Tag: Tataristan

Paul Goble

Vienna, April 28 – Last Friday’s conviction in a Naberezhny Chelny court of a Tatar activist who had spoken out against the baptism of Tatar infants by a Russian Orthodox priest without the permission of their parents or guardians has sparked protests from the Tatar Social Center (TOTs) as well as from human and religious rights groups elsewhere,.
On Friday, the court found TOTs leader Rafiz Kashapov guilty of provoking interethnic and inter-religious hostility (under Section 1 of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code) for his article “No to Christianization!” in which he protested the baptism of infants of Tatar nationality, a traditionally Muslim people, and gave him a suspended sentence of 18 months
That article appeared on Kashapov’s blog shortly after a Russian Orthodox priest baptized the children on January 16th of this year without the knowledge or agreement of their parents. His article led to protests in several cities of Tatarstan, and his blog was subsequently suppressed by the authorities.
Now, following Kashapov’s conviction and protests by several rights groups, his own Tatar Social Center has issued an appeal to human rights groups, social and political organizations, and the media of Tatarstan and Russia, denouncing this action and demanding that the authorities reverse course.
But it is a measure of the extent to which the Russian government is in control of the media that the appeal has so far appeared only on other blogs – see, for example, the complete text at blogs.mail.ru/mail/hamm77/38E6454E2B52C97F.html – or on websites hosted beyond the borders of Russia — mariuver.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/sud-kashapovym/#more-7976.
The declaration, signed by A.Sh. Zalyalutdinov, the chairman of the regional TOTs Assembly, and M.A. Shakirova, the secretary of that group, provides a remarkable portrait of the increasingly frequent misuse of Russia’s anti-extremist laws and the also increasingly frequent cases of official and especially judicial malfeasance in that country.
After outlining the history of Kashapov’s own protest, the declaration states that the investigation of his case occurred “with crude violations of the law,” including moves by officials that prevented the accused attorneys from gaining access to information gathered by the government.
The trial itself, the declaration continues, was “closely controlled by the Moscow FSB and the court was subject to strong pressure from the prosecutor.” Moreover, the court’s decision reflected only the testimony of “experts” from Moscow and Kazan because the judge refused to consider “the declarations of independent experts” that were offered by Kashapov.
Both the facts of the case and these violations of judicial procedure, the authors of the declaration say, provide the basis for considering that “the sentence of the court is both without foundation and illegal.” And they say that lawyers for the accused will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Tatarstan.
“Many human rights activists, public figures and journalists,” the declaration continues, not only in Tatarstan and Russia but in foreign countries have raised their voices in defense of Rafiz Kashapov, an important public figures who has stood up for the rights and interests of the Tatars and other peoples.”
“We express our deep gratitude to them!” the appeal concludes, especially since some of them, like Ulyanovsk journalist Sergey Kryukov, have themselves become the object of Russian government persecution as a result. Kryukov’s location at the present time, the appeal notes, is unknown.
The Kashapov case, as tragic as it is for him and for the Tatars, highlights two more widespread problems in the Russian Federation, both of which have been well-documented in recent times. On the one hand, Russian courts, as Moscow statistics show, are ever more willing to convict anyone the regime brings charges against (www.vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/650).
And on the other, the Russian government, for all the talk about “a thaw” under Dmitry Medvedev, appears to be increasingly willing to control reporting about what is actually going on, either by taking down websites as in Kashapov’s case or directly corrupting journalists (www.russiamediamonitor.com/News.html).
In Soviet times, the Western media could be counted on to report such things, but unfortunately, their interest in doing so for whatever reason has declined. And as a result, those who do notice such abuses in Russia especially beyond Moscow’s ring road have a special obligation to try to bring them to the attention of others.

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/04/window-on-eurasia-conviction-of.html

Tatar newspaper ‘Bezneng gejit’

KAZAN, Tatarstan — Two Tatar youth organizations have called on Moscow to give official status to the Tatar language in Russia, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

Uzebez (Ourselves) and the Tatar Youth Forum said on April 14 that they have begun collecting signatures for their proposal and are seeking to have the issue considered in the Russian State Duma.

The organizations claim that because Tatars are the second-largest ethnic group in Russia, their native language should be recognized as an official state language alongside Russian. They cite Finland’s recognition of Swedish as an official language even though ethnic Swedes make up just 6 percent of Finland’s population.

Ethnic Tatars make up some 4 percent of Russia’s population.

Meanwhile, the Azatliq (Liberty) Tatar Youth Union issued a statement saying that Tatarstan’s government is under pressure from Moscow and is unable to maintain the republic’s sovereignty.

Azatliq said it will use “all possible means” to protect Tatarstan’s “political and economical sovereignty.”

https://www.rferl.org/a/Tatar_Youth_Groups_Seek_Official_Language_Status_In_Russia/1609871.html

