Petersburg Authorities Shut Down Antifascist Film Festival

http://sptimes.ru

ANTIFASCIST FILM FESTIVAL CANCELED AFTER ORGANIZERS SUMMONED TO PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

The St. Petersburg Times

March 30, 2011 (Issue # 1649)

The Open Your Eyes! Film Festival Against Racism and Xenophobia was called off hours before its planned opening on Wednesday, organizers said. The Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation canceled the event after its director was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and warned that a probe could be launched into the foundation’s activities due to the festival, organizer Yevgeny Konovalov said.

“We were told they didn’t want any problems with the prosecutor’s office, that the prosecutor’s office made it clear to them that it was better not to hold the screenings,” said Konovalov.

According to a report on the Indymedia web site, the venue was warned about the inadmissibility of holding “political events without prior notification.”

The telephone lines of the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation were continuously busy when called on Wednesday afternoon.

Konovalov said that he had also been summoned to the prosecutor’s office. He said he was told about the festival’s cancelation at 3 p.m. — four hours before event was due to start. The organizers will look for another venue and hold the festival some time next month, he said.

Earlier this month, two state movie theaters — Dom Kino and Rodina — refused to hold the festival under reported pressure from the authorities.

The festival has been held annually since 2006. It is organized by the Russian Social Democratic Union of Youth (RSDSM).

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Editor’s Note. Here is the story The St. Petersburg Times had already sent to the presses before the news broke that the authorities had decided to shut down the festival altogether.

Opening minds

By Sergey Chernov

The St. Petersburg Times

Issue #1649 (11)

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Open Your Eyes! film festival, an annual event held to confront racism and xenophobia, will be held this week despite opposition from the authorities, organizers said.

Earlier, two state-owned film theaters — Dom Kino and Rodina — declined to host the festival’s film screenings and discussions, explaining that there were no available slots in their programs for the events, but Dom Kino’s administrator was recorded on tape as saying that the anti-fascist festival “contradicts the ideology” of the city’s culture committee.

This year’s festival features “From Tajikistan to St. Petersburg” (Iz Tadzhikistana v Sankt-Peterburg), Svetlana Kenetsius’ documentary about Tajik migrant workers in St. Petersburg, “Love Me Please” (Lyubite Menya, Pozhaluista), Valery Balayan’s documentary about Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist and anti-fascist activist who was shot to death alongside human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov in Moscow in January 2009, and “Russia 88,” Pavel Bardin’s faux documentary about a gang of Neo-nazi skinheads.

A number of international films will also be screened (see schedule).

Days before the festival was due to open on Wednesday, it was relocated to the premises of the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation. Last week, the organizers received a call from Center E, the government’s anti-extremism agency, and were told that agents from the center would be in the room monitoring events.

“I think that if anything happens, it’s most likely to be on the first day, because the film shown will be ‘Russia 88,’ a film that was repeatedly banned and that was always at the center of some controversy or other,” said organizer Yevgeny Konovalov.

“[Any disruption] could come from neo-Nazi groups or from the authorities. To be honest, I have thought about the latter more, because there are always more obstacles from the authorities to the film festival.”

Neo-Nazis attempted to attack anti-fascist activists at the event on the last day of the 2009 festival. The police intervened and arrested 18 people, including both anti-fascists and neo-Nazis. They were charged with “disorderly conduct.”

However, Konovalov does not think that the local cinemas declined to host the festival due to security reasons.

“In that case, they could simply have said that they cannot provide sufficient security,” he said.

“The most likely reason is that any idea that comes from civic society sends the authorities into panic. Officials are always afraid that something might happen, and it’s easier for them to ban it than to let it go.

“I don’t think they really meant that they had a different ideology — i.e., a xenophobic and racist one. We sometimes come across such ideas with certain police officers — when they detain activists and then raise their arm in a Nazi salute — but I don’t think these ideas are shared by the Culture Ministry.”

The culture committee later denied issuing the ban, but human rights and anti-fascist festivals have seen similar problems during the past few years.

The festival is roughly timed to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, designated by the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate March 21, 1960, the day of the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa when police shot at a crowd of black protesters against racial discrimination, killing around 70 people.

All screenings are free of charge, and take place at the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation, 11 Sadovaya Ulitsa.

Tel.: 310 2514. Metro: Gostiny Dvor.

PROGRAM

Wednesday, March 30

7 p.m. “Russia 88” (2009, Russia)

Pavel Bardin’s faux documentary drama starring Pyotr Fyodorov, Kazbek Kibizov and Aleksandr Makarov.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: The place of Nazi groups in modern Russia. Mechanisms of their formation, activities and role in society.

