arms and legs?” 

It is clear that the primary purpose of the actions of the police is to intimidate activists and make it impossible for them to organize new protests. Police officials do not want this story to go public beyond Omsk, and so SKT activists request that this information be distributed as widely as possible.

Despite the common misconception that Berlin has a thriving squatting community, Brunnenstraße 183 is the last open squat left in the city, and so the only house project in Berlin where no rent is paid. 183 has been squatted since 1992, but has been seriously facing eviction since the eviction date scheduled June 18th 2009. In the first weeks of June the old artist collective moved out, thereby avoiding confrontation with police. For the past 17 years there have been various collectives, mostly artists. However, as of June a new collective has started, consisting of anarchists, autonomes, punks, artists, travellers, feminists, legalisers, libertarians and radicals willing to build barracades and protect the house from eviction. This new group changed the agenda and concept of the house, establishing it as a radical anarchist and anticapitalist house-project.

Since June, we have started a weekly bike workshop, set up a house library, maintained the free shop and bar (Ballast der Republik), continued vokü twice a week and put on regular concerts and workshops. We also now have a practice space for local bands.

We have found alternatives to most costs in the house, for example: disposing of trash ourselves and composting, receiving dumpstered food from an autonomous group 3 times a week, we heat the house with scrap wood and try to pay other bills from donations and what we make doing concerts and the bar. However, due to outstanding debts from the old collective and new legal bills, we have fallen behind on our water bill and currently owe in the region of €2000s. We have had our water cut off several times in the last months, which is not only fucked up in the day-to-day running of the house, but puts the whole squat in massive jeopardy due to a German law squats without running water for 48hrs deemed “unsanitary” and therefore eligible for something similar to a “direct reposession order” in the UK.

On these grounds we call for solidarity in the form of soliconcerts or donations. Seriously, anything helps and all feedback appreciated. Email us for soli-account info and more information etc.

Dominik

tartan.handbag(at)gmail.com

&
Moli

mkirsch56(at)yahoo.com

from the Brunnenstraße 183
Wir Bleiben Alle!

• The Fabulous Craig Murray, “Uzbek Terror and the UK/USA” (interview on The Real News; watch Craig’s recent talk on the same grim topic here and here)

• John Pilger, “Breaking the Australian Silence” (Sydney Peace Prize acceptance speech):

Last July, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said this, and I quote: “It’s important for us all to remember here in Australia that Afghanistan has been a training ground for terrorists worldwide, a training ground also for terrorists in South-East-Asia, reminding us of the reasons that we are in the field of combat and reaffirming our resolve to remain committed to that cause.”

There is no truth in this statement. It is the equivalent of his predecessor John Howard’s lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Shortly before Kevin Rudd made that statement, American planes bombed a wedding party in Afghanistan. At least sixty people were blown to bits, including the bride and groom and many children. That’s the fifth wedding party attacked, in our name.

The prime minister was standing outside a church on a Sunday morning when he made his statement. No reporter challenged him. No one said the war was a fraud: that it began as an American vendetta following 9/11, in which not a single Afghan was involved. No one put it to Kevin Rudd that our perceived enemy in Afghanistan were introverted tribesmen who had no quarrel with Australia and didn’t give a damn about south-east Asia and just wanted the foreign soldiers out of their country. Above all, no one said: “Prime Minister, There is no war on terror. It’s a hoax. But there is a war of terror waged by governments, including the Australian government, in our name.” That wedding party, Prime Minister, was blown to bits by one of the latest smart weapons, such as the Hellfire bomb that sucks the air out of the lungs. In our name.

Crisis Special
Date: November 10, 2009 at 5 pm
Venue: ms2 – Muzeum Sztuki, 19 Ogrodowa Str, Lódz
Info: www.msl.org.pl, www.publicpreparation.org

Speakers: Iza Desperak (Lódz), Marina Gržinić (Ljubljana/Vienna), Jens Haaning (Copenhagen)

The international seminar Crisis Special, a part of the Public Preparation series, is dedicated to the critical exploration of interconnections between nationalist ideology and the capitalist economic system.