Paul Goble

Vienna, April 10 – Three very different actions by the Kazan Tatars, a major Muslim Spiritual Directorate, and the shamans of the Russian Federation both reflect the unintended consequences of Moscow’s approach to ethnic and religious issues and present new challenges to the Russian government that it may find difficult to dismiss out of hand.
First of all, having secured Moscow’s agreement to declare Kazan “the third capital” of Russia, some Kazan Tatars are now seeking to have the central government declare their language “the second state language of Russia” because the Tatars are the second largest language community there and serve as Russia’s bridge to other Turkic-speaking peoples.
The World Forum of Tatar Youth, which has organized this effort and put up a special website (uzebez.org/) to press its case, seeks more than just recognition. It hopes to use this campaign to reverse recent cutbacks in Tatar language use outside of Tatarstan because unlike other nations in Russia, most Kazan Tatars live beyond their republic’s current borders.
And to that end, the group plans an online petition campaign, something that will both raise national awareness among young Tatars (another goal of the group) and challenge Moscow’s policy under Putin and Medvedev of cutting back the national component of education in many areas (mariuver.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/tatar-2-gosjazyk/#more-7442).
Second, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of the European Part of Russia has pub two books by Said Nursi on its list of “approved Islamic literature,” even though these and other works of the Islamic writer have been declared “extremist” by Russian courts and are included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials (www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=29686).
On the one hand, this action by the MSD reflects a widespread view among many Muslim leaders that Russian courts lack the expertise to decide who is “extremist” among Muslims. And on the other, the timing of this action appears to be a protest against the composition of the new justice ministry group that is supposed to provide such testimony.
However that may be, at least some Muslims close to the Russian government, including Mufti Mukhammedgali Khuzin, who is himself a member of that new justice ministry group, say that the MSD’s actions represents “a challenge to the leadership of the country” (www.interfax-religion.ru/print.php?act=news&id=29689).
Such “a demonstrative approval of materials which form the ideological foundation of the Nurjilar organization, which the Supreme Court recognized last year as extremist, is an unconcealed challenge and may be considered as spitting in the face of the Russian powers that be,” Khuzin told Interfax.
At the very least, this decision of the MSD for the European Part of Russia, especially given the prominence of that group within the Union of Muftis of Russia and its authority among many Muslims as a traditional rather than radical forum, will spark new tensions between the government and Muslim leaders, at a time when Moscow would like to avoid them.
And third, there is another emerging challenge, although it may seem extraordinarily distant from Russia’s corridors of power. The shamans of Russia have announced plans to hold the “first popular elections of the Supreme Shaman of Russia,” thus creating a leader who could speak for them in Moscow (www.shamanstvo.ru/choice.htm).
In recent months, shamans in Siberia and the Far East have been among the leaders of protests against the destruction of the environment by Russian officials and Russian firms, and with a popularly elected leader, they are likely to demand that they should be represented in Russia’s Inter-Religious Council as one of the country’s “traditional” religions.
Patriarch Kirill, who in his earlier incarnation as the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s External Affairs Department took the lead in organizing that group and using the term “traditional” to embrace only Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, will thus face a new test, especially since many in Russia see shamanism as part of their heritage.
But Moscow is unlikely to make a concession on this point because many would see the addition of yet another “traditional” religion as opening the way for the inclusion of other groups, including Catholics and Protestants, and that could destroy precisely the exclusionary, religious “power vertical” in which both Kirill and the Kremlin have invested so much.

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/04/window-on-eurasia-kazan-tatars-muslims.html

Paul Goble

Vienna, December 22 – The Russian defense ministry and the Republic of Tatarstan have agreed on an experimental program to set up military units consisting only of draftees from Tatarstan, a measure Moscow officials say would help eliminate ethnic crime within the Russian army but a step some analysts suggest could lead to the fragmentation of that military force.
The joint decision to create “national Tatar units” on a trial basis in Orenburg and Samara oblasts was taken after human rights activists and families of draftees visited the Tots Garrison where an ethnic Tatar recently fled from his unit because of the mistreatment he received from soldiers of other ethnic groups (www.rbcdaily.ru/2008/12/22/focus/395812).
While the creation of such units could reduce the amount of “dedovshchina” as such mistreatment is commonly called, it creates “a very bad precedent,” according to retired general Leonid Ivashov of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, because now other groups will want the same treatment, a trend that would undermine military cohesion and the chain of command.
That view is certain to be shared by many in the Russian political elite, but senior officials in the defense ministry appear likely to support the creation of such national units given the problems they have faced from the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee and even appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.
In tsarist times, units complected on an ethnic basis were a commonplace, with the so-called “Savage Division” consisting of units made up of various Caucasian nationalities only the most famous because of the willingness of its commanders to defend the tsar and the tsarist system when almost no one else would
But in the Soviet period, such units were permitted only during the complicated days of the Russian Civil War (1918-1922) and then again during World War II (1941-1945), when the regime was prepared to make compromises with the population in the name of saving the communist system.
Since 1991, many non-Russian groups, led by the Tatars, have called for the establishment of ethnically based units, not only to end the mistreatment many of their soldiers currently experience in the army but also to generate a sense of national pride and to prevent the army from becoming a “russianizing” experience.
Moscow has resisted such a step until now, and this “experiment” may prove stillborn, although having allowed the announce to be made and with the defense ministry having indicated that it supports the measure, the Russian government may well face resistance to any retreat on this line even as it is certain to face demands for such units from other ethnic groups.
Perhaps the first of these additional demands will come from Chechnya, where the republic’s president Ramzan Kadyrov has already said that he favors the formation of Chechen units not only within the borders of his own republic but in the Russian army and fleet more generally.
Meanwhile, in another development that highlights growing restiveness among the Tatars is a report in today’s “Kommersant” suggesting that that nationality has now found allies among the neighboring Bashkirs for its position on restoring the regional and ethnic component of school curricula (kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1097881).
On Saturday, the paper said, a group of 150 Bashkir activists, some of whom are members of the Kuk Bure national movement and the Vatan Party, organized a demonstration in the square in front of the republic television center in Ufa and said they would “join forces with Tatar defenders of the national-regional component’ of the educational program.
While it is unclear just how far this cooperation will proceed or whether it will extend to other republics in the Middle Volga as well, Moscow observers told the paper that even this level of inter-republic and inter-ethnic cooperation against the central authorities represented a serious warning that the latter needed to reconsider what they are doing.

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/12/window-on-eurasia-russian-defense.html