The left and ultranationalist majority in the lower house of the Russian Parliament has blocked a motion censuring a prominent Communist lawmaker for an anti-Semitic remark.
The resolution to censure Viktor Ilyukhin, introduced by the liberal Yabloko faction, received only 82 of the 226 votes it needed to pass.
The resolution was similar to a previous one introduced last month that censured another Communist lawmaker for anti-Semitic remarks. The motion against Albert Makashov was also rejected by the Duma, as the lower house of the Russian parliament is known.
Ilyukhin made his remark at a session of a commission created by members of the Parliament who want to impeach Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
The remark and the failure of the Communist-led majority in the Duma to censure Ilyukhin for it drew a storm of criticism from liberal politicians and law enforcement officials, and rekindled debates over a possible ban on the Communist Party.
Ilyukhin, meanwhile, has denied that his remarks were anti-Semitic.
“If you think that democracy means that a Russian person can’t say the truth, then that is not democracy but defamation,” he told Russian television.
In response to the resolution aimed to censure Ilyukhin, Communist lawmakers have launched a counteroffensive against the mass media, saying the three major television networks should be stripped of their parliamentary accreditation for what they say was their biased coverage of Ilyukhin’s statement.
The incident comes as Russian Jews report continuing occurrences of anti- Semitism. Among the recent developments:
Some residents of the southern Russian city of Krasnodar recently found anti- Semitic leaflets in their mailboxes. According to news reports, the leaflets, calling for pogroms and the expulsion of Jews, also urged the region’s notorious governor, Nikolai Kondratenko, to run for president of Russia.
Some residents of the Siberian city of Novosibirsk recently found their mailboxes stuffed with anti-Semitic leaflets blaming Jews for Russia’s economic hardships.
Russian National Unity, the largest ultranationalist group in the country, said it would ignore Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s decision to ban a neo-Nazi gathering.
Hundreds of stickers saying “Jews Are Rubbish” and showing a man throwing a Star of David into a trash can appeared in the northwestern Russian town of Borovichi.
These incidents, which came after the Russian Parliament refused to censure Makashov for several public anti-Semitic remarks made early this fall and the recent assassination of liberal politician Galina Starovoitova, a longtime supporter of Jewish causes, have heightened concern among Russian Jewish leaders.
In reaction to the events, the governing board of the Russian Jewish Congress recently decided to lobby the international community to halt contacts with Russia’s Communist Party because of its failure to censure Makashov.
Indeed, some 31 members of Congress sent a letter to Yeltsin this week, urging him to step up his efforts to halt the spread of anti-Semitism.
“We urge you to do your utmost to show General Makashov and all Russians that your government does not condone such hateful behavior, nor will it tolerate the scapegoating of one ethnic population for the complex economic problems of an entire nation,” the letter said, adding that charges should be brought against those inciting “hatred and violence.”
Ilyukhin, chairman of the security committee in the Duma, has made several thinly veiled anti-Semitic comments in the past.
Last May, following the bombing of a Moscow synagogue, he said in an interview that such attacks on the Jewish community may occur again as a reaction to the fact that the priority for government appointments “is bestowed on one nationality: Jews.”
Ilyukhin’s remark went unnoticed, but he made sure Tuesday that his latest slur would not.
Before television cameras covering a hearing of the commission debating Yeltsin’s impeachment, he said:
“The large-scale genocide would not have been possible if Yeltsin’s inner circle and the country’s previous governments consisted mainly of members of the indigenous peoples, and not exclusively of people of Jewish nationality, though that nation is without a doubt talented, pragmatic and has done much to benefit the Soviet Union.”
Communists have long held Yeltsin responsible for the decline in Russia’s population, through a low birth rate and a decreased life expectancy, since the collapse of the Soviet Union — and “genocide” against Russians is one of the five impeachment charges the committee is considering.
First Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, a member of the Communist Party, said through his spokesman that remarks criticizing officials on the basis of their ethnicity are “intolerable.”
Dmitry Yakushkin, a spokesman for Yeltsin, reacted to Ilyukhin’s statement by saying that the Communists have again demonstrated their true colors.
Boris Berezovsky, an influential Jewish business tycoon, who has led the calls to outlaw the party, said Makashov and Ilyukhin should be punished for anti- Semitism.
“Their place is in court and not in the Duma,” Berezovsky said.
He added that authorities should “resort to force” to fight anti-Semitism and make the existing legislation work.
Russia has a legal statute banning the incitement of ethnic strife, and Russia’s Justice Minister Pavel Krasheninnikov said Ilyukhin’s remarks may allow him to be prosecuted under this code. But attempts to punish Makashov under the same statute have yet to bear fruit.
Meanwhile, the leaflets that appeared in Krasnodar, which called for Jews to be expelled and their homes set on fire, appeared to demonstrate that grass-roots anti-Semitism is still thriving in Russia’s provinces.
“Kikes will be annihilated and the victory will be ours,” the unsigned leaflets said, adding that pogroms could help “our beloved leader” Kondratenko.
Kondratenko, the governor of the largely agricultural region of Krasnodar, has repeatedly made anti-Semitic, racist and anti-Western statements.
He gained nationwide notoriety in Russia for regularly peppering his speeches with attacks on Zionists and “Judeo-Masons,” whom he blames for all of Russia’s troubles.
Russia’s Justice Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office announced recently that they were considering the possibility of investigating Kondratenko’s anti-Semitism and pressing criminal charges against him.
It is not clear if the anti-Semitic leaflets had his backing.
Krasnodar Mayor Valery Samoilenko ordered an investigation into the incident. There are indications that the distribution of the pamphlets could be a reflection of an ongoing dispute between Kondratenko and Samoilenko, the mayor of the region’s largest city, who earlier ordered an investigation to be launched against the governor.
A day before the leaflets were distributed, an official newspaper in Krasnodar that supports Kondratenko warned against a “provocation” that was being prepared to harm the governor’s reputation.
Yuri Teitelbaum, head of the Russian Jewish Congress regional branch in Krasnodar, said in a telephone interview that the Jewish community remains relatively calm in the wake of the incident.
“People were more scared by a press report about an upcoming provocation than by the leaflets themselves,” he said.
The Krasnodar region is home to some 3,000 Jews — one-half of whom live in the city of Krasnodar.
At the same time, not all of the news regarding Jewish life in Russia is negative.
According to Teitelbaum, several public events celebrating Chanukah in Krasnodar occurred without incident.
And in Moscow, a Chanukah celebration organized by the Russian Jewish Congress drew more than 2,500 to one of the city’s largest concert halls.
In addition, a Russian man was charged with inciting ethnic and religious strife for making an anti-Semitic speech in front of a Jewish synagogue in Moscow after a bomb went off there in May. The May 13 blast at the Marina Roscha synagogue left no injuries but caused serious damage to the building.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