The Crisis Special seminar continues the agenda of the Public Preparation project, which attempts to deal critically with the growing tendencies of nationalism in contemporary Europe, and nationalism’s reflections and articulations in contemporary art practice. During the Public Preparation project, the issue of nationalism is split into thematic sequences that all focus on different aspects of the phenomenon. The current edition of the project is being held in collaboration with the Muzeum Sztuki in Lódz and focuses on the symbiotic links between diverse forms of nationalism in the public sphere and different aspects of the neoliberal, free market economy.

Some parts of the world, former Eastern Europe among them, have not yet recovered from the global economic meltdown and, according the darkest prognosis, it may take a decade to reach the pre-crisis level and restore economic growth. Besides populism, protectionist policies have also emerged, re-gained popularity, and started to play a central role in emergency plans for economies directed by national governments. How are national values and traditions used as an excuse for economic activities and corporate politics? How is capital used as a tool of power to fulfill nationalist-imperialist policies in particular regions? How might the return to protectionist politics influence nationalist movements in contemporary Europe during this crises of global capitalism? How do they deal with migration and transnational identity? These are just few first questions that have come up while following reports in daily papers’ economy pages…

As Brian Holmes pointed out in his latest book when discussing the phenomenon of “capital failure”, the form and function of the national state, by mediating its inhabitants and individual enterprises, both inside and outside its borders, reconfigures under the pressure of global economic forces. Capitalist principles form a fundamental part of modern economies, and having developed hand in hand with modern nation state apparatuses, the interdependence of these power structures is evident, although not so obvious at the first sight. Global capitalism is often seen as a cosmopolitan, borderless structure that relies on liberal values, but it rarely manifests its main methodology of reproducing itself - the latter taking advantage of cheaper labour costs in less developed parts of the world, and relying on the exclusion and inclusion conducted by governments of nation states. Recent changes in the global economy and the revival of nationalism force us to recognise, discuss and examine, the changes in relations between these two ideological super-forces which drive the world.

As Public Preparation is and has always been a self-educational project, the aim of this seminar/workshop is not to give final answers and offer finished, ready-to-go, solutions, but rather it is to raise questions and open up discussions in multiple directions. Therefore, two art professionals – outstanding theoretician Marina Gržinić, and the classic figure of contemporary political conceptual art, Jens Haaning - have been invited to participate. Both have addressed the paradoxes of nationalist ideology and capitalist economic structure in their previous practice. The whole scenario will be framed from Polish perspective through the eyes of Iza Desperak, a sociologist and feminist activist.

The seminar language is English and entrance is free. Please register at info(at)publicpreparation.org

For further information please contact:
Rael Artel, curator, rael(at)publicpreparation.org
Magdalena Ziólkowska, host, magda.ziolkowska(at)gmail.com

Links:
- Bios of the speakers:
http://publicpreparation.org/failid/ppsc2/pp_lodz_bios.pdf
- Abstracts of the presentations:
http://publicpreparation.org/failid/ppsc2/pp_lodz_abstracts.pdf
- Programme:
http://publicpreparation.org/failid/ppsc2/pp_lodz_programme.pdf

Gender Check
Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe
13 November 2009 – 14 February 2010 
MUMOK Museum of Modern Art
Ludwig Foundation Vienna

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, "Monroe" (1996)

“Gender Check” is the first comprehensive exhibition featuring art from Eastern Europe since the 1960s based on the theme of gender roles. 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the curator Bojana Pejić, along with a team of experts from 24 different countries, has put together a selection of over 400 works including paintings, sculpture, installations, photography, posters, films andvideos. With over 200 artists, the exhibition paints an exceptionally diverse picture of a chapter in art history that until recently had been largely unknown and that could also act as an important addition to contemporary gender discourse.”Gender Check” follows the changes in the representation of male and female role models in art – especially as they develop under different socio-political conditions. The exhibition shows the interrelationship between art and history following both a chronological and thematic approach: During the 1960s, Socialist Realism portrayed both male and female workers as heroic figures symbolizing the officially propagated ideal of a “genderless society,” while at the same time behind the scenes, this image was unmasked by unofficial art. Beginning in the 1970s and as part of a general trend towards liberalization, masculinity and femininity began to be reassessed outside of the propagandistic clichés of the past. New representations of the body displayed an increasing self-confidence and an open sexuality that called the heterosexual norms and heroic ideals of masculinity into question. With the fall of the wall in 1989, and the growing influence of consumerism from the West, new freedoms were found that however were also accompanied by new neo-conservative role constraints. And with this, a critique of chauvinist, militaristic, misogynist and xenophobic ideologies came to become an important topic in art. 

