Penza civil rights advocates and politicians are disturbed by how an arson at the local office of the United Russia party is being investigated: nearly two hundred members of opposition organizations have been subjected to pressure tactics by the FSB and police.

The building where the United Russian party office is located was torched during the night of November 8. Persons unknown broke a window and tossed in a plastic bottle filled with a flammable liquid and a canister of cooking gas. The windows in several rooms were blown out, and walls and office equipment were damaged. According to Alexei Bulin, secretary of the regional committee of the CPRF, a “witch hunt” has been unleashed in the region. Civil rights advocate Yuri Boblikov told Radio Svoboda how law enforcement officials are searching for the arsonists in Penza.

- After the incident happened, the first person to be detained was the leader of the local Left Front branch, who that day was supposed to be running a previously announced demonstration against worsening social conditions. An hour before the demonstration was to begin, two FSB officers came to his house and led him straight away to the local FSB directorate. Then they detained another colleague of his in the organization, someone that the FSB apparently decided to frighten a bit. [According to this man], one Chekist said to the other, “Well, should we give him an injection?” The other [Chekist] nodded and said, “Let’s do it.” They put on [rubber] gloves, took out a syringe and an ampule, filled the syringe with the liquid in the ampule, and laid it on the desk next to them. Then they said [to the detainee], “Tell us the truth.” Later, I called the FSB and they confirmed that they had talked to Left Front leader Sergei Padalkin, but they denied that there had been anyone else. Moreover, they claimed that their conversation with Padalkin allegedly was about maintaining order at the [planned] demonstration. Everyone knows, however, that such issues are the brief of the police, not the FSB. Padalkin was then released and arrived late for the demonstration. He was again approached by law enforcement officials and hauled away — this time to the Center for Extremism Prevention [Center “E”]. There he was forced to answer questions about what he knew about the arson, whether he knew who did it, where he was during that night. Padalkin was again released, but later that same day he was taken to the criminal investigations department, where he had another conversation about the same topics. This time he was accompanied by one of our lawyers, Dmitry Belyaev.

- Aside from Sergei Padalkin, who else was interrogated?

- When he was at Center “E” he ran into members of the Communist Youth League, the city and regional committee secretaries, who for all practical purposes had been nabbed right at the central office of the Communist Party’s regional organization. The following day their offices [or flats?] were searched; the city committee secretary was searched twice. Members of the Yabloko Party youth organization were searched seven times. [The police] confiscated everything they could get their hands on, but especially hard disks and Yabloko literature. All in all, around two hundred people were brought in for questioning and to make statements or subjected to searches.

- Do you believe the fire was an excuse to clamp down on the opposition of whatever stripe, to shake down everyone involved in politics?

- Yes, a “purge” of all dissenters, opposition activists, and merely active citizens is under way. Events are unfolding according to a scheme reminiscent of the burning of the Reichstag in 1933.

- There had already been an attempt to torch the United Russia office in June.

- Yes, but it was unsuccessful. Then, a mythical organization calling itself New World had allegedly claimed responsibility. We were also asked then what we knew about them. We said we knew absolutely nothing, that we had no information about this organization. It is entirely possible that Penza is just being used as a test site to develop techniques for political purges. Our guess is that [the authorities] want to use our city to try out methods for flushing out and suppressing oppositionists and just-plain socially active citizens and forces. Once they have tried them out here, they can then be applied throughout Russia.

- You’re not sure that opponents of the United Russia party are behind the arson?

- In our opinion, these incidents are beneficial to the ruling party itself: it enables them to extinguish the activities of all other organizations and movements. Opposition forces have nothing to gain from such excesses. We believe that this is all a provocation.

- But Viktor Dolotov, the secretary of the political council of United Russia’s Penza branch, said that this was a carefully planned political crime against the party of power.

- If that is what he claims, does that mean he knows who organized all this? Then he should be the first one they interrogate!

Beria’s Heirs Have Become Active

This morning (November 12) Alexander Lashmankin, founder and correspondent of the Samara Civil Rights Information Agency Svoboda, was stopped by FSB (Federal Security Service) officers near the entrance to his building. They presented him with a summons to report to Investigator A.N. Vospinnikov at the Samara Region FSB Directorate at 3:00 p.m. on November 12.

The same thing happened to Liudmila Kuzmina, a well-known civil rights activist and chair of Golos, a public organization for the defense of voter’s rights. Kuzmina likewise received an invitation to the FSB Directorate. In the invitation she was handed it was stated that she was being asked to give testimony in connection with an investigation into whether Lashmankin’s LiveJournal blog contained calls to commit extremist activity. Kuzmina was invited by Investigator A.S. Polstyanov of the 1st Department of the Samara Region FSB Directorate. Maxim Kalach, a journalist with the newspaper Samarskaya Gazeta, also received a summons. The civil rights activists have decided not to talk to FSB investigators.

