c. 2000 Religion News Service

Arrest of Russian Media Mogul, Jewish Leader Stirs Concern

MOSCOW _ The Tuesday (June 13) evening arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky, a media mogul and longtime leader of the Russian Jewish Congress, is provoking indignation among Russia’s business elite, a protest from at least one U.S.-based Jewish group and worry among Jewish leaders here.

“I have worked in the synagogue for 28 years already and I can say that he is the first to take such a lively interest in the Jewish communities in Russia,” said Adolf Shayevich, one of Russia’s two rival chief rabbis, in a Wednesday statement. “The Jewish community very much depends on (Gusinsky’s) help.”

Gusinsky, 47, who holds dual Israeli-Russian citizenship, is one of Russia’s oligarchs, a small group of politically powerful businessmen who have gained control of much of the country’s resources _ often through sweetheart deals with the government.

Although he has not been formally charged, Gusinsky was arrested in connection with the theft of $10 million during the privatization of a St. Petersburg firm. Gusinsky’s lawyer, Genri Reznik, told Russian television the arrest was payback for criticism of the Kremlin by Gusinsky’s media outlets, which include two television networks, a radio station and numerous publications.

From Washington, the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, a human rights group, decried Gusinsky’s arrest as being part of a Soviet-style campaign to silence an independent voice and called for the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe to demand an explanation.

“His arrest is the latest move in a systematic campaign of harassment,” Union of Councils leader Micah H. Naftalin said. “The Russian government has issued statements that suggest an attempt to manipulate and threaten the Jewish community as well.”

Refugee Numbers Growing; Welcoming Doors Slamming Shut

(RNS) Some 35 million people were forced to leave their homes in 1999 because of violence and persecution _ 6.5 million more than at the start of the decade, according to a report released Wednesday (June 14) by the U.S. Committee for Refugees.

“The end of the 20th century has not brought an end to the bloodshed and persecution that force people to run for their lives,” said Bill Frelick, policy director of the committee. “Tens of millions of people have ushered in the new millennium in refugee camps and at other temporary shelters, afraid that they will be killed if they dare to return to their homes.”

The report distinguished between refugees _ people forced to leave their countries _ and “internally displaced persons” _ people who are displaced from their homes by violence or persecution but do not leave their countries. The 328-page report analyzed conditions for refugees and displaced persons in 126 nations.

The number of refugees worldwide climbed by 600,000 last year to 14 million, according to the report. Ten nations accounted for 70 percent of all refugees: Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Angola, Croatia, Eritrea, Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, with the last three accounting for at least 50 percent of all refugees.

The report also found a 4 million-person increase in the number of internally displaced persons. That increase is partly because governments have begun to erect barriers _ such as stricter border controls and passport restrictions _ to prevent refugees from leaving one country and entering another, said Frelick.

“There are more and more barriers set up to prevent people from fleeing and becoming refugees,” he said. “When someone stays inside their country, the international community doesn’t have those same legal obligations to help, and it’s much more difficult to protect them.”

The report also criticized the United States and 11 other countries that used “questionable procedures” last year to forcibly expel people who could have qualified as refugees.

“When the United States … cuts corners with asylum seekers on the high seas, using variable screening standards according to the nationality of the migrants … and fails to inform possible refugees of their right to seek asylum, it sends a message to other countries with fewer resources and more asylum seekers at their doors: that the international law prohibition on forced return can be ignored when it is inconvenient,” the committee said.

The committee also called on the United States to protect the asylum-seeking refugees from deportation if they are victims of “egregious” domestic violence.

“We feel the legal options available to asylum officers don’t give protection to this sort of thing,” said Frelick. “We’re asking the attorney general to close that legal gap.”

Virginia Students Can Pray, But Teachers Shouldn’t Recommend It

(RNS) Even though Virginia students have the right to pray in school each morning before classes begin, the state’s Department of Education is advising teachers not to mention the prayer option and instead call for a “moment of silence.”