List of the Artists (selection)
Anri Sala, Anita Arakelyan, Anna Kovshar, Ismet Mujezinović, Šejla Kamerić, Alla Georgieva, Sanja Iveković, Tomislav Gotovac, Běla Kolářová, Veronika Bromová, Mare Tralla, Cornelia Schleime, Fritz Skade, Emese Benczúr, Orshi Drozdik, Tibor Hajas, Erzen Shkololli, Aija Zariņa, Zenta Dzividzinska, Eglė Rakauskaitė, Sofija Veiveryté, Zaneta Vangeli, Valentina Rusu-Ciobanu, Jelena Tomašević, Wojciech Fangor, Katarzyna Kobro, Katarzyna Kozyra, Alexandra Croitoru, Ion Grigorescu, Lia Perjovschi, Anna Alchuck, Oleg Kulik, Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Marina Abramović , Tanja Ostojić, Anetta Mona Chisa/Lucia Tkacova, Jana Želibská, Tadej Pogačar, Duba Sambolec, Arsen Savadov & Oleksandr Kharchenko, Boris Mikhailov and many more.

Press Conference: 12 November 2009, 10:00 am
Exhibition Opening: 12 November 2009, 7:00 pm
Opening Party: 9:00 pm, music and videos by Sindikat (CASIOp, Emulgator, Mina Fina)

Symposium
READING GENDER
Art, Power and Politics of Representation in Eastern Europe

13/14 November 2009, MUMOK

International experts have been invited to speak about the role of feminist theories in Eastern Europe with respect to a western context, about the significance of transgender positions as well as the new definition and revision of canonic ideals of gender. 

Friday, 13 November
10:00 am – 7:15 pm: Part I – Can Feminism Speak East?

Participants: Ivana Bago, Christine Böhler, Ana Daucikova, Rainer Fuchs, Katrin Kivimaa, Vjollca Krasniqi, Laima Kreivyte, Suzana Milevska, Almira Ousmanova, Bojana Pejić, Angelika Richter, Hedwig Saxenhuber, Mare Tralla

7:30 pm: Performance: Eglė Rakauskaitė – For Guilty without the Guilt. Trap. Expulsion from Paradise

Saturday, 14 November
10:00 am – 1:30 pm: Part II – Fuck Your Gender

Participants: Juan Vicente Aliaga, Jet Moon, Agnieszka Morawinska, Johanna Schaffer
2:30 pm – 7:00 pm: Part III – Subverting Canons

Participants: Edit András, Keti Chukhrov, Katy Deepwell, Silvia Eiblmayr, Marina Gržinić, Izabela Kowalczyk, Gislind Nabakowski, Bojana Pejić, Griselda Pollock

Further information: http://www.gender-check.at
“Gender Check” was initiated and supported by ERSTE Foundation: http://www.erstestiftung.org

Visitor Information
Open: Mon – Sun 10:00am – 6:00pm, Thu 10:00 am – 9:00 pm
Entrance Fee: standard € 9.- reduced € 7.20 or € 6.50

MUMOK
Museum of Modern Art 
Ludwig Foundation Vienna
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Austria
info@mumok.at
http://www.mumok.at

Underground Man
November 18, 2009 to January 16, 2010
An Artspeak project curated by Renske Janssen

Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, installation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?

The title refers to Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.

In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present-bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object-to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?

As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 8pm (ONSITE at Artspeak, 233 Carrall Street)

PERFORMANCE

Eliza Newman-Saul’s 20-minute performance, Everything is Equally Familiar, creates a unique moment of disembodiment by isolating the performer’s body and voice. The performance installation can be viewed in the gallery until January 16, 2010. The script is available as a small publication.