The persecution of civil rights advocates and journalists in Samara Region began when two former officials from Rosoboroneksport (the state company for defense exports) came to power — Governor Vladimir Artyakov and I.K. Mironov, head of the Samara Region government’s department of public safety. Mironov had once been in charge of the Party organization in the Fifth Directorate of the Soviet KGB, which engaged in the persecution of dissidents. During the Yeltsin era, he was head of the investigative department of the agency for the defense of the Constitution.

The Samara Civil Rights Information Agency Svoboda has in the past published reports about Governor Artyakov’s misdeeds. For example, the agency published information about an appeal made by Valery Karlov, chair of the Civic Initiative movement, demanding that Governor Artyakov be dismissed and brought up on criminal charges for his misuse of the region’s budget. [Specifically, Karlov accused the governor of using large amounts of money from the budget to pay for weekly charter flights to Moscow, where he resides.]

And so now Svodoba editor Lashmankin has been summoned to the FSB.

Contacts:  alex.lashman@gmail.com, +7 9198075417

The Contemporary Art Centre is pleased to invite you to the next event from the public lecture and screening series which are a part of the VILNIUS COOP: gaps, fictions and practices project within the frame of the X Baltic Triennial of International Art. The series of events will be presented at 7 pm each Wednesday from September 9 until November 19 at the VILNIUS COOP exhibition venue at Gediminas Avenue no. 27 and other places in Vilnius.

VILNIUS COOP exhibition venue
Gediminas Avenue no. 27
Wednesday, 11 November, 7pm

Joanna Sokolowska Another City, Another Life - of the Archives, video screening with introduction

The programme consisting of photo and video works and documentation of artistic actions is conceived as a modified and extended version of an archive accompanying the project Another City, Another Life, which took place in Warsaw in 2008.

The aim of the archive is to map, how do contemporary artists represent and engage in spatial, esthetical, social and political regimes that have been developed in various cities of East Europe since the decisive changes at the end of the 1980s, early 1990s began.

The archive is constructed loosely around several thematic questions. What are contemporary consequences and potential of the abandoned ideas of the revolution, communism and of socialist modernity, that were implemented in urban planning and collective identities? What kind of new collective bodies, or shared experiences can emerge now in this context? Are there any new possibilities for the “lived”, subjective experiences of inhabiting the cities? How is the dialectic of destruction and building inscribed in diverse material layers of cities related to the memory work and to the processes of constant (re)writing/actualization of history? What is omitted, excluded in historical narrations and current images of the post-socialist cities, what kind of strategies do the artist use to render visibility to these phenomena? How do the artists position themselves within the ambivalent field of cultural production, what role can they play in the economy (symbolical capital), public and political spaces of cities undergoing transformation? Finally can the economical “grey zone”, in which – despite the rhetoric of cultural capitalism – many artists in the post-socialist countries still function, be transformed into an experimental fieldwork offering possibilities to break away from using art for the economic productivity?

The selection will include works by: Chto Delat, Skart, Zbynek Baladren, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Khinkali Juice, Grigor Khatchatryan, Lusine Talalyan, Tadej Pogacar, Miklos Erhardt, R.E.P., Voina, Angelika Fojtuch, Karol Radziszewski

Joanna Sokolowska, (*1978) art historian, curator, currently at the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz. She is mainly interested in economies of artistic production in relation to the changes of labour along with the urban transformations in post-socialist countries. Her recent curatorial work includes: “Arbeiter verlassen die Arbeitsstatte,” at the Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst in Leipzig and “Another City, Another Life,” at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and in diverse locations in the city.

This event is kindly supported by the Polish Institute in Vilnius.

http://izhevsk.avtonom.org/2009/11/09/stop-repression-against-izhevsk-avtonomists/

No to police persecution of activists from the Autonomous Action movement in Izhevsk!

In Izhevsk, law enforcement officials – specifically, officers from the Republic of Udmurtia Interior Ministry’s Center for Extremism Prevention (formerly, the Organized Crime Prevention Squad) [or Center “E”] – have fabricated a case against members of the Autonomous Action movement. According to Galina Shutova, who for the time being has been identified as a witness in the case, the authorities want to turn her into a terrorist: “Center ‘E’ officer Artem Akhmetzyanov told me outright that he would do everything in his power to put me away.”

