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28.10.09
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In The Name Of Dignity
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By Roland Oliphant
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The pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi filed a lawsuit against four European newspapers last Friday, over coverage of the organization’s picketing of Alexander Podrabinek, a human rights activist and journalist who published an attack on the reputation of Soviet war veterans last month. But two weeks before the move against the German, French and British papers, Nashi had already filed suits against four Russian media organizations over the same issue. What’s making the red anoraks so touchy?
Nashi is seeking 500,000 rubles (about $17,000) in damages from each of the defendants – Le Monde and Le Journal du Dimanche from France, Germany’s Frankfurter Rundshau, and the British Independent - for “insults to the dignity and honor” of the organization. The Independent is accused of comparing Nashi to the Adolf Hitler Youth, and Le Journal du Dimanche of describing the campaign as "a fierce blend of patriotism and xenophobia." Frankfurter Rundshau apparently caused offense by reporting that that the “Putinist youth organization Nashi regularly calls Podrabinek and his family with threats and is constantly on duty at his home.”
The alleged assaults on Nashi’s good name all center on coverage of the organization’s reaction to Podrabinek’s September 21 article, “As an Anti-Soviet to other Anti-Soviets.”
The trouble can be traced back to an almost comic story about the re-naming of a north-Moscow restaurant last month. The Anti-Soviet Kebab house, so-named (at least in part) because it stands opposite the Sovietskaya hotel, was forced to remove its shiny new sign after a veterans’ organization complained to the local authorities that this name is offensive to those who had fought in the Red Army.
Podrabinek, a Soviet-era dissident who spent several years in labor camps in the 1970s and early 1980s, denounced the decision in the online magazine Yezhednevy Zhurnal. But many saw the article, which equated veterans with NKVD blocking units and labor camp guards, as a scandalous attack on the veterans themselves. Nashi organized a daily picket outside the writer’s house demanding that he apologize for what they called in a statement “the low, unconscionable act” of “slandering the great pages in of our nation’s history.” Shortly afterwards, Podrabinek went into hiding.
It is coverage of this picketing campaign that Nashi seems to have taken offense at. But neither this kind of action, nor criticism of it in foreign media, is new. Nashi has a strong pedigree in direct-action protest, defending Russia’s record in the Second World War, and being criticized in the Western press. In 2007 activists staged a similar picketing of the Estonian embassy in Moscow during the dispute over the relocation of the Bronze Soldier, a war memorial in Tallinn. But unflattering descriptions of that campaign did not provoke legal action.
In fact, the move to take on the four Western newspapers seems to be a continuation of a decision to defend Nashi’s reputation at home. On October 8, the movement filed a lawsuit against Ren-TV, the Novaya Gazeta bi-daily newspaper and the Web site Polit.ru, all for similar infringements. Nashi’s lawyer Sergei Zhorin told the Kommersant daily that Nashi were seeking damages from Ren-TV for describing Podrabinek as “persecuted,” and from Novaya Gazeta for saying that several Nashi activists had “established themselves beyond the criminal line,” and “bringing them to justice is only a matter of time.” The Echo of Moscow Radio station is being sued for similar statements.
Nashi was not alone in its outrage at Podrabinek’s article. The article contains some pretty blunt language (“You are Soviet veterans, and thank God your country ceased to exist 18 years ago,” is just one choice sentence), and even those sympathetic to Podrabinek’s feelings about the rehabilitation of Soviet history criticized him for failing to distinguish between Stalin’s government and ordinary soldiers. And writing in his blog, Podrabinek himself said that he did not consider Nashi a threat (though he did imply that he had gone into hiding because of more “serious people” backing the group).
Nonetheless, the Nashi’s tactics provoked a debate about freedom of speech and almost immediately drew criticism both from the media, talking heads, and even figures in government.
Ella Pamfilova, the long-serving head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, condemned the “persecution” of Podrabinek, and described the organizers of the picket as “irresponsible adventurists.” Under pressure from United Russia and Liberal Democrat State Duma Deputies calling for her resignation, she was forced to qualify that statement with a condemnation of what Podrabinek had actually written. But she did not apologize and said she would refer the case to prosecutors.
For their part, Nashi appear to be keen to blame others for getting the courts involved. “The attempts to replace discussion with the defamation of opponents, the inclusion of members of the General Prosecutor’s office in the discussion - all this is a clear set of tools for the supporters of Podrabinek and his accomplices,” said a statement on the group’s Web site. In the meantime, the movement has abandoned its daily pickets of Podrabinek’s house in favor of what they called a “life long” picket, which will take place once a year on October 22, until he apologizes.
The Moscow correspondents who penned the articles declined to comment, though Paul Durnan, speaking on behalf of the Independent’s mother company, said that the paper had not yet received any formal communication from Nashi. |
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