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 8pm (OFFSITE at Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street)

FILM SCREENING PROGRAM

Una Knox, When What Becomes Who, 2009, duration 11:27
Keren Cytter, Four Seasons, 2009, duration 12:00
Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen, Unfinished Symphony, 2009, duration 19:00
Eliza Newman-Saul, Nothing Will Come of Nothing, 2009, duration 9:24
Chto Delat/What is to be done?, Partisan Songspiel, 2009, duration 29:00
Isabelle Cornaro, Premier rêve d’Oskar Fischinger, 2008, duration 1:41 and 1:33
Susan Hiller, The Last Silent Movie, 2007, duration 20:00

Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 2pm (ONSITE at Artspeak, 233 Carrall Street)

CONVERSATION

Public conversation between Renske Janssen, Eliza Newman-Saul, Judy Radul, and Sharon Kahanoff. The subjects will range from work descriptions and anecdotes to contemplation on the power of representation and the potential of suspense

All programs are free and open to the public.

Renske Janssen is a curator at the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. Eliza Newman-Saul is an American artist currently based in Dublin.

Artspeak gratefully acknowledges the support of Vancity Theatre, The Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council and Gaming Commission, City of Vancouver, and donors.

The St. Petersburg Times
Issue #1524 (86), Friday, November 6, 2009
Antifascists Beaten, Then Arrested
By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer

Four antifascist activists were detained by the police after being beaten by nationalists at a “Russian March” rally in St. Petersburg on People’s Unity Day, a recently introduced public holiday, on Wednesday. They were charged with disorderly conduct and forced to spend the night at a nearby police precinct before being taken to court and released at 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Six activists had unfurled a banner reading “Trash nationalism” and chanted an anti-fascist slogan at a nationalist rally at the remote Polyustrovsky Park in the city’s north when they were attacked by the nationalists.

A Rosbalt video shows the antifascist protest being disrupted by a young man wearing a camouflage jacket, who ran at the protesters, kicking and punching an activist. More nationalist marchers joined the beating immediately, before the police had time to stop it. The whole antifascist protest only lasted about one minute.

“There were many of them; about five jumped on me alone,” Katya, an activist who asked for her last name to be withheld, said by phone Thursday. She described herself as “a member of the antifascist movement.”

“They surrounded us, and the first one jumped on and kicked our comrade, causing him to fall down, and the rest followed suit.”

The police, who soon intervened, detained four antifascist activists and one attacker. The detainees were brought to Police Precinct 66, where they were charged with disorderly conduct.

“We were accused of using profane language,” Katya said.

“I don’t know which of the words we used was the most profane — we were chanting “The fascists kill people, and the authorities cover it up” — perhaps ‘authorities’ [was the most profane word.]

“But you could say that the slogan we were chanting came true, because the fascists jumped on us, and the authorities arrested us — even though we were standing there peacefully without going for anybody. We simply came and expressed our opinion about the gathering.”

On their way to court on Thursday, the detainees were taken to the Interior Ministry department to have their fingerprints taken. They refused because the procedure cannot by law be insisted upon for minor offences, according to Katya.

AFP PHOTO / KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV

“They took offence, but didn’t beat us,” she said.

At the activists’ request, the judge transferred their cases to their respective local courts. The offense they were charged with is typically punished with a 500 to 1,000 ruble ($17 to $34) fine. However, offenders can alternatively be sentenced to up to 15 days in custody.

Organized by the Slavic Union, the “Russian March” drew around 250 activists from different nationalist groups, including extreme ones. Formed in 1999, the Slavic Union (Slavyansky Soyuz) describes itself as “national-socialist,” frequently abbreviates its name to “SS” and uses a swastika-like symbol as its emblem.

The People’s Unity Day holiday was introduced in 2005 as a replacement for the Great October Socialist Revolution Day (the Day of Accord and Reconciliation since 1996), formerly celebrated on Nov. 7. The new holiday marks a 1612 victory over the Poles.