Thursday, March 31

In conjunction with the Side By Side LGBT film festival

7 p.m. “Prayers for Bobby” (2009, U.S.) Russell Mulcahy’s drama starring Sigourney Weaver, Henry Czerny, Ryan Kelley and Dan Butler. 7 p.m.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: How to accept the homosexuality of a family member in a homophobic society.

Friday, April 1

In conjunction with the May 32 Human Rights Film Festival

7 p.m. “Love Me Please” (Lyubite Menya, Pozhaluista. 2010, Russia)

Valery Balayan’s documentary about Anastasia Baburova.

8:30 p.m. Discussion: What is contemporary fascism and where did it emerge from in this country?

Saturday, April 2

3 p.m. “From Tajikistan to St. Petersburg” (Iz Tadzhikistana v Sankt-Peterburg. 2011, Russia) Svetlana Kenetsius’ documentary about migrant workers in St. Petersburg.

3:30 p.m. Discussion: The life of migrants in Russia.

5 p.m. “The Edge of Heaven” (Auf der anderen Seite. 2007, Germany-Turkey-Italy) Fatih Akin’s drama starring Nurgul Yesilcay, Baki Davrak and Tuncel Kurtiz.

Sunday, April 3

3 p.m. “Wondrous Oblivion”

(2003, France-U.K.-Germany) Paul

Morrison’s comedy-drama starring Yasmin Paige, Philip Whitchurch and Sam Smith.

4:30 p.m. Discussion: Predisposition of personalities to accept the ideas of Nazism. Can an ordinary person become a Nazi?

Save Khimki Forest: Stand with Russia’s Human Rights and Environmental Activists

www.change.org

Take action to save Russia’s Khimki Forest today.

Russian activists and journalists have survived beatings, arrests and intimidation during our campaign to save one of Moscow’s last old-growth forests from destruction. Our movement to reroute the toll highway that would cut through Khimki Forest has become Russia’s most inspiring and largest activist movements in a long time.

It is about more than just a forest.

We are fighting a legacy of corruption and bribery among government officials, law enforcement and industry that has allowed this project to move forward. Last year, after thousands of citizens protested in Moscow’s center, we won a huge victory when President Dmitry Medvedev temporarily halted construction. One of our lead organizers, Yevgenia Chirikova, is a mother of two who lives in Khimki and who has bravely spearheaded this campaign since 2007 at direct risk to her family’s safety.

Now construction is set to begin again.

As soon as this month, the French multinational construction company Vinci is authorized to begin the first phase of the highway.

This is the best chance for us to stop the project before construction crews arrive. We are turning to you to increase our international support.

Since the Russian government has failed us, we are targeting Vinci, which could make a huge profit from this project. It is the only Western company involved in the construction.

We are asking Vinci to end its involvement in the Moscow to St. Petersburg highway until an alternative route can be found that spares Khimki Forest.

We are also organizing an international week of action from April 24th to April 30th. We hope cities around the world will participate in demonstrations in solidarity. One action you can take to stand up for the environment and human rights in Russia is to support this petition.

Please sign now. You may also leave a personal message when you sign. And for more information on how to get involved email ecmoru@gmail.com or follow this Facebook page. Please tell us if you represent an environment or human rights group and want to sign a coalition letter of support.

Thank you, Save Khimki Forest Movement and Campaign for the Release of the Khimki Hostages

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Petition Letter

Save Khimki Forest

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with Vinci for its involvement in destroying Russia’s Khimki Forest.

We are asking Vinci to live up to its UN Global Compact commitments. By joining the Compact, Vinci has committed to “support and respect internationally proclaimed human rights” and to make sure it is not “complicit in human rights abuses.” One glance at the list of human rights abuses against Khimki Forest activists, and it is clear that Vinci is violating its compact with its involvement in the project.

Ecological nihilism and human rights abuses, including beatings, attacks on the forest defenders by people wearing Nazi symbolics, who were officially hired by the construction company, and unlawful arrests and intimidation, have occurred against activists who are protesting the plans.

As the only Western company involved in the highway building, I ask that you pull out of the project or refuse to begin construction until the Russian government chooses an alternative route and addresses the human rights abuses that have occurred.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

Please go to www.change.org to sign the petition now!