A criminal investigation has been opened into whether Article 207 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (“Providing knowingly false information about an act of terrorism”) was violated. At present, three people have been implicated as witnesses in the case: Galina Shutova, Anton Sobolev, and Kirill Shumikhin. The police believe that on November 4, 2009, at approximately 12:20 p.m. these three young people called the Republic of Udmurtia Interior Ministry and informed them that a bomb had been planted at the Medical College by participants of the Russian March, and that Galina was the person who “organized” the telephone call. All three witnesses have alibis for the time when the alleged crime was committed. According to investigators, the call was made from a public phone located near the Turist Café (Communards Street, 291). At the moment the call was made, however, the three young people were more than two kilometers away from the Turist Café. According to the activists, at approximately the same time that the alleged call about the bomb threat was made, all three of them were detained by a group of policemen in the center of Izhevsk, who subjected them to an illegal search and videotaping. Among the detaining officers they recognized Artem Akhmetzyanov, an  investigator with Center “E.”

On November 6 at approximately 8 a.m., Center “E” operatives Artem Akhmetzyanov and Konstantin Polcherednikov illegally arrested Kirill Shumikhin in his apartment in front of his confused mother; the officers presented neither their own documents nor an arrest warrant. (NB. Illegal arrest is a violation of Article 301 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code and carries a maximum punishment of two years in prison.) The young man was taken to Izhevsk Police Precinct No. 2, where he was interrogated, verbally abused, and intimidated over the course of nine hours. The arrest warrant for Kirill was drawn up after the fact – that is, during the interrogation. That same morning Galina Shutova’s parents were awoken by the sound of people kicking the door to their apartment: in an attempt to ascertain Galina’s location, police officers were trying to bust into the apartment by kicking the door. Galina was not home at the time: she and Anton were visiting acquaintances. According to Galina, a bit later she got a phone call from a police officer who refused to identify himself; he said only that he was a “police detective.” The anonymous caller demanded that Galina report for questioning, although he did not specify what the case was and in what capacity Galina would be interrogated. When Galina informed him that she would not go anywhere without a summons, the anonymous caller replied that he would immediately send her a summons. Since Galina and Anton were at the house of friends, she agreed to meet the anonymous caller on the street. Literally ten minutes later, Akhmetzyanov arrived at the meeting place. In the police car, Galina was handed a summons that did not contain the case file number or indicate in what capacity she would be interrogated. The summons contained only the carelessly scribbled surname of a certain Lieutenant Khuzyakhmetov, who would be conducting the interrogation.

At around 9 a.m. Galina and Anton were delivered to Izhevsk Police Precinct No. 2. There they learned that they had been summoned for interrogation as witnesses in the case of the telephone call made to the Udmurtia Interior Ministry about the bomb allegedly planted in the Medical College on November 4. They were both asked to take a lie detector test. Galina refused and told police that she wanted to call civil rights defenders she knew and to find herself a lawyer. For about half an hour the police officers did not allow her to call: they had already confiscated her mobile phone during the drive to the precinct. According to Galina, the police officers subjected her to crude “psychological coercion.” Center “E” officers, including Artem Akhmetzyanov, swore at her and shouted, “What do you have to be afraid if it wasn’t you who made the call?” and “Prove to us that you’re not afraid.” They accused the young woman of “interfering” with their work. These unscrupulous Center “E” officers attempted to force Galina to write a statement that she was “delaying” their investigation, while at the same they photographed and fingerprinted her without properly documenting these procedures. They also attempted to coerce Galina into giving up her request to have lawyers present. In the end, Galina agreed to take a lie detector test. The questions, which had been prepared by Center “E” officers in advance, were vague, inappropriate, and had no direct bearing on the case.

After Galina was given back her mobile phone, she called civil rights defenders from the Prikamsk Civil Rights Center. Within approximately half an hour, three civil rights advocates arrived at Precinct No. 2. Over the course of several hours, however, police officers refused to admit them into the building where the interrogation was taking place. It was only after lawyer Rustem Valliulin arrived that the situation changed somewhat: police officers became more restrained in their treatment of Galina. In all, Galina was interrogated for over eight hours.

The other “witness” detained that same morning, Anton Sobelev, was brought to the precinct along with Galina, but was immediately taken to a different office. In violation of the law, he was placed in a cell that already held several tattooed common criminals. According to Anton, “The arrestees began accusing me of having a nontraditional sexual orientation and threatening me with physical violence. Then one of them gave me some ‘friendly’ advice. I should ‘come clean, repent, and sign a confession’ – otherwise, I would have a very rough time in prison camp.” Emotional coercion involving other prisoners is a provocation to which police authorities traditionally resort in order to frighten witnesses and obtain from them the necessary testimony. Anton then underwent a lie detector test and was interrogated by Center “E” officers, who made him offers of “friendship and cooperation.” Although these same officers had put him a cell with ordinary criminals, they suddenly showed a touching concern for Anton’s personal life. They suggested that he “get a new girlfriend” insofar as it was precisely Galina who was “getting [him] mixed up” in the wrong kind of business.