From its inception, the holiday has been used by nationalists for holding “Russian Marches,” nationalist rallies held in a number of Russian cities. In St. Petersburg on Wednesday, the nationalists, unhindered by the police, chanted “Russia Is for Russians” and openly racist slogans.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, United Russia officials and their “supporters” were also hollering Slava Rossii! (“Glory to Russia!”), just like the fascists who beat up our comrades. Go figure. (Watch the video here.)

(More news articles here and here)

European squatters show solidarity after Dutch ban

In Berlin, German squatters sympathising with the Dutch squatters movement threw orange and blue paint bombs and rocks at the Dutch embassy at the weekend. Solidarity protests also took place in Spain, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Austria.

The action was organised in protest against a ban due to come into force on 1 January. Squatting in the Netherlands has been tolerated since the climax of the squatters’ movement in the 1970s. Then a Squatting Act was introduced allowing squatters’ occupy buildings that had stood empty for at least 12 months. At the moment squatters can only be prosecuted for breaking in, which effectively means as long as they are not caught in the act they can legally squat a building. The authorities will leave them in peace unless the owner of the property could prove he had immediate plans for the premises.

Earlier peaceful demonstrations were held outside the German embassy. The vice consul Derk Oldenburg told RNW that two windows were broken. The night watchman saw it happen but was too late to intervene and the perpetrators got away. The building, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was slightly damaged.

“It is very appropriate that they used orange paint, but this should not happen,” said the vice consul.In a press release, the Dutch squatters’ movement say “By demonstrating at Dutch embassies, they are showing their support for squatters in the Netherlands who have been confronted by the ban.”

Dutch squatters held National Squatters’ Action Days on Sunday in protest against the ban on squatting. During the protest 21 houses became occupied by squatters.

Under the new legislation squatters face a maximum prison sentence of one year. If violence or intimidation are used this could be doubled and squatters in groups could face sentences of up to almost three years. They can also be prosecuted without being caught in the act of breaking into a building. The stricter legislation shows a shift in attitudes to squatting in the Netherlands, Once squatting was seen as a legitimate means to combat speculation by property developers.

Thanks to the comrades at Reclaiming Spaces for the heads-up.

Transitland: Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009

Transitland Destination Berlin

November 6th-8th, 2009

Collegium Hungaricum Berlin

www.transitland.eu

Transitland Destination Berlin (TDB), the partner presentation of Transmediale, takes place in Berlin at the historic Collegium Hungaricum (Haus Ungarn) in the days just prior to the European wide commemorations and celebrations of the events of November 9th, 1989 – the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and the ensuing changes throughout Europe and the world.

The event celebrates the launch of the video archive, making it accessible to the public and contextualizing the work with a series of complementary discussions, performances and screenings. Highlighting the ongoing work of “New Europe”, the 6 commissioned video works of the Transitland project and the Transitland publication will be premiered.

Honoring video as an important element in contemporary cultural work, artists are invited to discuss the role of video in art and political work across Europe for the past Europe and the influence of East European work on Video art as a genre in general. Performative talks will illustrate how video is used by artists today. A continuous parallel screening program will present works from the archive. The archive itself will be available to the public: they can browse and view the works included on archive stations at the CHB.

To find a detailed programme for November 6th-8th please visit:

http://www.transmediale.de/en/transitland-destination-berlin-base-en

—————————————————–

Transitland Europa is a collaborative research and archiving project realised by InterSpace (Sofia) in partnership with transmediale festival for art and digital culture (Berlin) and ACAX/Ludwig Museum (Budapest).  Associated partners to the project are D Media (Cluj) and Videoaktiv (Berlin). The project is partially funded by the Culture 2007-2013 Programme of the European Commission.

InterSpace Association, Sofia 
www.i-space.org 

transmediale festival for art and digital culture, Berlin
www.transmediale.de 

ACAX | Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange 
Ludwig Museum–Museum of Contemporary Art
www.ludwigmuseum.hu  
www.acax.hu

The St. Petersburg Times
Issue #1523 (85), Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Federal Migration Service Busts Anti-Racism Marchers
By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer

The March Against Hatred, an annual rally against neo-Nazi and racist violence held on Saturday, was raided by the Federal Migration Service. Officers started to single out participants of African descent and check their residency permits as the demonstration reached Ploshchad Sakharova, where the platform for the speakers had been installed.