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www.washingtonpost.com

Posted at 04:23 PM ET, 03/24/2011

One woman’s fight to preserve a Russian forest

By William J. Dobson

Last summer I wrote an op-ed describing the unlikely battle between Yevgenia Chirikova and the Kremlin. Yevgenia is a young mother of two with no background in political activism, but over the past three years she has become one of Russia’s most outspoken — and effective — environmental activists. This morning I received an e-mail from a member of her team telling me that Yevgenia’s fight is now taking another nasty turn.

The fight is over the future of Khimki Forest, a dense oak forest that is supposed to be an environmentally protected green space under Russian federal law. Nearly 10 years ago, Yevgenia and her husband moved to Khimki — a small suburban community outside of Moscow — to raise a family. While on maternity leave with her second daughter, Yevgenia unexpectedly found signs posted in the forest indicating that the oaks were to be clear cut. She later learned that the minister of transportation, Igor Levitin, along with local officials, intended to bulldoze the forest — in contravention of Russian law — in order to build a motorway that would connect Moscow and St. Petersburg, with a loop to Sheremetyevo Airport. These officials stand to benefit handsomely from the road’s construction. (According to a Russian anti-corruption group, new roads in Russia cost roughly $237 million a kilometer; in the United States, it is about $6 million for the same distance.) When Yevgenia raised objections to the project, Russian officials told her to mind her own business.

She didn’t. Instead, she began to talk to people in her community, organize rallies and stage protests. The authorities did not welcome her involvement. Members of her group, In Defense of Khimki, were threatened, harassed and intimidated. Mikhail Beketov, a local journalist and member of the movement, was brutally attacked outside his home. Left for dead, Beketov suffered permanent brain damage and is now confined to a wheelchair. But, at this moment, because of Yevgenia’s efforts and those who have joined the fight, Khimki Forest remains.

But the regime is now employing new tactics. If it can’t scare Yevgenia into submission, then it will put pressure on the people she loves. This morning I received e-mails from Yaroslav Nikitenko and Ivan Smirnov, members of In Defense of Khimki. They described how the new pressure point for the regime has become Yevgenia’s family — specifically her husband and two daughters.

Recently, representatives of the municipal department of guardianship “dropped by” to check on Yevgenia’s apartment. The officials alleged that they had received a letter from one of her neighbors claiming that she “beats” and “starves” her daughters, Liza and Sasha. The charges are absurd. Afraid that they would attempt to take her children from her, Yevgenia refused to open her door. Later, the department admitted that none of her neighbors had written such a letter, brushing off the whole encounter as simply their “duty” to check on the children.

On March 16, one day after Yevgenia led a protest calling for the minister of transportation’s removal, officials paid a visit to her husband’s company, en electrical engineering firm called EZOP. Her husband, Mikhail Matveev, founded the company years ago. Even though the police brought no charges with them, they raided his office, interrogated him and several of his employees, and seized company documents and paperwork. Mikhail had already learned that the authorities were calling his clients, alleging that there was a criminal case against him (when there is in fact none). Nor was the raid a complete surprise. A few days earlier, someone had left a comment on the In Defense of Khimki Web site, writing, “We’ll raid your company EZOP in the nearest future, prepare your papers!” It is clear to Yevgenia and her husband that this harassment is payback for her unwillingness to stop fighting.

The battle to save Khimki Forest may be about to enter another chapter. The government and business interests behind the construction project claim that they will begin cutting down the oaks in late April. In the meantime, Yevgenia and her supporters intend to hold protests and rallies to raise awareness that the construction crews are coming. They also intend to put public pressure on the French construction company Vinci, the only Western business group that supports this highway project.

Last April, when I first met Yevgenia, she took me on a walk in these woods that she is fighting to protect. It was clear to me that she now sees her activism as something much bigger than simply defending Khimki Forest; she sees it as a struggle against an authoritarian system that runs roughshod over its citizens. While we were walking through the forest, I asked if she was ever afraid that the authorities would try to harm her. After what had happened to Mikhail Beketov, it was an obvious question. She told me that if she thought about it too much she would go crazy. “My tactic is complete openness,” she told me. “Whatever I undertake, I try to somehow to reflect it or publish it in all kinds of media.” Yevgenia believes that the more people know about her and her fight, the harder it will be for the authorities to strike out in violence. It isn’t a guarantee, but she knows that it is easier for the regime to harm those who remain in the shadows.

If you are curious to know more about In Defense of Khimki Forest, you can find them on Facebook (www.facebook.com/khimki.forest). Also, look for the petition they plan to issue on Change.org next week.

Near the end of our walk, she said, “If something bad happens to me, then my activity was not useless. Other people will continue, and it will be impossible to make people shut up.” Hopefully, people will raise their voices sooner, not later.