Anton was shown a video recording made near the payphone from which the alleged call about the bomb planted in the Medical College had been made. According to Anton, “In the recording you could see a tall young man and young woman. The young man was much taller than I am, and the woman was wearing a jacket. But Galina had been wearing a long coat that day.” Anton believes that this video recording is direct evidence that he and his friends had nothing to do with the “mythical” phone call. In all, Anton spent around nine hours at the precinct.

On November 7, Galina was interrogated at Precinct No. 2 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the presence of her lawyer Rustem Valliulin, a representative of the Prikamsk Civil Rights Center. During the interrogation Galina was given the results of the lie detector test, which allegedly proved that she had “organized” the phone call. According to Valliulin, this was a crude provocation on the part of the police. “This lie detector test is not admissible evidence against my client because the questions were formulated on purpose so as to confuse Galina. They had nothing to do with the essence of the case, and I’m certain that evidence like this will be thrown out [in court.]”

Galina has been shocked by these events. “You never expect that it will happen to you, that the police will pick you to cook up a criminal case against. I am simply shocked by what is going on. I am shocked by the impudence and crudeness of the Center “E” officers – Artem Akhmetzyanov, Konstantin Polcherednikov, and others.”

According to antifascists and members of the Autonomous Action movement, this criminal investigation is the latest stage in a campaign of repression against antifascist and anarchist activists in Izhevsk. This wave of repression began in early 2008: since that time, approximately one hundred people have been illegally detained for various reasons, and six fabricated criminal cases have been initiated. Four of these cases have been subsequently closed after it was found that there was no evidence that crimes had been committed.

During their investigation of these cases, Center “E” officers have engaged in illegal behavior. They have subjected witnesses and suspects to physical and mental coercion, including the torture and threatening of activists. In the vast majority of these cases, the complaints were filed by neo-Nazis who have problems with the law. Nearly all of them have been convicted of serious crimes, including attempted murder, hooliganism, grievous bodily harm, and vandalism.

We, antifascists and members of Autonomous Action, demand the closure of the Udmurtia Interior Ministry’s Center for Extremism Prevention, whose officers are engaged in the fabrication of criminal cases. We demand the dismissal of those Udmurtia law enforcement officials who have been involved in the torture and beating of antifascists and Autonomous Action members: Artem Akhmetzyanov, Konstantin Polcherednikov, and others. (http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/22972/index.php)

We ask everyone to show their solidarity with us and prevent the punitive organs from continuing their campaign of intimidation, fabrication of criminal cases, and the torture and beating of our comrades. Publish information about the situation in Izhevsk. Telephone, write, and fax your appeals to the Administration of the President and Government of Udmurtia and the Udmurtia Interior Ministry (see the contact information below). Demand an end to the criminal prosecution of innocent people! Down with police oppression! We demand that the Udmurtia Interior Ministry’s Center for Extremism Prevention be closed and that all of its officers who are guilty of beatings, torture, and the fabrication of criminal cases be brought to justice!

Omsk Students Face Expulsion for Activism

November 10th, 2009

A campaign has been launched to expel students participating in political activism from Omsk State University, according to a report by Newsru.com. Administrators at the university have drawn up a list of twelve “extremists” and have designated class time to discuss counter measures against them. The report further alleges that the administration is acting under clandestine orders from police.

Included on the list are three students who are members of the youth division of the Yabloko opposition party. Other students listed had been actively complaining about the quality of food in the university cafeteria.

One of the enumerated students is Aleksandr Shurshev, leader of the Omsk regional youth division of Yabloko. Shurshev wrote on his blog that on November 3, an urgent session was called that included the Omsk State University (OmGU) teachers union, the university rector, and two law enforcement officials. At the meeting, Shurshev asserted, the list of “extremist” students was read aloud, and those present were told that association with these students was “undesirable: they are dangerous, connected with extremism” and “need to be expelled.”

Irina Belokon, head of the OmGU teachers union, claimed in a comment to Kasparov.ru that there were no law enforcement representatives at the meeting. She explained pressure on students in the following statement: “They came to the university to study and shouldn’t forget that that’s their basic responsibility.” However, Sergei Kostarev, head of the Omsk regional division of Yabloko and a political science teacher at OmGU, noted that students on the list “do not have problems with studies and none of their teachers expressed complaints about the quality of their knowledge.”

Close relatives and friends of the twelve students say that they periodically receive phone calls from people claiming to be from the police, saying that serious hardships await the students if they don’t stop their political activities.

The campaign in Omsk is not the first time Russian police have pressured universities to expel student protesters. In January, the Moscow Department of Internal Affairs sent a letter to the provost of the Higher School of Economics encouraging him to expel students arrested in the opposition March of Dissent.

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 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