Ella Polyakova, the local head of the Soldiers’ Mothers organization climbed the platform to demand that immigration officers, who left a minibus marked “Immigration Control” parked on the square, stop harassing rally participants.

“It appears that tolerance doesn’t exist in this city, while racism is flourishing,” she said.

“As we were marching with our friends, whose skin happens to be a different color, grey-jacketed men tried to drag them out and […] check their passports. We said, ‘Check everyone’s passports then.’”

She invited protesters to demand that the immigration officers either leave or join the rally and “protest hatred with us.” The crowd responded with applause. 

Organizer Alexander Vinnikov, the chairman of Russia Without Racism and a member of the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council, described the raid as “racist” and “illegal.”

“The immigration service decided to use our march to catch illegal foreigners — there was an ‘Immigration Control’ bus waiting for us on the square, and three officers who began a check,” Vinnikov said by phone on Monday.

“The people who were exposed to this totally illegal procedure asked the organizers for help, and we demanded the police put an end to this disgraceful behavior. No concrete measures were taken, but the three men … spent the rest of the time standing still.”

Vinnikov said the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council would be looking into the legal aspects of the raid and would make a statement. 

“They grab Africans — it’s a purely racist approach,” he said.

“There’s a March Against Hatred going on — against Nazism, fascism and xenophobia, and a state body appears immediately and starts behaving in a racist manner. They grab people who have lived in St. Petersburg for 20 years and who are all Russian citizens — simply because they have a different skin color.”

Vinnikov said the goal behind the raid was to intimidate the public and prevent them from taking part in protests.

“It’s sheer boorishness — dumb, primitive, bureaucratic boorishness and xenophobia — and it was done right during the march,” he said.

“It’s done with only one goal — to make people afraid so they would not go to this march. There’s no other reason.”

According to Vinnikov, African students were previously warned not to take part in the March Against Hatred on the threat of having their visas canceled. Similar unofficial orders were given to the House of National Cultures, the City Hall-backed organization that encompasses more than 40 ethnic communities in St. Petersburg, he said.

The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Federal Migration Service did not answer the phone when called repeatedly Monday.

The sixth annual March Against Hatred, one of the few protest marches authorized by City Hall, began at Yubileiny Sports Palace, from where the protesters, heavily escorted by the police, marched two kilometers to Ploshchad Sakharova, close to the Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island.

Protesters carried portraits of three murdered human rights campaigners: Scholar and hate crimes expert Nikolai Girenko, in whose memory the march was launched in 2004, journalist Anna Politkovskaya and liberal politician Galina Starovoitova. Large groups of both anarchists, many with their faces covered with scarves or masks for security reasons, and gay rights activists carrying rainbow flags stood out.

The meeting on Ploshchad Sakharova to wrap up the march, whose official organizers included Russia Without Fascism, African Unity, Memorial, Soldiers’ Mothers, Yabloko, Solidarity and the gay rights group Vykhod (Coming Out), began with a list of victims of racist and neo-Nazi murders in St. Petersburg being read out.

The protesters expressed perplexity about UNESCO awarding City Hall’s Tolerance Program an honorary mention last month for “its constructive efforts to inculcate mutual respect and tolerance in a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society and to prevent and eradicate all forms of discrimination,” and criticized the Russian authorities for inspiring or indulging hatred toward certain nationalities.

“We, participants of the Sixth March Against Hatred, declare our categorical rejection of a social order based on fear and hatred of anyone who is different,” the organizers said in the rally’s resolution, stressing that Russia is heading toward “isolationism, which will inevitably lead to the growth of xenophobia and great-power chauvinism.”

Among other things, the protesters demanded that police officers who provide protection for extremist nationalist groups, thus provoking nationalist pogroms and murders, be removed from the police force.

The police said 150 people took part, but a video recording showed at least 400 protesters marching.