Under a bill passed earlier this year, students in Virginia schools have the option to meditate, pray or sit silently before classes begin. But the state’s education department says offering the students the option of prayer could open up a costly _ and probably hard to win _ lawsuit.

Upon advice from the state’s attorney general, Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Jo Lynne DeMary issued guidelines on Tuesday (June 13) advising teachers to say, “As we begin another day, let us pause for a moment of silence,” according to The Washington Post.

For lawmakers who passed the law in March, staying silent on the option to pray defeats the purpose of the bill.

“I’m definitely going to bring it back to put some teeth into it,” said Delegate Lionell Spruill, a Democrat from Chesapeake. “We have a mandate from both sides of the aisle to use the word `prayer.”’

While Virginia schools have always had the option of having a moment of silence, the legislation mandates it for the entire state. Legal scholars say if the state endorses a moment of prayer, the law would be invalidated in accordance with a 1985 Supreme Court decision that struck down a similar Alabama law.

Civil liberties groups, who opposed the legislation as tantamount to school-sponsored prayer, said the new guidelines at least set the proper boundaries for what is acceptable.

“It sounds as if the superintendent of public instruction is trying to clean up the mess created by the Virginia General Assembly,” said Kent Willis, director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Virginia. “But it does not eradicate what the General Assembly did. We still have grave concerns about the legislative intent of the law and the manner in which it will be implemented in some of Virginia’s schools.”

NCC Delegation Meets with White House on Vieques Bombing

(RNS) Several members of a National Council of Churches delegation that traveled to Puerto Rico earlier this month to protest the U.S. Navy’s use of Vieques island as a military training ground met with members of the White House staff Monday (June 12) to talk about their campaign.

The delegation showed staffers a video produced by the Puerto Rican government about the harm caused by the military’s bombing exercises.

“It is important that President Clinton hear (clergy’s) concerns,” said the delegation’s leader, the Rev. Robert W. Edgar, general secretary of the council. “It also is important that the leaders of the churches hear from the president himself the rationale of his position.”

Church leaders in Puerto Rico have vowed to continue fighting for the military’s withdrawal since a federal raid last month on the island in which more than 150 protesters _ including a Methodist bishop and several nuns _ were taken into custody by hundreds of armed federal agents.

The campaign to end the 60-year practice of military training on the island intensified last spring when an errant bomb released during a U.S. Navy training mission killed a civilian security guard and injured four others.

The incident prompted some opponents of the U.S. military’s presence to set up camps blocking access to the bombing range, despite a January agreement between Washington and Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro J. Rossello that allows the U.S. Navy to resume limited bombing practice with dummy bombs for three more years. Island residents then will be presented with a referendum to either resume live-fire training in return for a $50 million economic package or cancel training completely.

The Rev. Heriberto Martinez, general secretary of the Evangelical Council of Churches, told delegates he could not accept the agreement.

“This is not an acceptable choice,” he said. “We don’t want to see one more bomb on Vieques.”

Update: Papal Assailant Arrives in Turkey to Serve Second Sentence

(RNS) Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman pardoned by Italy after serving 19 years of a life sentence for attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II, was transferred Wednesday (June 14) to a prison in Istanbul.

Turkish television said that Agca, 42, flew from Rome to Istanbul where he entered the maximum-security Kartal Prison and began undergoing physical and psychological tests.

Agca, convicted of assassinating Abdo Ipekci, editor of the progressive daily Milliyet, on Feb. 1, 1979, must serve nine years and 207 days in prison unless his sentence is reduced by an amnesty under consideration by the Turkish Parliament, authorities said.

They said he also faces charges of committing a double robbery also dating to the period when he was a member of the extreme right-wing Grey Wolves terrorist organization.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Philip Potter, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches

(RNS) “It’s a question of the relationship between the Word of God and reality. We should all have the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. A newspaper without the Bible doesn’t make sense, and the Bible without a newspaper is irrelevant.”

_ The Rev. Philip Potter, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, in a speech at Colloquium 2000 on Faith, Theology, Economy: Churches and Social Movements Facing Globalization, meeting in Hofgeismar, Germany. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news service.

DEA END RNS